'The Elsewhere Variations is a series of poems by Peter Bakowski and Ken Bolton in which themes develop, are abandoned, resurface, where poems answer, continue or oppose each other. The usual thrills of collaborative projects. But these are unusual and will get attention just on that basis - and they are variously funny, mysterious, & occasionally moving.
'There are eight sets of six: forty-eight poems. They begin with a lightly fictionalised account of the poetry wars of inner Melbourne - but from there they undertake a survey of human happiness, ambition and acceptance.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
Nearly Lunch
Mile End
:
Wakefield Press
,
2021
23056654
2021
selected work
poetry
'A new poetry collaboration from Peter Bakowski and Ken Bolton. Also available from Wakefield Press, the authors' Elsewhere Variations, companion volume to Nearly Lunch.'
'Perhaps I’ve spent too long in the self-help sections of bookshops, expecting to find the secret to long life and enduring happiness written down somewhere. As a poet, I am preternaturally worried about poetry running out on me: the inspiration drying up, the fun of it going out for a pack of cigarettes one day and never coming back, leaving me with nothing but a sink full of dishes and a manuscript full of melancholy poems about birds.' (Introduction)
'Perhaps I’ve spent too long in the self-help sections of bookshops, expecting to find the secret to long life and enduring happiness written down somewhere. As a poet, I am preternaturally worried about poetry running out on me: the inspiration drying up, the fun of it going out for a pack of cigarettes one day and never coming back, leaving me with nothing but a sink full of dishes and a manuscript full of melancholy poems about birds.' (Introduction)
