y separately published work icon Sydney Review of Books periodical issue  
Issue Details: First known date: 2020... April 2020 of Sydney Review of Books est. 2013 Sydney Review of Books
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Contents

* Contents derived from the , 2020 version. Please note that other versions/publications may contain different contents. See the Publication Details.
In Situ Poetics, Prithvi Varatharajan , single work essay
Out of the Blue, Go Through the Mess, Moya Costello , single work review
— Review of Ian Fairweather : A Life in Letters Ian Fairweather , 2019 selected work correspondence ;
A Break That Can Be Bridged, Ali Smith , single work review
— Review of A Kinder Sea Felicity Plunkett , 2020 selected work poetry ;

'A week ago, this review had a different beginning. The first sentence was ‘Let’s begin with bridges’. And we’ll get to the bridges. But as I’m writing, at the end of a long day with my kids at home, I hear Leigh Sales giving kindness a plug on the 7:30 Report. I’ve already muted a Facebook Group called The Kindness Pandemic. A lot of the stories being told on The Kindness Pandemic were hopeful and heart-warming. But small acts of kindness just aren’t doing it for me.'  (Introduction)

The Living and the Undead, Ben Etherington , single work essay

'The death of an author can be an awkward subject for critics. Death calls for empathy, goodwill (however retrospective), and mourning. The genres appropriate to it – elegy, eulogy, obituary – tend to be ones that burnish the subjective. Faults may be mentioned but only as part of a wholistic appraisal of a life whose worth is ultimately affirmed. This sits in tension with criticism’s objective register and the open-ended nature of interpretation and judgement. Affirmation can come across as sentimental, objective appraisal as heartless or ‘too soon’. Perhaps death is a moment when critics ought to keep their thoughts to themselves.' (Introduction)

Does Trauma Need a Witness?, Eloise Grills , single work essay

'I am sitting in a café in North Melbourne adjacent to the hospital. It’s filled with older people anticipating or denying or recovering from the usual bodily attrition, sporty-looking medical staff with lanyards drinking long blacks, and people on break from day-programs in street clothes trying to blend in. These are people with enough money to sit in a café and eat something and to dawdle while doing it, not worried about = being asked to leave. A very limited inner-city melting pot, in other words, of which I, on my laptop typing this essay, am a part.' (Introduction)

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