'This new poetry collection reflects Aneurin Bevan's observation that 'Socialism is a biological necessity'. Here, socialism branches out from being a necessity to being the human condition itself, or survival's impulse.
'Here, biological necessity can be the re-appropriation of elegies; keeping the incarnation of the beloved close, never fearing or etherealising it; Elizabeth Macquarie speaking of abuses of power with President Trump's mother Mary Anne MacLeod as they watch fireworks over Sydney Harbour; Maiden and her daughter watching a meteor shower in Covid lockdown; the definiteness of peace; writing having a function similar to a new vaccine; Ghislaine Maxwell in safe paper clothes in prison; Gore Vidal watching over Julian Assange and deciding it was not automatic biology that his country desert him; the similarity between symbols of a pandemic and symbols of empire; Maiden's female protagonist, Clare, mirrored in a Darling Harbour hotel window, thinking of Syria, Kurds, oil and Russia with George her partner; Vidal watching Assange's trial and thinking of the testimony: that it is safer for an 'informant to make a statement about someone who is a ''nobody'', than someone who is genuinely dangerous'; Maiden's ancestor in India naming his new family after his first children and wife who died in a typhoon; maize offered to a deity instead of human sacrifice; the continuing glitter of a river freezing in a dream; the need for someone to be who they were pretending; Nasca Lines in Peru letting Carina - a hero created by the Carina Galaxy - rescue Andean mountain cats; Abbie Hoffman's unfading impact; Donald Trump skyping with Clare and George as Human Rights observers on the 2020 U.S. election night; the phrase 'black water' reinvented as a lyric, not a mercenary firm; Eleanor Roosevelt suspended in no place, unable to visit her earlier idea of her own Hillary Clinton; or La Niña - pacific, lit by lanterns, counteracting forests on fire.Throughout, biological necessity is not only something physical, psychological or spiritual - it is also empathetic and practical, the elements of a discourse in lyricism and humanity between poet and reader.'
Source: Publisher's blurb.
'These three new poetry collections are works by established poets at the top of their game in terms of poetic craft and the honing of insights into both life and art. These are voices developed across a significant number of previous collections, allowing for an emergence of innovation, confidence, and ease of style and mood.' (Introduction)
'These three new poetry collections are works by established poets at the top of their game in terms of poetic craft and the honing of insights into both life and art. These are voices developed across a significant number of previous collections, allowing for an emergence of innovation, confidence, and ease of style and mood.' (Introduction)
