Cirrus@Austlit

'Poems, stories, letters and extracts from novels, plays and journals present a great variety of responses to Australia and to the art of writing. Items have been arranged into 12 groupings that reflect different ways of seeing the material of Australian writing. Each section has its own introduction. Problems are explained, theories and contexts for a wider understanding are offered. The book includes biographical guides to all authors and a full chronological table of events in the literary history of Australia.'   (Publication summary)

'Gwen Harwood (1920-1995) is one of the best loved Australian poets of the twentieth century - and a fierce prankster, who published poems under half-a-dozen names and identities. By turns poignant, sensuous and mischievous, passionately musical, her poetry is marked by sure intelligence and a quicksilver, anti-authoritarian wit.

'This new selection of her poetry from 1943 to her death makes the full range of the work accessible for the first time to poetry-lovers in the northern hemisphere. With an introduction by the leading Harwood critic Gregory Kratzmann and the Australian poet Chris Wallace-Crabbe, who corresponded with Harwood, the selection includes hitherto little-known work along with poems which have become part of the central canon of Australian poetry.' (From the publisher's website.)

'Our winter double issue features two superb meditations on family, gender, mourning and becoming. Yves Rees is the winner of this year's Calibre Essay Prize. 'Reading the Mess Backwards' is a story of trans becoming that digs into the messiness of bodies, gender and identity. ABR Rising Star Sarah Walker writes beautifully about losing her mother and the difficulties of commemoration during a pandemic. James Ley has a virtuoso pastiche of Philip Roth in his review of the Portnoy trials. Sophie Cunningham reviews Richard Cooke's book on Robyn Davidson. Plus poems by Gwen Harwood, Jaya Savige, and Stephen Edgar – and much more!' (Publication summary)