'This book continues Brendan Ryan's exploration of place and belonging that resonate in country towns. From the lives of farmers, abattoir workers, and dog walkers to the history of Aboriginal dispossession; from a tour of the communities of the Mt Noorat Football League in Victoria's isolated Western District to moments of wonder on back country roads celebrated with gentle irony. Here is a view of the country that is both contemporary and wry. Lyrical and rich in narrative power, this is a collection that dismantles the idealised rural pastoral with an empathetic and incisive voice.' (Publication summary)
Dedication: Dedicated to everyone with Marfan Syndrome and those who love us, but particularly to my father Norman Jackson (1926-1973)
Writing Disability in Australia:
This work has been affiliated because of its focus on people with Marfan syndrome, as explored by an author with the same condition.
'The pandemic isn't over. No matter how often we speak of it using the past tense, or how strong our quixotic nostalgia for 'how it used to be'. Despite how oddly clueless we are at assessing actual risk or how much we wish ourselves not to be one of the vulnerable, it persists as a background hum, or a piercing, unshakeable tinnitus. Plans have to change at short notice. Friends are bedridden for days, exhausted for weeks or months. The numbers of cases and deaths, now merely footnotes rather than headlines, continue whether we look at them or not.' (Publication abstract)
At Home with Andy Jackson
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2021
23443591
2021
single work
interview
podcast
'Andy Jackson is a poet of compassion and intellect. His 2021 collection, Human Looking, explores the voices of the disabled and ill with tenderness and love.
'Andy's first collection, Among the Regulars, was shortlisted for the 2011 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, and his 2020 collection Music Our Bodies Can’t Hold'was shortlisted for the John Bray Poetry Award.
'Andy has featured at literary events and arts festivals in Ireland, India, the USA and across Australia, and has co-edited disability-themed issues of the literary journals Southerly and Australian Poetry Journal. He works as a creative writing teacher and tutor for community organisations and universities.'(Production summary)
'Music Our Bodies Can’t Hold’s premise is unique: 54 poems for the 46 chromosomes in the human body. Each poem is distinctive in typography and voice, gleaned from a primary source interview of a public or private figure believed to have Marfan syndrome. Often very tall, slender and gifted, those with Marfan syndrome are aesthetically, artistically, intellectually, athletically extraordinary. As the collection’s poet, Andy Jackson puts it: ‘Marfan troubles the boundaries between “disability” and “extraordinary ability”’; much anguish is caused by this illness, and there is a sense of being ‘dumb with pain / suffused with light’, ‘when the genetic stars align’’.' (Introduction)
'Music Our Bodies Can’t Hold’s premise is unique: 54 poems for the 46 chromosomes in the human body. Each poem is distinctive in typography and voice, gleaned from a primary source interview of a public or private figure believed to have Marfan syndrome. Often very tall, slender and gifted, those with Marfan syndrome are aesthetically, artistically, intellectually, athletically extraordinary. As the collection’s poet, Andy Jackson puts it: ‘Marfan troubles the boundaries between “disability” and “extraordinary ability”’; much anguish is caused by this illness, and there is a sense of being ‘dumb with pain / suffused with light’, ‘when the genetic stars align’’.' (Introduction)
'“Andy Jackson is such an important poet writing about a topic so deeply important to me: the othered body. I think this is his best book to date and I was so privileged to have launched it. Read the speech, then read the book!” -Heather Taylor Johnson'
At Home with Andy Jackson
Astrid Edwards
(interviewer),
2021
23443591
2021
single work
interview
podcast
'Andy Jackson is a poet of compassion and intellect. His 2021 collection, Human Looking, explores the voices of the disabled and ill with tenderness and love.
'Andy's first collection, Among the Regulars, was shortlisted for the 2011 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, and his 2020 collection Music Our Bodies Can’t Hold'was shortlisted for the John Bray Poetry Award.
'Andy has featured at literary events and arts festivals in Ireland, India, the USA and across Australia, and has co-edited disability-themed issues of the literary journals Southerly and Australian Poetry Journal. He works as a creative writing teacher and tutor for community organisations and universities.'(Production summary)
'The pandemic isn't over. No matter how often we speak of it using the past tense, or how strong our quixotic nostalgia for 'how it used to be'. Despite how oddly clueless we are at assessing actual risk or how much we wish ourselves not to be one of the vulnerable, it persists as a background hum, or a piercing, unshakeable tinnitus. Plans have to change at short notice. Friends are bedridden for days, exhausted for weeks or months. The numbers of cases and deaths, now merely footnotes rather than headlines, continue whether we look at them or not.' (Publication abstract)
