Cirrus@Austlit

'Devadatta’s Poems complements the sequence ‘Between the Palace and the Bodhi Tree’, published in Beveridge’s earlier collection Wolf Notes, which followed the travels of Siddhatta Gotama before he became the Buddha, and portrayed the world from his disciplined and ascetic point of view. These new poems are written from the viewpoint of Devadatta, Siddhatta’s jealous and ambitious cousin, who attempted to murder him three times. They are marked by an extraordinary richness of language and detail, and a dedication to sensation, which is in contrast to Siddhatta’s purity, and caused at least in part by Devadatta’s desire for Yasodahra, his cousin’s wife.' (Publisher's blurb)

'"Pam Brown's work is fearless, acutely observant, witty and wry. She delights in the curiosities of the everyday, in notational sprezzatura, in the penetrating encapsulation of layers of time, chance and meaning with her twists of lexicon, diction and line break. This is a work of quotidian consternation, breaking through from irony to sheer fondness and painful shadows. She sees askew—and Home by Dark has its own poignant look at decades, bodies, and changes. Pam Brown is a wonderful writer, one of the scintillating wizards of Oz poetry." —Rachel Blau DuPlessis' (Publication summary)

'The title poem of this collection ('Ladylike') draws on pamphlets associated with the notorious case of the bigamist Mary Carleton, who was executed in 1673, and texts contemporary with it; women from Sigmund Freud's case studies provide the material for the series of poems, 'Round Vienna'; and the sequence 'Cleft' is dedicated to Kate Lilley's mother, Australian literary giant Dorothy Hewett.

'Throughout this collection, Kate mines the areas of her scholarly specialisation - the early modern period - as well as contemporary popular culture and matches it with some of the twentieth century's enduring interests such as psychoanalysis and Freud.

'Ladylike is a valuable addition to Australian poetry at large and will be of interest to readers of poetry, early modern history, Freud and early psychoanalysis.' (From the publisher's website.)