Cirrus@Austlit

'Selected by one of Australia's most acclaimed poets, this inspired collection captures the richness and scope of present-day Australian verse. It features innovative and exciting poems - many published here for the first time - from our best-known poets as well as daring and insightful works from rising stars.

Together they create a lively sense of conversation, of voices criss-crossing the continent, exploring the many themes that animated and inspired the nation's poets in 2010.' (From the Publisher's website)

'The title poem of this collection ('Ladylike') draws on pamphlets associated with the notorious case of the bigamist Mary Carleton, who was executed in 1673, and texts contemporary with it; women from Sigmund Freud's case studies provide the material for the series of poems, 'Round Vienna'; and the sequence 'Cleft' is dedicated to Kate Lilley's mother, Australian literary giant Dorothy Hewett.

'Throughout this collection, Kate mines the areas of her scholarly specialisation - the early modern period - as well as contemporary popular culture and matches it with some of the twentieth century's enduring interests such as psychoanalysis and Freud.

'Ladylike is a valuable addition to Australian poetry at large and will be of interest to readers of poetry, early modern history, Freud and early psychoanalysis.' (From the publisher's website.)