Cirrus@Austlit

'These voices that diarise from the crypts of the past have names already writ but identities riddled with doubt. For every one rendition of St Thomas there is three and for every St John there is two only to be mirrored and augmented by artistic interpretations through the ages. Opinion, fact, testimony: all jostle for dominance or collapse absentmindedly into song. There are “Postscripts” to the act of sermonising and quarrels over who said what and who is the more worthy of “fame”. Then along come the sweeping robes of others over the dust of roads well-travelled. A good Samaritan here, a “restful” bat there, a “brolga” morphed in legend to the form of a “young girl who gambolled like an aurora and dreamed/ herself wings in the fledging dawn”. A world of textbooks, memories and companionship you open up in book form to understand and close to contemplate.' (Introduction)

'I have great admiration for Magdalena Ball because of her work in the Journal The Compulsive Reader, she is part of the set that is keeping poetry alive. After reading The Density of Compact Bone my admiration for her grew. This enticing book will keep the reader enthralled in every poem. Ball is a well-known writer who has been widely published in many literary journals and anthologies, she is also the author of several books of poetry and fiction.' (Introduction)

'I was delighted when Alan Jefferies asked me to launch his new Flying Island Pocketbook, in the same breath, because I’ve read his last one, and heard him read in person. I like him, like his style.'  (Introduction)

'Martin Langford launched  The Leaving by Brian Purcell, Flying Island Books 2021 at a COVID impacted Poets Picnic at Markwell on 19 December 2021 '

'Hello and thank you all so much for coming tonight. It’s Alison Flett and my great honour to be launching Rhymes With Hyenas – the latest poetry collection by our incredible friend and sister-poet Heather Taylor Johnson.'  (Introduction)

'Jelena Dinic’s In the Room with the She Wolf was the winner of the 2020 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature Unpublished Manuscript prize. Unpublished no longer. Here it is in another handsome production by Wakefield Press. Congratulations Jelena you’ve worked hard and long for this. It’s no small thing to achieve this level of poetry in a new language and a new culture.' (Introduction)

'Rochford Street Review congratulates Dr Adam Aitken who was awarded the 2021 Patrick White Award on 6 December 2021. Adam is a great friend and supporter of the Review and, as co-editor of the first few issues of P76 journal in the early 1980s, was present at the very beginning of Rochford Street Press. More recently Adam’s work appeared in Issue 32 of the Review (Adam Aitken: Three Poems).' (Introduction)