Pitt Street Poetry Pitt Street Poetry i(A148428 works by) (Organisation) assertion (a.k.a. Pitt Street Poets)
Born: Established: 8 Dec 2011 World Square, Inner Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales, ;
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1 1 y separately published work icon Paris Light Jean Kent , Martin Kent , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2024 27912256 2024 selected work poetry

'Paris Light is an intensely personal Plan de Paris. What began as a tongue-in-cheek attempt by Jean Kent to write a poem for each letter of the alphabet, based on streets or places in Paris which had meaning for her, evolved into an emotional map of her time there with her husband, Martin, trying to live as locals. Many of the poems are set within easy walking distance of the Cité Internationale des Arts, where the couple lived during two six-month Australia Council residencies, firstly in 1994 and later in 2011. With the inclusion of Martin’s art works, which complement the poems but have their own idiosyncratic focus, this book is both a celebration of the romance between words and images and the magic of the City of Light.' (Publication summary)
1 2 y separately published work icon Walking the Boundary Damen O'Brien , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2024 27420525 2024 selected work poetry

'In this new collection Damen O’Brien’s focus roams from worlds we know all too well to worlds we don’t know at all, from the home life of the man who repairs electric chairs to a cheeky sonnet for the tardigrade, trekking the boundaries of life, love, death and the afterlife, with a cameo from the Devil’s wife. Viperous vignettes of the animal kingdom, sharp snapshots of political passions. The unifying factor is his distinctive, wry, gentle voice, a voice which has seduced poetry prize judges the world over. There is always something unexpected, something to send your thoughts in a new direction in a Damen poem. Pitt Street Poetry is delighted to welcome him aboard.' (Publication summary)
1 1 y separately published work icon The Blue Cocktail Audrey Molloy , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2023 27277205 2023 selected work poetry

'Audrey Molloy's second collection probes ideas of home across her native Ireland and Australia, where she now lives. The 'pure sheen' of a horse chestnut makes way for the 'minty scent' of gum trees in her adopted home where the sea is reassuringly familiar but plants are often not what they seem:

You are my ocean-

blue cocktail of salt and sediment-

but you are not my leaf.

In a dazzling variety of forms, these poems reflect Molloy's transnational identity as an Irish woman living in Australia and the tension and dialogue that exists between two cultures. One part memory, two parts love letter to the sea, with dashes of longing, sass and a nip of melancholia, The Blue Cocktail is strange, sexy and intoxicating.'(Publication summary)
1 4 y separately published work icon Ghosts of Paradise Stephen Edgar , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2023 27277156 2023 selected work poetry

'In Stephen Edgar’s new poetry collection Ghosts of Paradise three clusters of 14 poems, each a precisely sculpted jewel, are threaded together in precise sequence to create a dazzling array of people, places and moments in time. The title poem is ‘based on the fancy that in the distant future humanity may have evolved to the point where it is no longer entirely organic, or indeed corporeal’. First ghost among equals in Edgar’s paradise is WB Yeats, ‘waving his arms and shouting at the trees’. Then Adamson, Barthes, Browne, Dickinson, Disraeli and other wraiths from the pantheon. Sonnets and other traditional forms entwine with a rich panoply of characteristically original metrical conceits so cunningly employed that it is only after re-reading and reflection that the subtle structure declares itself.

'Pitt Street Poetry is proud to welcome Stephen Edgar to its roster of Australian poets with this new collection. Over the four decades since Queueing for the Mudd Club was published by Twelvetrees in Hobart in 1985, his reputation for delicately crafted, deftly observed and deeply thoughtful verse has grown to establish a strong Australian and international following, culminating in the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry in 2021 for his survey collection The Strangest Place: New and Selected Poems (Blackpepper 2020), of which British author John Banville wrote, ‘What wonderful poems these are. Stephen Edgar should be recognized as one of the very best poets of our days.’'  (Publication summary)
1 y separately published work icon Penultima Geoff Page , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2023 27277079 2023 selected work poetry

'Few Australian poets can equal Geoff Page's depth, variety and longevity. Twenty five collections published over the last fifty years. His influence on the Australian poetry landscape as writer, reviewer and convenor of poetry events continues to be perceptive, pervasive and profound. As he embraces his ninth decade the rich flow of uniquely Pageian observations, insights, meditations and word plays continues unabated.

'His new collection Penultima meanders musically from the Bach family to Lester Young, grounded by a lively basso pizzicato. A contemplative, self-knowing five poem sequence, The Misanthrope, counterpoints brief, artful sketches of some personal icons such as Jacob Rosenberg, Bishop John Hall of Norwich and saxophonist Lee Konitz. There are darker tones, as always in his work: American gun culture, the sins of the church. And finally, as always in the Geoff Page universe, love supervenes once again:

since late-life love is love discovered

just in time to get things right

a boundless summer afternoon . . .

before the cosmos flips the light.' (Publication summary)
1 2 y separately published work icon Shore Lines Andrew Taylor , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2023 26410896 2023 selected work poetry

'Central to Andrew Taylor’s Shore Lines is a sequence of poems written during the bushfire season of 2019 and the subsequent Covid pandemic. During a period of national trauma, the poems find consolation in the powerful regenerative energy of the natural world. The setting of the beach suburb of Coogee reflects an ongoing interest in Australia’s coastline, which is also a central image in a number of poems that explore the poet’s childhood and family life. Several poems are obituaries for those dear to him, and others explore elements of personal and family history, including the consequences of his ancestors’ role as pioneers in the early settlement of Victoria. Many poems reflect an interest in natural phenomena such as landscape, the weather and, particularly, birds and, in the ocean, the whales that traverse the NSW and Victorian coast.' (Publication summary)
1 2 y separately published work icon The Shadow Box Jean Kent , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2023 26089045 2023 selected work poetry

'A shadow box on a sitting room wall; a hat box hiding a wedding dress and a kit bag; a hallstand decorated with hand-carved kurrajong leaves… In such leftovers from other lives, these poems began.

'The Shadow Box is a book-length sequence of poems inspired by the experiences of my maternal grandparents, George and Jean Campbell, during and shortly after World War I. From their marriage a month before George left for war, through four years of separation—broken briefly by a six month visit by Jean to him in Egypt—the poems attempt to recreate their daily lives on different sides of the world. They draw on George’s diary and Jean’s letters to him, as well as my own imagination, to celebrate a family history which is both a cameo of another time, and strangely resonant with challenges in our world today.' (Publication summary)
1 1 y separately published work icon 101 Poems Ron Pretty , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2022 26089144 2022 selected work poetry

'Ron Pretty’s new and selected collection, 101 Poems is published by Pitt Street Poetry. Pretty has been writing and publishing for over 50 years, and this new book contains a selection of the best poems from his eight earlier collections and five chapbooks, plus a selection of new poems. The concerns that motivated his earlier work are displayed here as the poems explore family, ethical and political issues, other cultures and our own, and music.
'A summing up of a life’s work; this will be his last published collection.' (Publication summary)
1 2 y separately published work icon Slack Tide Sarah Day , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2022 25000772 2022 selected work poetry

'Slack tide is the turning point when a body of tidal water can seem uncertain as to whether it is coming in or going out. While surface water may be deceptively calm at this time, below the surface huge divergent forces are at work. In the title of Sarah Day’s ninth collection the term is an expression of twenty-first century unease. World events and global forces are an oblique presence in much of this collection in whose poems private and public disturb one another’s space and boundaries. While the themes often hold considerable gravitas, there is playfulness and whimsy too, in tone, voice, and angle of approach. These poems seek what Robert Pinsky called ‘a collaboration between the external world and the self, between language and intention’.' (Publication summary)
1 1 y separately published work icon Ordinary Time Anthony Lawrence , Audrey Molloy , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2022 25000727 2022 selected work poetry 'Working collaboratively with the Irish Australian poet Audrey Molloy, our research involved an investigation into the history elements in the poetry of Seamus Heaney, Ezra Pound, Michael Longley, Leonard Cohen and Elizabeth Bishop. Our research was instrumental in combining the notion of time travel with the lives of deceased poets. Our personal experience has been woven into the fabric of the stories we have taken from our research into the lives of other poets. Contribution: The contribution to the history of collaboration in poetry is significant, as the authors have created a contemporary alignment of two cultures, and provided a lyrical background against which personal, historical, poetic and geographical elements can be fixed. The poems in 'Ordinary Time' have no titles, and the poet's names have not been directly linked to the work. The reason for this is to create a seamless, rather than identifiable reading of the poetry. The contribution of new knowledge can best be seen in the dovetailing of metaphorical content from Australia and Ireland, in terms of these countries' fauna, flora, history and poetic traditions. Significance: The blending of two cultures and quite distinct poetry styles in the one collection has provided a complex mapping of ideas, philosophies and poetry influences. This collaboration took a year, during which up to seven full versions of the book were meticulously laid out and edited back together. Sections of the book have since been published in the British journal Stand, one of the oldest and most respected journals in the UK. Audrey Molloy's and Anthony Lawrence's contributions can be seen in their combined awards ('The Important Things' Audrey Molloy,(Gallery Press, Ireland, 2021), and Anthony Lawrence's 'Headwaters' (Pitt Street Poetry, 2017). The authors have already read poems from 'Ordinary Time' at a live, online poetry event, at the invitation of the Sydney Poetry Salon.' (https://research-repository.griffith.edu.au/handle/10072/410420?show=full)
1 y separately published work icon 101 Poems (2011-2021) Geoff Page , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2022 24500139 2022 selected work poetry

'Twenty-four individual collections published over the last fifty years. Events, reviews, mentorships, jazz musings and a warm, benevolent influence which reaches out from Canberra to every corner of the national poetry landscape.

'This selection of 101 Poems surveys some of his best poetry, from A Sudden Sentence in the Air (2011) to In medias res (PSP 2019), and offers as an encore nineteen new, previously uncollected poems, including ‘Jericho’ which won the ACU Poetry Prize in 2020.

'Join us in celebrating Geoff Page as he enters his ninth decade, his witty, affable, insightful and singular voice honed to its finest edge.'   (Publication summary)
1 y separately published work icon The Round Ring Lisa Brockwell , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2021 24500187 2021 selected work poetry

'Lisa Brockwell’s debut poetry collection Earth Girls (PSP 2016) enjoyed general admiration and acclaim. ‘Celebrate the arrival of a vital Australian voice,’ wrote Dan Ryder in Plumwood Mountain.

'This second collection The Round Ring builds on the strong foundations of that initial foray, buttressed by growing recognition and respect for that ‘vital voice’ in national and international poetry spaces.

'Riffing on Emily Wilson’s recent translation of The Odyssey, Brockwell shares recently discovered postcards between a roving Penelope and a stay-at-home Odysseus. Her own restless travels take her to Doha, Houston, Bedford Square always with a wry, dry eye on the human and political dimensions of the landscape. Her gaze extends to family, to art, and as in the multilayered title poem, to our animal familiars and the perspectives they offer.'   (Publication summary)
1 y separately published work icon The Roung Ring Lisa Brockwell , Sydney : Pitt Street Poetry , 2021 23601756 2021 selected work poetry
1 1 y separately published work icon Dancing with Stephen Hawking John Foulcher , Sydney : Pitt Street Poetry , 2021 23601713 2021 selected work poetry

'This new collection of poems from magisterial Australian poet John Foulcher celebrates his recent transition from a busy working life in Canberra to the rural tranquility of a new home —a rescued church in a tiny village south of Braidwood.

'In the transition his writing takes on new depth, new breadth, new worlds, as from that quiet corner he contemplates an extended, brooding photographic sequence first encountered in London, a brief visit to a Greek island and an even briefer trip to the moon. As always in his work: aging, death, the conundrums of faith. And the transcendent importance of a momentary frenetic boogie with a quantum physicist in a wheelchair:

'. . . I thought of the atoms in my eye,
spinning and spinning, and the torrent of light
surging through me, soaking me to the bone
as I stood looking up, with my bloodied knees' (Publication summary)
1 2 y separately published work icon Walking Underwater Mark Tredinnick , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2021 22005365 2021 selected work poetry
1 y separately published work icon Beetle Prayer Philip Wilcox , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2021 21208614 2021 selected work poetry

'Beetle Prayer is both a silly and somewhat serious book. Philip's poems flit back and forth, everything from a dialogue between a hunter and a thylacine, ridiculous non-matching acrostics and impassioned pieces about grief, meaning and rebuilding after the death of a family member.'

Source : author's website
1 3 y separately published work icon The Alpaca Cantos Jenny Blackford , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2020 19562972 2020 selected work poetry
1 1 y separately published work icon Knuckle Tim Cumming , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2019 19563025 2019 selected work poetry
1 y separately published work icon Mountain Lion Lesley Lebkowicz , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2019 18451322 2019 selected work poetry

'In Mountain Lion Lesley Lebkowicz returns to a more eclectic and traditional collection of poems, written over an extended period, after the tour de force of her verse novel The Petrov Poems (Pitt Street Poetry 2013) which enjoyed widespread critical acclaim and won a number of major poetry prizes. The continuity between the two is provided by her unmistakable individual voice, her perspective on the essential nature of things, and the intimate network of friends and family which ground her work and provide her with rich raw materials for her art.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
1 y separately published work icon In Media Res Geoff Page , World Square : Pitt Street Poetry , 2019 18451269 2019 selected work poetry

'In medias res is Geoff Page’s twenty-fifth collection of poetry. For many years he has been an omnipresent force in Australia poetry, convening poetry events, reviewing for a wide range of journals and newspapers, and mentoring many of the country’s leading poetry practitioners. Well into his eighth decade, he still considers himself very much in the middle of things, as the title of this collection suggests. It is a characteristic mix of his keen eye, his quiet chuckle and his ruminations on Australian history and politics. Each line is crafted with a skill which makes it look easy, and underwritten with a sense or the deeper meanings of everyday experience, and glimpses of eternal in the everyday.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.
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