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'Just over one hundred years ago, Sydney readers were speaking in hushed tones about a shocking new book by a young woman, Zora Cross. A collection of love poems by an unknown would not normally have roused much interest, but because they came from a woman, and were frankly and emphatically erotic, the book was a sensation. It wasn’t, as a Bulletin reviewer said demurely, a set of sonnets to the beloved’s eyebrows. It was ‘well, all of him’. It broke the literary convention that restricted the expression of sexual pleasure to a male lover. Cross took Shakespeare’s sonnets as her inspiration. Her Songs of Love and Life (1917) was a long way from being Shakespearean, but it roused huge admiration. Cross was hailed as a genius, ‘an Australian Sappho’.' (Introduction)
Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of
Last amended 16 Dec 2019 08:57:07
17, 19
https://www.australianbookreview.com.au/abr-online/archive/2019/december-2019-no-417/689-december-2019-no-417/6053-brenda-niall-reviews-the-shelf-life-of-zora-cross-by-cathy-perkins
Australian Sappho
Australian Book Review
Australian Book Review
