Cirrus@Austlit

'It’s always good to revisit the amazing world of Philip Hammial’s poetry, described with impressive accuracy by a quote on the cover as “a torrent of mischief, dark humour, idiosyncratic construction and invigorating chaos.” Dervishing is a two-part book made up of twenty-five pages of poems and nearly sixty pages of prose pieces. All but three of the poems are in one of Hammial’s familiar poetic modes, fairly extended pieces which are “surreal” in that their energy seems to derive from internal transformations as much as subject matter and which almost always create a shape by, in the last lines, returning to the opening statement or a variation thereof. And these openings are usually quite intense eruptions of a strong and slightly garbled speaking voice: “Only one Exit: climb the wolf ladder to the sheep sky & / jump”, “Work your Jesus: rob your hands of their money”, “Man must truss!”.' (Introduction)