Cirrus@Austlit

'fierce (adj, adv, verb, postmodern archetype, rite of passage, attitude, book title): an experimental miniature work of collage and poetry which bears witness to the lost difference between love and abuse, the impact of this loss as it permeates experiences of eco-despair, and the rites practised that reclaim the roar of empowerment.' (Publication summary)

'This collection of thirty-eight poems is a book in three parts: Elsewhere; Everything is Evening; and Final Days. These are poems of an unrehearsed life, of paths taken and not taken, of lives not lived left behind, and the shadows they leave. Mostly, these poems were birthed by narrative, and deepened by the lyric, which, following Judith Beveridge in her essay ‘Lyric Poetry’, “seeks to communicate an experience to others” through “the wild and lovely agency of poems.” Smith’s hope is that these poems invite the reader in, and take them somewhere else, that they seek beyond what we see before us, toward what lies beneath. His hope, too, in Beveridge’s words, is for a “resonance and attunement” between reader and listener.' (Publication summary)

'Alive in Dubbo is a collection of localised free verse. The poems are honest reflections, observational and personal depictions of life within an often-overlooked Australian community, serving both as individual snapshots and suggested chronicles of a larger narrative. Raw and sometimes confronting, illuminating and accessible, Alive in Dubbo offers a unique perspective of Australian culture and of existence itself.' (Publication summary)

'Text Messages from the Universe was inspired by The Tibetan Book of the Dead, a Buddhist text which guides souls on their 49-day transmigration through the ‘Bardo’, or intermediate state, between dying and rebirth. It immerses readers in subjective states of consciousness they might experience when they die. It imagines what they can see and think and hear in a seamless but fragmentary flow of poetic images which turn time and space on their heads.

'Text Messages from the Universe, the book, designed by Dylan Jones, includes images taken from the film of the same title by The Physical TV Company, and a front cover painting created especially for the occasion by Australian painter Michelle Hiscock, who similarly created the cover for Richard James Allen’s earlier volume with Flying Islands: Fixing the Broken Nightingale.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

'local concerns itself with the local environment of the Glebe, an inner city suburb of Sydney and with other areas of the inner city. Some of the poems were written as part of 366 Poetry Project. It traces the author’s family history and connections to the inner city and also addresses issues of colonisation and the dispossession of indigenous people in Sydney. The book contains 13 artworks by the author.' (Publication summary)

'This book speaks to the experience of immigration and a search for belonging. It explores the nature of language as performative of place and consciousness, and raises the question of gendered cultural othering: what is it like to navigate Russian identity as a woman in a western country? It examines the stereotype of a Russian bride, who is seen as both submissive and a threat.

'Far and Wild looks at archetypes through cultural and feminist lenses.'(Publication summary)

'Letters in Language re-iterates what is possible in the prose poem and autography, and is intended to evoke cultural memory. The Tagalog (Filipino) mirroring the English translations are intended to provoke monolingual speakers to question, as it conveys Harold Legaspi’s identity, being bi-lingual, in a manner of speaking, to tell his story in a language he almost forgot through the migration process into Australia. By conveying meaning in two languages, his writing functions in the most concrete way, through exemplifying not abandoning the language that raised him in a land now foreign to him.'(Publication summary)