Cirrus@Austlit

Michael Farrell is well known for his ability to break language and action into their component gestures, freeing the emotion locked up in them, and very often their comic or magical aspects too, as the title of his new poetry collection suggests. Open Sesame includes sonnets derived from Edna St Vincent Millay ('saints & or') and from the British police drama The Bill, a sestina on John F. Kennedy set in a laundry, an improvised parody ('et tu supermarket'), an Oulipo poem ('debit of a pirate kino'), and four long poems on friendship. The book concludes with a series of collage poems, including one which takes its cue from the legendary Phar Lap. An earlier version of open sesame won the Barrett Reid award for a radical poetry manuscript. [From Trove and the publisher's website]