'Rosanna E. Licari’s first multi-award-winning poetry collection, An Absence of Saints, UQP 2010, took both personal and public pasts into reimagined terrains. Her second, Earlier, Ginninderra 2023, builds on this focus of going back to explore, and to amplify existence in its various domains and manifestations. Her research is vast and in depth, including the Nāsadīya Sūkta (The Hymn of Creation, Rig Veda 10:129), a scientific discovery of a hominid named Lucy, and the harsh migration history of colonial Australia with the establishment of the Bonegilla migrant camp.' (Introduction)
'When I first received the manuscript for nibs & nubs, I was immediately intrigued by the title. What are these ‘nibs’ and ‘nubs’? They are written in lower case and joined by an ampersand, so that they look like humble specks on the page. The effect is surprising and puzzling, as well as beguiling.' (Introduction)
'It’s a great pleasure and honour to be here with you this evening, in celebration of the publication of Mark O’Flynn’s seventh poetry collection, Undercoat: Poems about Paintings. This is actually the third time I’ve had the pleasure of launching one of Mark’s books. Mark and I have known each other now for many years, after first meeting during the heyday of the (very tongue-in-cheekly) so-called ‘Katoomba Bloomsbury Set’ that gathered around the Varuna Writers’ Centre (as it was then known) back in the mid 1990s. It was at Varuna in June of 1996 that I launched Mark’s first book of poetry The too bright sun as part of the launch of the fourth Five Islands Press New Poets Series.' (Introduction)
