Cirrus@Austlit

'It's the Sound of the Thing is an exciting collection of poetry for children and teens from Maxine Beneba Clarke, one of Australia’s most innovative and celebrated poets.

'This extraordinary collection celebrates the joy of language and features evocative, enticing poems about everyday life – the sounds of the block, the boredom of detention, and the happenings in the schoolyard. About candy, peanut butter and puddles. About a big brother’s messy room, a grandfather’s fading memory, and a grandmother’s garden magic. Through haiku, sonnets, narrative verse, rhyming couplets, limericks, free verse and more, Maxine invites children and young teens to fall in love with the wonder that is poetry.' (Publication summary) 

'There are eleven words for love, and my family knows them all.

'A family flees their homeland to find safety in another country, carrying little more than a suitcase full of love.

'As their journey unfolds, the oldest child narrates 11 meanings for love in Arabic as her family show, and are shown, all different kinds of love in their new home, and they also remember the love they have for their homeland and for those left behind or lost along the way.

'In the Arabic language, there are over 50 words describing the degrees of love. That's 50 stories, 50 life-worlds. This lyrical and heartwarming book takes you on a journey through 11 of these Arabic expressions for love.' (Publication summary)

'we are all just one small disaster

away from sinking,

and sometimes you only realise

when you're gasping for air

'On a daylight street in Minneapolis Minnesota, a Black man is asphyxiated - by callous knee of an officer, by cruel might of state, and under crushing weight of colony. In Melbourne the body of another woman has been found - this time, after catching a late tram home.

'The Atlantic has run out of the English alphabet, when christening hurricanes this season. The earth is on fire - from the redwoods of California, to Australia's east coast. The sea draws back, and tsunamis lash out in Samoa and Sumatra. Water rises in Sulawesi and Nagasaki. Bloated cod are surfacing, all along the Murray Darling.

'The virus arrives, and the virus thrives. Authorities seal the public housing towers up, and truck in one cop to every five residents. Notre Dame is ablaze - the cathedral spire blackened, and teetering.

'Out in Biloela, the deportation vans have arrived. Every Friday, in cities all across the world, children are walking out of school. The wolves are circling. The wolves are circling.

'These poems speak of the world that is, and sing for a world that may one day be.' (Publication summary)