Australia S Writers And Poets

From the iconic poems of Banjo Paterson to today's international bestsellers by Peter Carey and Patrick White, Australian literature has reflected the changes in Australia's national development, and today it stands proudly on the world stage. At the same time, Indigenous writing has come into its own, with authors such as Oodgeroo Noonuccal giv...

Sixteen of Australia's foremost poets are featured in this volume. They talk candidly about their lives and work: of the craft, the rigour, the pangs and pleasures of their calling; of winged moments caught, however fleetingly, on the page. These writers also speak of transformation and transcendence, the creative process, their individual modes and methods of writing and the act of writing itself. The interviews provide valuable insights on such topics as: gender and writing; landscape; the function of poetry and the poet's social role; influences embraced and withstood - literary, personal, local, regional, national, international. The writers and their poetry are discussed from both within and beyond Australian borders. This collection offers a broad range of Australian poets, most of whom are now in the middle to later years of their career. These poets have contributed significantly to the life and quality of poetry in Australia over recent decades, and continue to play pivotal roles in Australia's cultural domain today, as the country moves towards the threshold of a new century.

Stafford's advice to beginning poets has become a favorite text in writing programs

Stafford's advice to beginning poets has become a favorite text in writing programs

An account of more than fifty of Australia's most important authors, poets and dramatists - They range from the convict writers to major contemprarary writers.

Endless sunshine bleaches the curtains and wears the nerves of a woman stuck inside. A chance encounter with a stranger changes the course of a life in small but significant ways. An imagined audience drives people to the extreme. A young woman wrestles with inheritance and loss. Compiled from the winning entries of the 2021 Ultimo Prize, this collection represents Australia’s next generation of literary talent. Their work is forward-thinking and provocative, exciting and surprising. Beautifully designed by George Saad, Everything, All at Once is populated with characters seeking comfort and connection in an uncertain world. ​Contributors: Cherie Baird, Alice Bellette, Aishah Maryam David, Josie/Jocelyn Deane, Zowie Douglas-Kinghorn, Amy Duong, Gavin Yuan Gao, Madeleine Gray, Vivien Heng, Natasha Hertanto, Matilda Howard, Franklyn Hudson, Gurmeet Kaur, Robert Kennard, Andy Kovacic, Jennifer Nguyen, Ismene Panaretos, Georgia Rose Phillips, Jamaya Plackowski, Quanita, Seth Robinson, Shane Scriven, Charlotte Snedden, Coco Stallman, Lora Subotic, Amy Taylor, Sebastian Winter, Dženana Vucic, Cassandra-Elli Yiannacou and Amelia Zhou. PRAISE FOR EVERYTHING, ALL AT ONCE ‘In its effort to give a face to the future of Australian writing, Everything, All At Once, in practice, does something else; it gives a voice to the present. The young writers featured in the collection expertly twine together an intimate engagement with themselves and their peers, with the greater anxieties that seem to rest on the shoulders of Australia’s young generations.’ – Stephanie Jenkins, UNSA

My book traces the significant poetic and political contributions made by non-canonical women poets, situating women's poetry both in colonial Australian print culture and in wider imperial and transnational contexts. Women poets in colonial Australia have tended to be represented as marginal and isolated figures or absent. This study intervenes by demonstrating an alternative networked tradition of transnational feminist poetics and politics beyond and around emergent masculine nationalism, particularly within newspapers and periodical print culture. Without the inclusion of periodical literature, women’s poetry in Australia during the colonial period would appear to have been fairly limited. When periodical literature is taken into account, this picture is radically altered, and poets emerge as consistent contributors, often across a variety of newspapers and journals, who were well-known, influential and connected with political figures and literary circles. In examining this poetry in the original context of the newspapers and journals, the political intervention and the reception of that poetry is made much more apparent.

Gerald Murnane turns to poetry at the end of his literary career, writing frank, disarming poems that traverse the rich span of his life. I esteem / above all poems or passages of prose / those that put a lump in my throat. — Gerald Murnane, ‘The Darkling Thrush’ Gerald Murnane, now in his eightieth year, began his writing career as a poet. After many years as a writer of fiction, he only returned to poetry a few years ago when he moved to Goroke, in the Western Districts of Victoria, after the death of his wife. The forty-five poems collected here are in a strikingly different mode to his fiction — without framing or digressions, and with very few images, they speak openly to the reader of the author’s memories, beliefs and experiences. They are for this reason an important addition to his internationally recognised body of fiction, most recently Border Districts and Collected Short Fiction, published by Giramondo. The poems include tributes to his mother and father and to his family, and to places that have played a formative role in his life, like Gippsland, Bendigo, Warrnambool, the Western Districts, and of course Goroke. Especially moving are his poems dedicated to authors who have influenced him — Lesbia Harford and Thomas Hardy, William Carlos Williams, Henry Handel Richardson, Marcel Proust, and with particular force, the eighteenth-century poet John Clare, who gives the collection its title, revered ‘not only for his writings / but for his losing his reason when / he was forced from the district he had wanted as his for life.’ Praise for Gerald Murnane: ‘A strong case could be made for Murnane…as the greatest living English-language writer most people have never heard of.’ — New York Times ‘No living Australian writer, not even Les Murray, has higher claims to permanence or a richer sense of distinction.’ — Sydney Morning Herald