Fremantle Press, 2010 (Aus, US, UK) 9781921361869 Remember that Renaissance sculpture you admired, briefly, in a Roman or Florentine church, cool and hard and chiselled and, perhaps a little too dramatically posed? Reading John Mateer’s collection of poems The West, gives an analogous sensation. The sculptors worked in marble that kept its material nature, the hardness … Continue reading Guest review: Greg Westenberg on John Mateer’s The West: Australian Poems 1989–2009
guest reviews
Guest review: Genevieve Tucker on Colm Tóibín’s The Empty Family
Picador November 2010 9781405040235 (Aus, US, UK) Reviewed by Genevieve Tucker Much has been made around the traps of the fact that Colm Tóibín published a story in his last collection that used the word empty (and words deriving from it) fourteen times, though no one has bothered to acknowledge that the story in question was … Continue reading Guest review: Genevieve Tucker on Colm Tóibín’s The Empty Family
Guest review: Elizabeth Bryer on Shane Jones’ Light Boxes
Hamish Hamilton July 2010 9780241144954 (Aus, US, UK) Reviewed by Elizabeth Bryer This is one of those books that comes with baggage. Cult status? Check. Author plucked from obscurity? Check. Endorsement by guy with cultural cache? Check. (The latter was Spike Jonze, by the way, who at one stage acquired film rights to the … Continue reading Guest review: Elizabeth Bryer on Shane Jones’ Light Boxes
Guest review: Annie Stevens on Melissa Febos’ Whip Smart
Whip Smart: A Memoir Picador, 2010 9780312561024 (Aus, US, UK) review by Annie Stevens Reading Melissa Febos’ memoir, Whip Smart, reminded me of when I first read Bret Easton Ellis' American Psycho. So graphic and stomach-churning is some of the content that I had to have short 'rests' between chapters. What makes Whip Smart even more … Continue reading Guest review: Annie Stevens on Melissa Febos’ Whip Smart
Guest review: Sam Cooney on The Lifted Brow no. 7
The Lifted Brow no. 7 ed. Ronnie Scott 2010 (website) Reviewed by Sam Cooney The Lifted Brow no. 7. It’s good. (Could I leave it at that? Yes.) Ronnie Scott’s short editorial is about penises, sneakers and a forgotten Halloween special. I will extract two declarations from the editorial that sum up this Brow: 'I’ve never … Continue reading Guest review: Sam Cooney on The Lifted Brow no. 7
Guest review: Lyndon Riggall on Kelly Link’s The Wrong Grave
The Wrong Grave Kelly Link Text 9781921520730 (Aus) Reviewed by Lyndon Riggall It took me a little while to work out exactly what The Wrong Grave was. A book of short stories, yes. But why these stories, and why in this order? You see, some of the tales featured here appear in her book Pretty Monsters and others … Continue reading Guest review: Lyndon Riggall on Kelly Link’s The Wrong Grave
Guest review: Raili Simojoki on harvest: issue 5
harvest: issue 5 reviewed by Raili Simojoki Harvest ’s gentle, reflective, sometimes anxious writing appeals to Gen Y romantics who, dissatisfied by the disconnected, disposable information generated by mass media, are drawn instead to the poetic, intricate, and meandering. Editor Davina Bell speaks directly to this audience in her essay ‘To my Generation of Precious … Continue reading Guest review: Raili Simojoki on harvest: issue 5
Guest review: Greg Westenberg on Maxine Clarke’s Gil Scott Heron is on Parole
Gil Scott Heron is on Parole Maxine Beneba Clarke Picaro Press Reviewed by Greg Westenberg The rhythm: insistent, consistent, beat-heavy in places but with enough sunlight in the words to take us out of the club, into a community’s irregular syncopation; the rhythm, that I couldn’t always get (white boys, everybody knows it, can’t … Continue reading Guest review: Greg Westenberg on Maxine Clarke’s Gil Scott Heron is on Parole
Guest review: Sam Cooney on The Big Issue no. 359: Toasty Tales fiction special
The Big Issue no. 359: Toasty Tales fiction special Available now from street vendors, launched Wednesday 21 July at Readings Carlton Reviewed by Sam Cooney For me, The Big Issue is like a tub of Neapolitan ice-cream. It’s reliable. It’s unpretentious and doesn’t pretend to be anything except exactly what it is. You buy it every … Continue reading Guest review: Sam Cooney on The Big Issue no. 359: Toasty Tales fiction special
Guest review: Elizabeth Bryer on Josephine Rowe’s How a Moth Becomes a Boat
How a Moth Becomes a Boat Josephine Rowe Hunter Publishers, 2010 (Aus) 9780980397420 Reviewed by Elizabeth Bryer In Meanjin 67:2, 2008, Wayne Macauley describes the painstaking process he underwent in his search for a publisher for his allegorical novel, Blueprints for a Barbed-Wire Canoe, which went on to receive rave reviews and was even picked … Continue reading Guest review: Elizabeth Bryer on Josephine Rowe’s How a Moth Becomes a Boat
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