Cirrus@Austlit

'With writing, artwork and ideas from Charmaine Papertalk Green, Ouyang Yu, John Kinsella, Jumaana Abdu, Stephen Muecke, Andrew Sutherland, Brenda Saunders, DeWitt Henry, Michael Farrell, Wes Lee, Alan Fyfe, Gemma Nethercote Way, Luisa Mitchell, Bryant Apolonio, Kate North, Ellen Shelley, Sampurna Chattarji, Jo Langdon, Luoyang Chen, Julie Watts, Tiffany Ko, Christopher Konrad, Cass Lynch, Rachel Robertson, Helena Kadmos, Jo Pollitt, Coral Carter, Suzanne Hermanoczki, Petra White, Kathryn Hummel, Madeleine Dale and many others…' (Publication summary)

'Living Systems celebrates poetry’s unique capacity to challenge and make new our experience of the world. At the heart of this collection is a reaffirmation of poetry as essential kit, as an art form that deepens and expands how we might perceive the world and know each other. The poems gathered here offer an alternative to the streams, echo chambers and silos of contemporary media and return the reader to the deep flow and entanglement of human consciousness and language unique to poetry. 

'Since 1999, Vagabond Press has quietly grown to become one of the leading publishers of poetry and poetry in translation in Australia, creating a transnational list that includes some of the key poets and poetry translators of the Asia Pacific region. Marking twenty-five years of hardscrabble independent small press publishing, Living Systems showcases poets from Australia and across Asia Pacific, and offers a snapshot of poetry, poetics and life in all its complexity, nuance and possibility at the start of the twenty-first century. 

'With over 400 pages of poetry from around 170 poets and translators from Australia, Japan, Korea, China, Vietnam, the Philippines, Myanmar, Singapore, America, New Zealand, Mexico and elsewhere, Living Systems marks twenty-five years of small press publishing by Vagabond Press and celebrates poetry and individual human creativity.' (Publication summary)