Cirrus@Austlit

'Notions of home and unhomeliness have long been discussed by scholars in relation to Australian poetry, but little scholarly work has explored how contemporary Australian poets interrogate the relationship between renting and constructions of home. As the great Australian dream of homeownership becomes increasingly inaccessible and the availability of public housing declines, a larger proportion of the population privately rent their houses in a lightly regulated and highly competitive rental market (Morris et al 2021: 72). Poetry has long been used to record and preserve the affective dimensions of home, and in this paper I examine a series of poems concerned with finding rental properties, moving in and out of them, and with attempts to create a sense of home in houses that always already belong to others. I discuss the work of three poets whose recent collections grapple with notions of home, stability and security in relation to rented houses: Zenobia Frost’s After the Demolition (2019), Omar Sakr’s These Wild Houses (2017), and Fiona Wright’s Domestic Interior (2017). I argue that in these collections, houses are sites characterised by anxiety, instability, and erasure, rather than stable and secure archives of personal identity and domestic ritual.' (Publication abstract)

"This chapter surveys and defines twenty-first-century Australian poetry via its most prominent subjects and concerns, discernable critical trends and movements, and the demographic and generational shifts that have occurred since the end of the twentieth century. Beginning with Australian poets’ central and enduring concern with the environment, place, and landscapes both urban and rural, we explore the manifold expressions of localised poetics, and the ongoing interrogation of ideas of home and belonging by Indigenous, settler, and migrant poets alike. We then examine the effects of the institutionalisation of creative writing on the trajectory of Australian poetry, and explore the interdisciplinary turn in Australian poetry as it connects with diverse academic disciplines. We conclude with a discussion of international influences as they are expressed in Australian poetry, and Australia’s nascent influence on world poetries, arguing that as Australian poetry enters into maturity, the answer to what defines it increasingly resides at home."

Source: Abstract.

'This is a captivating and varied collection. No matter what Ella Jeffery turns her attention to, her subjects find sharp resolution in language that has been subtly crafted and beautifully honed. These poems carry their insights deftly and intensely, her lens always focussed on those alchemical images that move her work from sensation into perception, from observation into shimmering awareness. Everything shines with the gloss of her highly polished linguistic and imaginative skills. Her work is a triumph and a delight.
– Judith Beveridge

'As its title suggests, Dead Bolt is a meditation on home and its ability to become suddenly unhomely or uncanny. Ella Jeffery’s poetry ranges from the plangent and elegiac to the comic and satirical. It attends to both the eye and the ear; its extraordinary imagery is matched by a marvellous attention to poetry’s sonic capacity. Dead Bolt is a compelling, exquisitely realised debut. 
– David McCooey

'I love Ella Jeffery’s poetry. Like Elizabeth Bishop’s, it is companionable and unshowily surprising, and has perfect timing. Jeffery is clear-eyed and has a gift for the exact word, one that opens a rift. This is a masterly and original first collection—a major work.
– Lisa Gorton'

Source : publisher's blurb