Recent books from Martin Langford have addressed specific themes: Ground explored the evolution of Australian spaces, while Eardrum focused on music. The Boy from the War Veterans’ Home, however, represents a return to the miscellaneous sources from which collections are normally compiled. The title poem is about the difficult life of his father, but other pieces have been prompted by material as various as air dancers, hagfish and midges. Overall, however the collection is still pervaded by Langford’s characteristic concerns: dismay at the ubiquity of triumphalist narratives – not least in our art-forms – and at the fragility of the spaces in which the subject is invited to step beyond them – together with an abiding fascination with the earth’s brilliance and indifference. As well as the main body of poems, there are sections on the ambiguous bounty of story, on the writing life, and on the natural world – and a further supplement of Minims, his brief poems about music.
Trojan Gifts
But Now
Home is Further Away than the Lightning
As signalled by his pen name, Youfou Shidai (Age of UFO), Zhang Chunhua sets his poetry adrift into space, away from humanity, with lingering glances at its mathematics of desire and coming sterility, its ‘thinking fish’ and ‘categories of rubbish’.
Kintsugi
Earshot
This debut collection from Sam Morley comprises poetry that is image-rich, probing and sublime. Committed to observation as a vehicle for discovery, Earshot is a book-length meditation deep in the mystery of the domestic sphere and the natural world. The poems are often profoundly personal while somehow removed, rippling out from Morley’s unique inner perceptions into something universal and large. Pictures and diction progress with a
distinctively strenuous, yet fluent movement – these are poems which deliver more in a few lines than many poems deliver in their entirety.
Ask No Questions
In her memoir Ask No Questions, Eva Collins charts her family’s journey from Poland to Australia during the Cold War. Her restrained tone reflects the threat her parents experienced of the Communist regime and of ubiquitous anti-Semitism. Simply written and deeply moving she captures loss and gain, grief and celebration with great poignancy. With a third of Australians born overseas and half of the population with one migrant parent, Ask No Questions forms a crucial part of our national experience. Its accessible poetry is particularly suited to young adult readers.
feels right
the attentions
angel wings dumpster fire
‘angel wings dumpster fire’ is a (small) book-length poem that is also a letter to the poet’s dead father.
