Jessica Wilkinson

Jessica L. Wilkinson has published three poetic biographies, Marionette: A Biography of Miss Marion Davies (Vagabond 2012), Suite for Percy Grainger (Vagabond 2014) and Music Made Visible: A Biography of George Balanchine (Vagabond 2019). Jessica is the founding editor of Rabbit: a journal for nonfiction poetry and the offshoot Rabbit Poets Series of single-author collections. She co-edited the anthologies Contemporary Australian Feminist Poetry (Hunter Publishers, 2016) and Memory Book: Portraits of Older Australians in Poetry and Watercolours (Hunter Publishers, 2021), and is an Associate Professor in Creative Writing at RMIT University, Melbourne.

All essays by Jessica Wilkinson

Rewriting Kinship Essay: Jessica Wilkinsonon Jordie Albiston

‘The precise punctuation of your breath’: Jordie Albiston’s oeuvre

knowledge as a body is dead without imagination— Jordie Albiston In the wake of the loss of Australian poet Jordie…
Oct. 2022 • • • • •
Powerful and Moving Essay: Jessica Wilkinsonon poetry

How Poems Make Things Happen

Can poetry make things happen? Can poetry bring about change? Does it hold that power? In the wake of the heaving 2020 chronicle of civil rights protests, a global pandemic and environmental disasters, what role can poetry play towards a recovering world?
Dec. 2020 • •
Essay: Jessica Wilkinsonon nonfiction poetry
  • Rabbit 30 – The Long Poem (II) (within Australia) by Jessica Wilkinson (ed.) Published June, 2020

What is Nonfiction Poetry? Reflecting on Rabbit’s 30 issues

Poetry, I had surmised, could do so many amazing things for nonfiction – technically, stylistically, spatially. Why couldn’t it be recognised as a valuable mode to challenge and expand nonfiction?
Jun. 2020 • • • •
Review: Jessica Wilkinsonon new poetry
  • Present by Elizabeth Allen book cover
  • Domestic Interior by Fiona Wright book cover
  • Passage by Kate Middleton book cover
  • Present by Elizabeth Allen Vagabond
    112pp
    $24.95 AU
    Published August, 2017
    ISBN 9781922181848
  • Domestic Interior by Fiona Wright Giramondo
    96pp
    $24.00 AU
    Published November, 2017
    ISBN 9781925336566
  • Passage by Kate Middleton Giramondo
    96pp
    $24.00 AU
    Published September, 2017
    ISBN 9781925336436

Fruitful Playgrounds

Three new poetry collections, three Australian women poets: Present by Elizabeth Allen (Vagabond), Domestic Interior by Fiona Wright (Giramondo) and…
Nov. 2017 • •