Puncher & Wattmann

Puncher
Puncher & Wattmann is an independent publisher of quality Australian writing. Since 2005, we have published anthologies and many award-winning books of poetry, novels, biography and critical non-fiction.

Awards for Puncher & Wattmann Books

Our books have been shortlisted or won most of the major literary prizes in the country. Most recently, Julie Chevalier's Darger: His Girls and Bonny Cassidy's Certain Fathoms were shortlisted for the WA Premier's Prize for Poetry and in 2012 Toby Fitch's Rawshock was awarded the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry.

..more

The P&W website

Welcome to the P&W website. Make sure you spend some time checking out our book pages - we have samples available from most book, as well as links to reviews. 

And check out our blog too - each month or so a guest P&W author posts their thoughts. Philip Salom started things off, followed by Bonny Cassidy.

Summer Sale

 Anthologies & Biographies  $15 inc. postage

 

..more

The P&W newsletter

Register to this site to receive the P&W email newsletter and add comments to the Blog.

What's coming next?

Forthcoming Titles

We have two new books this September: Xn, by Carol Jenkins and Tempo by Sarah Day. Check in our events section for launch details

In October, we will be launching Capital by Alan Gould and New Selected Poems by Geoff Page.

..more

Barry Wattmann

Barry Wattmann is a retired welterweight boxing champion of Tasmania. He was a freelance strategist during the poetry wars, serving on both sides with distinction.

..more

From the P&W Blog...

On not knowing

In December I responded to remarks by Fairfax book critic Andrew Riemer concerning Lionel G Fogarty’s poem in the Best Australian Poems 2013 (Black Inc, ed. Lisa Gorton). As I pointed out, it seemed unbelievable that Riemer selected Fogarty’s work as an example of what he saw as “in the strictest sense of the term, meaningless” poetry contained in the anthology. As Mudrooroo/Colin Johnson pointed out decades ago:

It is impossible to read Lionel without realising that he is Black; it is impossible to read him  and not realise the crimes committed against the Aboriginal people, and it is impossible to  read him and not realise that here is a poet using the English language in a unique and new  way.1

1. Johnson, Colin (Mudrooroo), “Guerilla Poetry: Lionel Fogarty’s response to Language Genocide”, Westerly 3 (1986), p48.

From the entry On not knowing

Comment

I always wanted to found a University of Woollomoolo based on a variation of this worthwhile project: you contact the Uni, find the course/lecturer you want and you pay for your education by...

From the entry Poetry with strangers