Cirrus@Austlit

'Authentic voice in a poem comes from the lived inhabitance it emanates. It is anchored in the gut and is willing to address the messy complexities of human emotion. Love that isn’t perfect, written into imperfect poems, makes every individual feel that they are worthy of love, that the love they experience is real, acceptable in all its flaws, and exists even in circumstances where it’s least expected. The world is messed up, people are messed up, but love is still there, in our imperfect lives, in memories, in wounds.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'This collection has come about from ten years of experimenting with poetic form, and the poems have grown with me through PhD candidature, moving out of home, getting married, and various travel adventures. The motivation behind each poem was essentially some act of exploration, of following an instinct by layering language until I arrived at a poetic text that rang true in my mind. The poems are at times speculative and fictional, but extend to the personal and autobiographical. Brought together under the title Infinite Ends, the collection's main preoccupations are the elegiac, the ekphrastic, poems of place centred on Lake Monger, Perth, Japan, Burma and elsewhere, and the classic and contemporary monuments that bridge our collective consciousness.' (Publication summary)

'These poems are the work of thirty years. When I was raising children, poetry was my furtive "sometimes" habit. It seems a miracle to me that I wrote anything at all during that time, but something kept drawing me back to words. It was a way of stopping to take notice of the beauty around me. It was a way to process what was happening: the surprise of loss, and grief. It was a way to keep things, to make them mine. It was a way to share things, to give them to others. Poetry is a kind of work, but it is also a kind of play: a playful work, a working play. I have learned to "let myself" play (as Julia Cameron puts it). Part of the play is dress-ups, trying on different poetic forms: here's the hair-lacquered-into-place-immaculately-ball-gowned villanelle, here's the smart-casual-dressed-for-inner-city-café free verse, here's the so-laid-back-I'm-practically-horizontal prose poem. I am inspired in my play by watching other poets do it. To playfully quote Alvin Pang from "What Happened": "It was vehement. It was egregious. It was somehow / necessary. Accessory."' (Publication summary)

'In some ways, this is like a poet's first collection; poems ranging over years, themes and subject matter. My previous collections have had a narrative, tight focus; one covering the women in Picasso's life and the other exploring the online life of the 1990s.The opportunity to put together a collection encompassing themes and subject matter that have had continued importance to me through my poetic journey reminded me of these areas that catch my curiosity, and the enduring place of writing in my life. How regular journaling and a writing life somehow place a prism over the rest of my days, highlighting some aspects and shifting others. My parents are in their nineties, and both have an interest in words. My dad, Buster Dawes, telling captivating, round-the-fireplace stories and my mum...' (Publication summary)

'“Love is romantic, sensual, secretive, seductive and spiritual. The poems in this anthology embrace all these emotions and more. They reflect and reveal. With words alone, poets must canvas a picture for their kind of love: the known and the unrequited. They speak with many voices, forms, styles.” 

Rose van Son, 2022 Judge' (Publication summary)

'A collection of the best poems submitted to the 2021 Poetry d’Amour Love Poetry Contest.'

'This is a collection of lyric poems of considerable variety exhibiting an unforced delight in language. It includes elegies, satires, love poems, comic works, and ekphrastic poems (many of which bring the past firmly into the present). Haskell's focus is much more on ideas and relationships, and the way the deepest meanings are found in ordinary life. And Yet... is structured in four sections: the first explores the aftermath of his wife's death; the second presents reactions to a range of overseas experiences; the third, more miscellaneous section includes satirical treatment of the hyperserious; and the book concludes with strong meditations on the nature of innocence and experience. The collection insists on facing up to the fact that our days do end, and yet it equally celebrates the possibilities of human life in the contemporary world, and notably concludes with a love poem.' (Publication summary)

'Love is ‘many-splendoured’ and it enriches as well as tests us. It is both a universal, and at the same time, a unique experience; one we’ve all had at least once, if not many times, during our lives.

'The poems submitted for Poetry d’Amour 2020 reflect multi-faceted experiences, and explore love as affection, missed opportunities, a young and carefree seduction, the first stirrings of romance, compelling sexual arousal or physical attraction, the loving connections of family, the tender love of long familiarity, or the bereavement of a loved one.' (Publication summary)

'Here, in the following pages, we have 90 Poems to test the freshness of Love and Poetry. Sincerity and Creativity combining together in a bed of Tradition, forever refreshing the boundaries of Love.  Judging them and awarding distinction to some and not others was a tough task. After 60 years of writing poetry myself, many of them teaching the mechanics of verse, I appraise a poem’s sincerity as much as its technique. On that basis I would like to print all entries! But I had to be practical and lean on the objective side of judging. So I looked for poems that were the vehicles for the transportation of sincere emotion—with some wit and skill in writing.' (Publication summary)

'A selection of the best poems submitted as part of the 2018 Poetry d'Amour Love Poetry Contest. Includes a selection of poems by Belgium poet and theatre maker, Maya Wuytack.' (Publication summary)

'A collection of the best love poems from the 2017 Poetry d’Amour Love Poetry Contest showcasing Australian poets at their finest.' 

'The third collection of love poems published and co-ordinated by WA Poets Inc.' (Publication summary)