Cirrus@Austlit

'Some of the best, most significant writing produced in Australia over more than two centuries is gathered in this landmark anthology. Covering all genres - from fiction, poetry and drama to diaries, letters, essays and speeches - the anthology maps the development of one of the great literatures in English in all its energy and variety.

'The writing reflects the diverse experiences of Australians in their encounter with their extraordinary environment and with themselves. This is literature of struggle, conflict and creative survival. It is literature of lives lived at the extremes, of frontiers between cultures, of new dimensions of experience, where imagination expands.

'This rich, informative and entertaining collection charts the formation of an Australian voice that draws inventively on Indigenous words, migrant speech and slang, with a cheeky, subversive humour always to the fore. For the first time, Aboriginal writings are interleaved with other English-language writings throughout - from Bennelong's 1796 letter to the contemporary flowering of Indigenous fiction and poetry - setting up an exchange that reveals Australian history in stark new ways.

'From vivid settler accounts to haunting gothic tales, from raw protest to feisty urban satire and playful literary experiment, from passionate love poetry to moving memoir, the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature reflects the creative eloquence of a society.

'Chosen by a team of expert editors, who have provided illuminating essays about their selections, and with more than 500 works from over 300 authors, it is an authoritative survey and a rich world of reading to be enjoyed.' (Publisher's blurb)

Allen and Unwin have a YouTube channel with a number of useful videos on the Anthology.

The Disappearing is an innovative new [free] app for iPhone, iPad and Android that (literally) explores poetry and place. Transform the world around you with new poems by some of Australia's finest poets, who've created a poetic map charting traces, fragmentary histories, impressions and memories.

Beginning with a collection of over 100 poems about Sydney, The Disappearing will stretch across Australia during 2012. Along with previously unpublished poetry, The Disappearing features exclusive videos of readings and interviews with poets. Users can upload their own poems to The Disappearing, preserving ideas, emotions and experiences about their own environment that vanish over time (publisher blurb http://redroomcompany.org/projects/disappearing/ sighted 5/9/2012).

'The third in Braziller's Series of Australian Poets, Judith Beveridge engages the world in ways that open up larger perspectives and deeper understandings. As the critic Clive James notes, Beveridge s work displays unfailing dignity of movement and quiet splendour. Whether in relation to the natural world around us or to our inner world of intellect and emotion, Beveridge s poems call us to account, exalting our capacity for knowledge and insisting upon the pleasures and responsibilities of attentiveness."' (Publication summary)

'The quality of Australian poetry has never been higher, nor the number of distinctive voices greater. A landmark publication, this collection presents the astonishing achievements of Australian poetry during the last quarter of a century. Over ten years in preparation, gathering over 200 poets and 500 poems, it makes the case for this country's poetry as a broadening of the universal set for all English-speakers. 'Somewhat astonishingly,' the introduction notes, 'and while no-one was looking, Australian poetry has developed a momentum and a critical mass such that it has become one more luminous field in the English-speaking imagination. Increasingly, anyone who seeks to explore the perspectives or music available in English will also have to consider the perspectives and music which have originated here - Australia having turned itself, too, into a place in the mind.' Both survey and critical review, this anthology offers a rare opportunity to explore the major national achievement of contemporary Australian poetry. (Publication summary)'