Poetry

George Cox scans the typographic nuances and musicological contortions in the latest instalment of a.j. carruthers’ lifelong long poem, Axis.

Joan Fleming enters The Exclusion Zone, a new collection of ‘radioactive poetry’ by Shastra Deo that mines the field of nuclear semiotics in search of a durable language of warning.

In his review of Andrew Sutherland’s debut collection of poems, John Kinsella explores the immunological imaginary at work in personal and collective responses to HIV infection.

Like False Claims, ART is a collaborative work, where each poet works in tandem in a seamless discussion that is simultaneously a sovereign conversation and a critique of nation. Papertalk Green and Kinsella showcase their poetic talents in a dynamic exchange that responds to the artistic offerings of the late Nyoongar painter Shane Pickett (1957-2010).

Dreaming Inside: Voices from Junee Correctional Centre is an important anthology of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander inmate poetry, art and storytelling. Now in its twelfth year and tenth volume, over two hundred First Nations authors have shared their stories, songs and critical reflections to a general reading public, not only enlightening ‘outsiders’ about the conditions and contexts of Indigenous incarceration but also significantly contributing to the canon of Indigenous writing.

If we consider poetry as being merely contemporary, then maybe we can drop the notion of highbrow altogether, and think about relative (in)formalities – of diction and poetic structure.

Can the analogy between poetry and work help us understand capitalism in the contemporary moment? Is poetry itself a form of work? 

There is something rebellious about an art form that takes as its central problem where the edges of objects should be, and why they can’t be elsewhere.

Is this a crisis of aesthetics or a reconfiguration of aesthetics?

Within the popular imagination, Rumi’s poetry is inextricably entwined with love – a love that is resolutely unfettered, an unconditional love that permeates the cosmos, caressing one and all.