image of person or book cover 2636861333618292073.jpg
Image courtesy of publisher's website.
y separately published work icon These Wild Houses selected work   poetry  
Issue Details: First known date: 2017... 2017 These Wild Houses
The material on this page is available to AustLit subscribers. If you are a subscriber or are from a subscribing organisation, please log in to gain full access. To explore options for subscribing to this unique teaching, research, and publishing resource for Australian culture and storytelling, please contact us or find out more.

AbstractHistoryArchive Description

'I won’t keep you long. First, I acknowledge the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation, on whose land the majority of this collection was written.

'Now you are about to read the poetry of an Arab Australian, which is a rare thing when it shouldn’t be. Now you are about to read the work of a queer Arab Australian, which is a rare thing when it shouldn’t be. Now you are about to read the life of a queer Muslim Arab Australian from Western Sydney, from a broke and broken family – not rare, but it should be.

'This is not a definitive statement on Islam. This is not a definitive statement on Arab identity, not Arab Australian identity, not bisexuality, not even Western Sydney. It is a statement – an exploration of me and what I’ve seen.

'The only thing I ask of you is that you do not stop with me. Discover the other diverse writers and poets in this country – find us, find our books. We’re here, and we’re growing.' (Publication summary)

Notes

  • To Judy, for your guiding light;

    to the friends I made family.

    I couldn't have done it without you.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

    • Melbourne, Victoria,: Cordite Press , 2017 .
      image of person or book cover 2636861333618292073.jpg
      Image courtesy of publisher's website.
      Extent: 1vp.
      Note/s:
      • Published 1 February 2017
      ISBN: 9780975249277
      Series: y separately published work icon CorditeBooks : Series 2 Melbourne : Cordite Press , 2016 10421555 2016 series - publisher poetry Number in series: 3

Works about this Work

General Tenancy Agreement Ella Jeffery , 2022 single work criticism
— Appears in: Axon : Creative Explorations , December vol. 12 no. 2 2022;

'Notions of home and unhomeliness have long been discussed by scholars in relation to Australian poetry, but little scholarly work has explored how contemporary Australian poets interrogate the relationship between renting and constructions of home. As the great Australian dream of homeownership becomes increasingly inaccessible and the availability of public housing declines, a larger proportion of the population privately rent their houses in a lightly regulated and highly competitive rental market (Morris et al 2021: 72). Poetry has long been used to record and preserve the affective dimensions of home, and in this paper I examine a series of poems concerned with finding rental properties, moving in and out of them, and with attempts to create a sense of home in houses that always already belong to others. I discuss the work of three poets whose recent collections grapple with notions of home, stability and security in relation to rented houses: Zenobia Frost’s After the Demolition (2019), Omar Sakr’s These Wild Houses (2017), and Fiona Wright’s Domestic Interior (2017). I argue that in these collections, houses are sites characterised by anxiety, instability, and erasure, rather than stable and secure archives of personal identity and domestic ritual.' (Publication abstract)

What I’m Reading Anders Villani , 2020 single work column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2020;
Closer to Home : Omar Sakr’s These Wild Houses and the New Suburbanism Robert Wood , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: Journal of Poetics Research , March no. 8 2018;

'In critical writing by Peter Minter, Bonny Cassidy and Stuart Cooke, the question of decolonisation in ‘Australia’ is figured to be a question of land. They tend to mean ‘land’ here in the way that it approximates nature, which is to say land resembles undeveloped frontier. There is, of course, an Aboriginal presence to these places, but land is, for the most part, a location that is not urban or built up.'  (Introduction)

[Review Essay] These Wild Houses Alison Clifton , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: StylusLit , September no. 2 2017;

'Omar Sakr’s compelling debut poetry collection, These Wild Houses, explores both writerly and readerly themes through the extended metaphor of the house as human body. Some houses stand for the constant reader, ponderous and seemingly solid; others, as Judith Beverage suggests in her perceptive introduction, are “metaphors for states of being” (xiii) experienced by writer and reader both. Sakr’s poetic states of being are complex and nuanced almost to the point of paradox. This riddling complexity is occasionally ruptured by a bluntly-delivered and vivid observation, so vital and so powerful, creating a visceral reading experience.' (Introduction)

Still a Long Way from Home Simeon Kronenberg , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 76 no. 3 2017; (p. 232-238)
March in Poetry Alison Whittaker , 2017 single work column
— Appears in: Overland [Online] , March 2017;
Still a Long Way from Home Simeon Kronenberg , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: Southerly , vol. 76 no. 3 2017; (p. 232-238)
[Review Essay] These Wild Houses Alison Clifton , 2017 single work essay
— Appears in: StylusLit , September no. 2 2017;

'Omar Sakr’s compelling debut poetry collection, These Wild Houses, explores both writerly and readerly themes through the extended metaphor of the house as human body. Some houses stand for the constant reader, ponderous and seemingly solid; others, as Judith Beverage suggests in her perceptive introduction, are “metaphors for states of being” (xiii) experienced by writer and reader both. Sakr’s poetic states of being are complex and nuanced almost to the point of paradox. This riddling complexity is occasionally ruptured by a bluntly-delivered and vivid observation, so vital and so powerful, creating a visceral reading experience.' (Introduction)

Closer to Home : Omar Sakr’s These Wild Houses and the New Suburbanism Robert Wood , 2018 single work essay
— Appears in: Journal of Poetics Research , March no. 8 2018;

'In critical writing by Peter Minter, Bonny Cassidy and Stuart Cooke, the question of decolonisation in ‘Australia’ is figured to be a question of land. They tend to mean ‘land’ here in the way that it approximates nature, which is to say land resembles undeveloped frontier. There is, of course, an Aboriginal presence to these places, but land is, for the most part, a location that is not urban or built up.'  (Introduction)

What I’m Reading Anders Villani , 2020 single work column
— Appears in: Meanjin Online 2020;
Last amended 5 Jun 2018 13:16:30
Newspapers:
    Powered by Trove
    X