Cirrus@Austlit

'If, as has been said, Sant is "an important, innovative poet" with a "penetrating eye for the hidden geometries of meaning" it is because, whatever his subject, the vision it draws out of him is there to be his and the subject, like the insight, has come as naturally to him as leaves are to trees.' - Elizabeth Knottenbelt, Agenda

'Andrew Sant writes intellectually compelling and formally taut poems ... made possible when an exceptional facility with language collides with everyday subjects.' - Brian Henry, Poetry Nation Review

'Sant's accomplished, cosmopolitan style gains from repeated exposure. "Pleasure" has been a word much trivialised of late when talking about poetry, but Sant's poems provide that all-too-rare commodity.' - Nicholas Birns, Verse

'In what is now a significant body of work we should see Andrew Sant, in this new book, in its approachable eloquence and its formal and musical intelligence as, in his phrase, a new "passport into immersion". - Adam Phillips, The Guardian' (Publication summary)

'For more than two years now I have been receiving welcome phone calls from a woman, whom I barely know, with an attractive voice. After some polite preliminaries, she asks me a lot of personal, anatomical questions—the sort one’s partner would likely also be able to answer for her. My responses to her enquiries are in no way shielded; in fact, I have been unabashedly open with her. We have a few laughs. No longer. These quarterly exchanges have now come to an end. Though I could take some comfort in knowing she’ll give me another pre-arranged call in about a distant six months’ time, as is the routine.'  (Introduction)

'He is a writer who doesn’t want to write, a traveller who ignores the lessons of a serious earthquake, an urbanite who sees the justly vilified activity of smoking as a solution to social atomisation. Andrew Sant’s new essays are those of a contrarian with a darkly amused view about the limits of human ingenuity and, as a consequence, humanity’s eventual extinction. This is a various, oblique, upbeat collection—sixteen essays as informative as they are entertaining.'

Source : publisher's blurb

'Gravity as a physical influence, the weight of gravity, and gravity of thought and action are central to Andrew Sant's new collection of poems - and so too is the means of baffling gravity, not the least by the deployment of wit. 

'Gravity here is also baffling in the alternative sense, as a force or as a theory, which summons perplexity. These poems, wide ranging in time and place, are richly textured investigations of the world, its terrain and its people, by an alert, often restless, informed observer.' (Publication summary)

'When I am in the vicinity of the bench - it's in a quiet) shady Spot - here in inner Melbourne, I'm on my way to the supermarket. The first time I noticed the plaque and then stopped to read it - a few months ago, about four years after the death of Henry Joseph Kata - I was so moved by its simple eloquence, sincerity and the import of the loss on the person whose words they are, that I suddenly entered into a kind of sympathetic mourning and hung around for some time out of respect. The bench may not have been there for long, council approvals being notoriously slow, and since the route I take to the supermarket is relatively new to me, I can't say when the bench was first put in place. I'd go for recently. I'd guess there was a quiet ceremony, in attendance the deceased's companion and those closest to, I am assuming, her. Attached to the slats of the bench, next to the plaque, there is always a sprig of fresh rosemary. The soulmate's bereaved returns often, possibly daily and, I expect, sits on the bench with her memories. Communes. Although the bench is for public use in a public space, a bench among other benches placed around the large, leafy park in positions where shade or a broad view is maximised, I would feel as if I was invading another's intimate space if ever I sat on it. So I don't. Maybe, one day, grocery bag in hand, I'll see from a distance Henry Joseph Kata's soulmate attaching a fresh sprig of rosemary or quietly sitting out the afternoon, alone.' (Publication abstract)

'‘Regrets I’ve had a few / But then again too few to mention’, the famous song declares. It is enduringly popular: the singer did it his way. This hymn to individualism I heard broadcast the other day to us shoppers, one familiar song following another, in a place of conformity and predictability, a large supermarket, where occasionally a distracted customer, oblivious to others, will sing along or hum. I didn’t—I’m reasonably sure—in that somnambulistic state generated by supermarkets, as shoppers drift down one aisle after another, sing snatches of ‘My Way’ but I did, masked no doubt by an expressionless face, wonder about regret.'(Introduction)