Cirrus@Austlit

'Set in Charlotte Bay, a masculine town with a feminine name, the 50,000-word novella unfolds in the week before the local Aussie Rules grand final, where Lucas Walker is expected to lead the Hawks to victory. After a beach party, Lucas's sixteen-year-old brother Ryan wakes to find a humpback whale on the foreshore. As the rescue mission unfolds, blurry recollections of his brother's assault on a girl begin to weigh on his conscience. What exactly did he see, and how will he make sense of it when so many around him worship the star player?' (Publication summary)

''Bel Schenk tells the story of disparate characters sharing New York City through two blackouts. Through a blunt poetic style infused with subtle irony and a tact for laying down a soul (Deep inside is exactly what you are thinking right now) Schenk adheres to people wanting to connect, with each other and with themselves. Every Time You Close Your Eyes is a work of intense atmospheric enquiry.' - Heather Taylor Johnson

'The inflections with which Bel Schenk greets that odd couple, urban love and urban loneliness, are all her own.' - J.M. Coetzee, on Ambulances and Dreamers

'There is a knowingness, an ambiguity at the heart of Schenk's poetry that resists easy labels.' - Geoffrey Lehmann, Australian

'Easy to read. Its power is in its sensitivity. It could easily be used for Secondary Study, looking at Prose poetry.' - Carolyn Hull, ReadPlus' (Source: Publisher's website)