Cirrus@Austlit

'The poems in this collection were composed using only the words that appear in the following texts attributed to the legendary/notorious/infamous Irish-Australian bushranger Ned Kelly (1854-1880): The Jerilderie Letter, The Cameron Letter, The Babington Letter and The O’Loghlen Letter. The poems use Kelly’s spelling and mimic his punctuation and capitalization. This collection was partly inspired by Peter Carey’s novel True History of the Kelly Gang and Ian Jones’s biography, Ned Kelly: A Short Life, along with my own visits to many of the important places in Kelly’s short life (and settings for the poems). The collection attempts to answer a simple question: what if Ned Kelly wrote poetry?'

Source: Introduction.

'British P(oe)Ms continues a poetic/political exploration that started with P(oe)Ms (Rabbit Poetry, 2017),  which collected a beau present for each Australian Prime Minister and continued with the United States’ Beaux Pres(id)ents. It employs a non-fictional, onomastic poetics to look in new light and ways at the past and present leaders of the United Kingdom. A beau present (also known as a beautiful inlaw) is a poem composed using only the letters in the name of the addressee. For example, a beau present about Robert Walpole must only use words that can be made from the letters R, O, B, E, T, W, A, L, and P.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.