'UWA Publishing welcomes the return of Australia's most gifted and prodigious poet, Francis Webb, whose work has been out of print for thirty years in collected form.
'This collection of Francis Webb's poems is the first edition to incorporate Webb's final changes - previously ignored by editors - to several of his poems written in 1969.
'Webb wrote on varied subjects: the sea, postwar Australian cities, mental illness, colonial histories as well as religious and political figures, including St Francis and Hitler.
'His poems are written in a range of styles, from humorous short verse to epics and radio plays.
'The book is introduced by award-winning poet Toby Davidson and accompanied by 100 pages of notes drawing on the latest scholarship and commentaries.'
Source: UWA media release, February 2011, http://www.uwap.uwa.edu.au/
Sighted: 01/03/2011
'What kind of appetite does poetry have for creating new discourses about the nation? This essay will ask if poetry can re-imagine and re-write what are often oppressive and exclusionary national discourses, asking how - historically and in contemporary work - poetry has been concerned with national forms of belonging and unbelonging. Further, the essay will ask whether Australian poetry is able to generate new and even hopeful language in which to think about the nation.' (Author's introduction)
'What kind of appetite does poetry have for creating new discourses about the nation? This essay will ask if poetry can re-imagine and re-write what are often oppressive and exclusionary national discourses, asking how - historically and in contemporary work - poetry has been concerned with national forms of belonging and unbelonging. Further, the essay will ask whether Australian poetry is able to generate new and even hopeful language in which to think about the nation.' (Author's introduction)