AUSTRALIAN POETRY BOOK REVIEWS
Ryan, Watson, Kinsella/Hull, Harwood, Wynne, Kellas, Lea, Bakowski, Morgan-Shae, Adamson, Richardson, Ross
By Sharon Olinka and MML Bliss
Hothouse by Tracy Ryan
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The cold tone of these poems initially put me off a bit; nearly repelled me. Technically, they're close to perfect. Emotionally, I wanted to be somewhere else when I read them, perhaps dining with Roethke, or in his own greenhouse. Roethke's plant-world is hot; visceral, sexual, visual, and musical. A riot of color, smells, and memories. Ryan's plant world is made for academics. It has references. It's carefully coded, and politically correct. But I wouldn't go there by choice, and I wouldn't bring it home. It mocks me somehow for being human, as if being merely ... |
Itinerant Blues by Sam Wagan Watson
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He knows what the inside of hell tastes like, how it smells, and how it jerks us around our whole lives. Doesn't matter if it's urban or rural, he's been there, a reliable witness. The liquid dregs of a stale bottle, the rumpled sheets of a woman's bed, and the loneliness of highways: all are conveyed in his work as rough-hewn truths, with wit and grace. Because I'm American, I thought immediately of country western music when reading Watson's work. Especially the singer George Jones. How he sings those lines "I've had choices, since the day that I was born/ I've ... |
Zoo by John Kinsella and Coral Hull
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Self-hatred is the main theme of this book; how human beings hate the flesh of their own bodies so much, they destroy the bodies of animals. And create a living hell for animals while they are alive, in any form they choose to take, setting cruel boundaries. Whether it's in scientific experiments, cat or dog breeding facilities, or the artificial construction of a zoo itself, the authors take us on a journey that ultimately shows us that the main problem is with human nature itself ... its boundless capacity for inflicting pain. The names of the authors ... |
Gwen Harwood Selected Poems by Gwen Harwood
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"God's in His Heaven, all's right with the world." That's a Robert Browning line that's always annoyed me, and I was reminded of it when I read this extensive offering of Harwood's poems. Because, initially charmed by her rhymes and her erudition, I was seduced. It was the kind of poetry I had loved when I was very young; full of exquisite recollections, Watteau-like clouds and lovers, strivings towards understanding mortality and immortality, and an even tone. That thirst for beauty. And so very "triste". There's actually a poem in this book called "Triste, ... |
The state of the rivers and streams by Warrick Wynne
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He's good on landscape. And his language is rich, detailed, and evocative of both time and place; sensual at times, tender, and also tough. It's a language that sings. In a poem called "Fish", the short line breaks create a kind of glistening movement of their own: "Fish, like inch-long filament/ Or fuses, hanging/ Luminous in a cluster/ Strung with spine and eyes." The lyricism in Wynne's work surfaces in the lovely poem "Late Walk", with its echoes of Yeats, and imagery of wild swans. "And imagined them lovers, transformed in fact,/ Blessed or cursed, ... |
Isolated States by Anne Kellas
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The poetry of displacement has its own genre. It sees the world with a double vision, and in that vision, no one is spared, and nothing is redeemed. If that sounds bleak, let me make myself clear: immigrants always know what they have given up. It colors their days and nights. If they gain a different world, it is fragmented, reinvented. The world is never complete or whole again. Even the brave act of going through a new door will create fragmentation, despite good intentions. In Adrienne Rich's poem "Prospective Immigrants Please Note" the ... |
About the Reviewer Sharon Olinka
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Sharon Olinka is a New York reviewer and literary critic. Her poems have been published in journals such as Colorado Review, Onthebus, Poetry New York, Luna, Poetry Wales, and Long Shot. Her first book of poems, A Face Not My Own, was published by West End Press in 1995. Her writing reflects a belief in the strength of multiculturalism in the United States, and a commitment to a global community of writers. Sharon Olinka lives in New York City. She has traveled extensively in Bali and Australia. Sharon was also interviewed for a radio program and videotaped for the ADF archives. She has written for American Book Review, and in 1997 she edited an issue of ABR; with an essay by her on Australian women poets. |
[Above] Photo of Sharon Olinka by Audrey Gottleib, 2001.
flight animals by Bronwyn Lea
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It's good to see that UQP still publishes poetry! This back cover blurb offers high praise for Bronwyn Lea, and I turn to it wondering whether the poems can live up to extravagances like "marvellous" "brilliance" from Martin Duwell, and "eroticism pushing the word to the wall and then scaling it" from MTC Cronin. The poetry did not disappoint. Bronwyn Lea's well travelled life places the action in a number of locations with never a suggestion of travelogue. She visits and re-visits places and themes taking us along with her, identifying with her, listening to ... |
That We Couldn't Rehearse by Peter Bakowski
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Q: when is an ad not an ad? A: when it's disguised as a book of poetry. This is a lovely looking slim volume. The front cover photograph and imagery is attractive and the back cover blurb by John Millet is readable and a lot more informative than high praise from several poets. According to Millet, I should be looking for "non-linear associations and neo-surreal techniques". Hmm. This is a lovely looking slim volume. The front cover photograph and imagery is attractive and the back cover blurb by John Millet is readable and a lot more informative ... |
Trash by Ashlley Morgan-Shae
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The cover quotes are so over the top and meaningless that I have no idea what this collection might be about. Ian McBryde offers something resembling a Shelton Lea line, "beguiles with an ominous beauty" like an incoming thunderstorm? A cobra about to strike? What? Perhaps the silliest comes from Ian Syson, who claims Morgan-Shae "the Courtney Love of Australian poetry". The cover is bright and attention grabbing, like the title. There are drawings of naked Ashlley, frontal on the back cover and vice versa. A huge lost looking spermatazoa and a ... |
Black Water by Robert Adamson
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For years, I have heard the name Robert Adamson; seen his books on other people's bookshelves. I was once in a car crammed with people at an Adelaide Festival, he might have been one of them, and I am fairly sure I have heard him read, somewhere. Why have I never read Robert Adamson's poetry before? Maybe when I asked what his poems were like, people would shrug, umm and aah a bit, and always end up saying words to the effect that "Adamson's just Adamson" which told me absolutely nothing, and did not inspire me to read him anyway. ... |
In An Empty Room by Martha Richardson
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What a drab cover this little book has. From the black and white cover image to the tan blobs on the back it reminds me of the Brodies Notes I read in high school, to complement comprehension of a text. But this is a book of poems. I begin to read, on the look out for, according to Doris Leadbetter, "a way of using the English language that makes you sit up and listen to her work". Richardson's command of language is evident from the first poem, "In Silence", where she separates sounds and focuses on the truism that there is rarely silence. ... |
en passant by Zan Ross
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Everything about this book cover is sexy. From the acid green and black to the cover image of a sharply defined male figure holding the hand of a female figure who is both moving and fading away. This image is repeated on the back cover with a quote from the prose poem "Breathless" and effusive praise from MTC Cronin. I am, therefore, listening "for what rustles in Ross's poetry ..." First, though, congratulations to Miriam Duke on a tremendous cover. I want to take this book to bed with me and let its sexiness sashay into my dreams. And ... |
About the Reviewer MML Bliss
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MML Bliss was formerly known as jenny boult. She changed her name for personal reasons. She was once told in the post office of a country town in the north-east of Tasmania that she might be jenny boult on the mainland, but in Derby, she was Mrs. Smith. Poems, stories and plays by jenny boult and MML Bliss have appeared in magazines, journals and anthologies in Australia and overseas. jenny boult has been translated into French, Swedish, Norwegian, Urdu, German and Italian. MML Bliss was awarded a Booranga Writers Fellowship, Wagga Wagga, in 2002. She currently lives in Launceston, Tasmania. MML Bliss is available to conduct readings and workshops. |
[Above] Photo of MML Bliss by Tim Thorne, 2002.
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Thylazine No.8 (September, 2003) |
