Cirrus@Austlit

'The Bare Hook is Rod Usher's fourth collection. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines and anthologies, including Best Australian Poems 2015, the Proverse Prize anthology (Hong Kong) 2021, Best Australian Love Poems, the Grieve Prize anthology, the Newcastle Poetry Prize anthology 2020, and the ACU Prize anthology, where in 2021 a poem in this collection, 'Marginal Notes', won a $1,000 award. The late Les Murray, who published some twenty of Usher's poems, said of his earlier collection, Smiling Treason, 'I laughed out loud at times, I inwardly cried at other times.' Usher, who grew up in Melbourne, is a former literary editor of The Age and senior writer and editor for TIME magazine in Europe. He lives in Extremadura, Spain. He has also published three novels, most recently Poor Man's Wealth (HarperCollins).' (Publication summary)

'Rod Usher's third collection, Convent Mermaid, is full of wit and sadness, love and loss. Many of the poems spring from his long experience as a journalist, novelist and from years of living and working in Europe. As Les Murray has written, Rods poetry inspires both tears and laughter. He's equally at home in poetic conversation with Emily Dickinson, David Bowie and Federico Garcia Lorca, in revisiting Cro-Magnon Man, or portraying the to-and-fro of love and sex. His poems find their feet in Australia, Spain, England and the U.S., their rhyme typically embedded rather than obligatory, though he bows to the tight rules of haiku. Rods poems regularly appear in leading literary magazines such as Island, Meanjin and Quadrant, as well as in various anthologies, including Australian Love Poems and the UKs Aesthetica Annual. His most recent novel is Poor Man's Wealth (HarperCollins, 2011), a title which, not surprisingly, comes from a poem."' (Publication summary)