Cirrus@Austlit

'True to its title, the poems in O’Hagan’s second poetry collection, Anamnesis, allude to a world hovering at the edges of our minds, one that can be sensed and yet lies, teasingly, just beyond conscious reach. The arc of poems through time and distance represents a summoning up of, and immersion in, small moments which reveal themselves to be quietly momentous; a distillation of personal experience from which we feel there is something to be collectively gleaned. The recovery of memory in its various facets is explored, and the poetry that emerges is both poignant and lyrical.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'Launch speech for a Launch that Never Was. Unfortunately the Sydney launch of The Density of Compact Bone was impacted by COVID, Rochford Street Review is able to finally publish Denise O’Hagan’s speech which would have launched the collection.'  (Introduction)

'It is becoming increasingly clear that we all need to contribute to ensure the survival of our planet; new narratives are urgently called for. Ecopoetry has become a genre within which poets put up a searching and at times brutally honest lens through which to consider climate change, loss of biodiversity, the pollution of our air and water, and environmentally damaging industries such as mining and deforestation.

'Poetry for the Planet showcases the work of one hundred poets from Australia and New Zealand. Despite an astonishing variety in style, poems are united in their plea to all of us to forge a new relationship with our fractured world, and move from an attitude of short-term exploitation to one of nourishment and sustainability.'  (Publication summary)

'In every poetry collection, there is one aspect, one overwhelming impression, that we are left with which later comes to define it for us. In Frank’s Wide River, it is the poet’s quiet insistence on reawakening us to the essential wonder of our world that stays with us. In the course of twenty-seven poems, the possibility of any expected or staid response is deliberately peeled away; if familiarity breeds blindness, Frank’s overwhelming achievement is surely to restore us to a gloriously sensitised vision of things:...' (Introduction)