The Best Australian Poems 2013
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Claire Gaskin’s ‘pollen wind’ appeared in Southerly, vol. 72 (2), 2012.
Robert Gray’s ‘The Dark Sisters’ appeared in Contrappasso Magazine, vol. 2, 2013.
Kevin Hart’s ‘Little Book of Mourning’ appeared in Westerly, vol. 58 (1), 2013.
John Hawke’s ‘The Conscience of Avimael Guzman’ appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, Issue 41.1: Ratbaggery, 2013.
Paul Hetherington’s ‘Five Abstractions of Blue’ appeared in his collection Six Different Windows (UWA Publishing, 2013).
Fiona Hile’s ‘The inevitable beauty of the viewer when faced with the partitionist tactics of the situationist lover’ appeared in the Age, 11 May 2013.
Sarah Holland-Batt’s ‘Last Goodbyes in Havana’ appeared in the Australian Poetry Journal, vol. 2 (2), 2012.
L. K. Holt’s Stages of Balthazar (with a Chorus of Elders) was published by Vagabond Press (Rare Object Series) in 2013.
Darby Hudson’s ‘Lumière Train’ appeared in Troublemag.com in September 2012.
Andy Jackson’s ‘Edith’ appeared in the Australian Poetry Journal, vol. 2 (2), 2012.
Clive James’ ‘Leçons de Ténèbres’, first published in the New Yorker, 3 June 2013 (Copyright © Clive James, 2013), is reproduced by permission of United Agents (www.unitedagents.co.uk) on behalf of Clive James.
Ella Jeffery’s ‘The Brooklyn International Motel’ appeared in Voiceworks, vol. 93, Winter 2013.
Jill Jones’ ‘The Slide’ appeared in Westerly, vol. 57 (2), 2012.
Paul Kane’s ‘Co. Kerry’ appeared in Australian Book Review, September 2012.
Carmen Leigh Keates’ ‘Nostalghia’ appeared in the Australian Poetry Journal, vol. 2 (2), 2012.
Kit Kelen’s ‘the dead are with us’ and ‘you read it here’ appeared in Island, vol. 132, Autumn 2013.
John Kinsella’s ‘Bushfire Approaching’ appeared in Australian Book Review, March 2013.
Andy Kissane’s ‘My Husband’s Grave’ appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, Issue 40.1: Indonesia, 2012.
Shari Kocher’s ‘my singing empty hands’ appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, Issue 40.0: Interlocutor, 2012.
Christopher Konrad’s ‘Window onto the Bay (after Kafka)’ appeared in Westerly, vol. 57 (2), 2012.
Jo Langdon’s ‘Ellipsis’ appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, Issue 40.0: Interlocutor, 2012.
Anthony Lawrence’s ‘Poetry of the Taliban’ appeared in the Australian Poetry Journal, vol. 2 (2), 2012.
Michelle Leber’s ‘True Listening in the Palace of Treasures’ appeared in Three Chords and the Truth: Etchings 11, Ilura Press, 2012.
Bella Li’s ‘Drowning Dream’ appeared in the collection Contemporary Asian Australian Poets (Puncher & Wattman, 2013). Its first sentence is a variation on the line ‘This August I began to dream of drowning’, from Anne Sexton’s poem ‘Imitations of Drowning’.
Rosanna Licari’s ‘Revisiting Yugoslavia: Rijeka, Croatia’ appeared in the Australian Poetry Journal, vol. 2 (2), 2012.
Kate Lilley’s ‘Season’s Greetings’ appeared in Southerly, vol. 72 (2), 2012.
Debbie Lim’s ‘Women in Classical Chinese Love Poems’ also appears in Australian Love Poems 2013, edited by Mark Tredinnick (Inkerman & Blunt, 2013).
Cameron Lowe’s ‘Rise and Shine’ appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, Issue 41.1: Ratbaggery, 2013.
Paul Magee’s ‘Rupert in Japan’ appeared in Burley Journal, no. 4, 2013.
Mark Mahemoff’s ‘Hotel’ appeared in the Age, 15 September 2012.
Jennifer Maiden’s ‘Diary Poem: Uses of Frank O’Hara’ appeared in Australian Book Review, June 2013.
David Malouf’s ‘At Lerici’ appeared in his collection Sky News (Vagabond Press Rare Object Series, 2013).
Ainslee Meredith’s ‘Warning’ appeared in her collection Pinetorch (Express Media/Australian Poetry, 2013).
Kate Middleton’s ‘Ephemeral Waters’ appeared in her collection Ephemeral Waters (Giramondo, 2013).
Peter Minter’s ‘The Roadside Bramble’ appeared in Southerly,
vol. 72 (1), 2012.
Paul Mitchell’s ‘Western Landscapes with Retreating Horizons’ appeared in Westerly, vol. 58 (1), 2013.
Les Murray’s ‘A Denizen’ appeared in Australian Book Review, March 2013.
David Musgrave’s ‘Coastline’ appeared in the Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology 2012.
Nguyen Tien Hoang’s ‘Summer’ appeared in the Age, 15 June 2013.
Jal Nicholl’s ‘As in the future when’ appeared in the Age, 2 March 2013.
Ella O’Keefe’s ‘Basic Hut Methodology’ appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, Issue 41.1: Ratbaggery, 2013.
Louise Oxley’s ‘The Bat Corridor’ appeared on the Cordite Poetry Review website, 15 July 2013.
Geoff Page’s ‘The Ward Is New’ appeared in Meanjin, vol. 72 (1), 2013.
π.O.’s ‘Street Encounter’ appeared in Southerly, vol. 72 (1), 2012.
Peter Porter’s ‘Who Took the Bee’s Greed for a Sign’ (translated from the Russian with the author, Eugene Dubnov) appeared in Westerly, vol. 58 (1), 2013.
Claire Potter’s ‘Plant Poem’ appeared in the Age, 3 November 2012.
Judith Rodriguez’s ‘The Life Inside’ appeared in Island, vol. 131, Summer 2012.
Aden Rolfe’s ‘Regression to the Mean’ appeared in the Age,
19 January 2013.
Josephine Rowe’s ‘Whale Heart’ is an excerpt from her ‘Bar Haven Suite’, which appeared in Offset, vol. 12, October 2012.
Robyn Rowland’s ‘Shaping the Dark: Three Readings of Tony Lloyd’s Oil on Linen Painting “On a Dark Night You Can See Forever”’, from which the excerpt featured in this volume was taken, appeared in Westerly, vol. 57 (2), 2012.
Brendan Ryan’s ‘Succession’, from which the excerpt featured in this volume was taken, appeared in Westerly, vol. 58 (1), 2013.
Gig Ryan’s ‘Rally’ appeared in Text, Special Issue Website Series, no. 17, April 2013.
Tracy Ryan’s ‘Dual Citizen’ appeared in her collection Unearthed (Fremantle Press, 2013).
Andrew Sant’s ‘Mediterranean Time’ appeared in the Weekend Australian Review, 25 May 2013.
Brenda Saunders’ ‘Inside Edward Hopper’ appeared in the Australian Poetry Journal, vol. 2 (2), 2012, and in her collection the sound of red (Ginninderra Press, 2013).
Oscar Schwartz’s ‘Nyirbator’ appeared in the Age, 9 February 2013.
Thomas Shapcott’s ‘The Owl Painting’ appeared in the Age,
30 March 2013.
Laura Jan Shore’s ‘Revealed’ appeared in Westerly, vol. 58 (1), 2013.
James Stuart’s ‘Postcard for Marilla’ appeared in his collection Imitation Era (Vagabond Press Rare Object Series, 2012), and will also appear in his forthcoming book Anonymous Folk Songs (Vagabond Press).
Maria Takolander’s ‘Chimney’ appeared in Meanjin, vol. 72 (2), 2013.
John Tranter’s ‘Crowded Hour’ appeared in the Times Literary Supplement, 12 July 2013; ‘The Consonants’ appeared in Australian Book Review, May 2013.
Ann Vickery’s ‘Another Chardin in Need of Cleaning’ appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, Issue 42.0: No Theme II, 2013.
Corey Wakeling’s ‘The Ear Especially’ appeared in Overland,
vol. 209, Summer 2012, and in his collection Goad Omen (Giramondo, 2013).
Chris Wallace-Crabbe’s ‘Up at a Villa’ appeared in his collection New and Selected Poems (Carcanet Press, 2013).
Alan Wearne’s ‘The Vanity of Australian Wishes’, from which this excerpt is taken, appeared in his collection Prepare the Cabin for Landing (Giramondo, 2012).
Gemma White’s ‘When You Showed Me the Stars’ appeared in the Age, 16 February 2013.
Jessica L. Wilkinson’s ‘Jivin’ with Bonny Cassidy etc.’ appeared in Cordite Poetry Review, Issue 41.1: Ratbaggery, 2013.
R. D. Wood’s ‘In the Desert’ appeared in Southerly, vol. 72 (1), 2012.
Ouyang Yu’s translation of Bai Helin’s ‘Meeting with the Same River’ appeared in the Age, 10 November 2012; his translation of Hu Xian’s ‘The Orchard’ appeared in the Age, 20 April 2013.
Notes on Contributors
THE EDITOR
Lisa Gorton lives in Melbourne. She studied at the universities of Melbourne and Oxford and wrote a doctorate on John Donne’s poetry and prose. She was awarded the John Donne Society Award for Distinguished Publication in Donne Studies. Lisa’s first poetry collection, Press Release (Giramondo, 2007), won the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry, the C.J. Dennis Award. Lisa has also been awarded the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize. Her poetry collection Hotel Hyperion, also from Giramondo, came out in 2013 and was shortlisted for the Queensland Literary Awards.
POETS
Robert Adamson has published over twenty books of poetry, including the triple prize-winning 1990 collection The Clean Dark. His autobiography, Inside Out, was published in 2004. In 2011 he was awarded the Patrick White Award and the Blake Prize for Poetry. His latest book of poetry, The Kingfisher’s Soul, was published by Bloodaxe Books in 2009.
Adam Aitken has been a printer’s assistant, a poetry magazine editor and a PhD student. He is the author of four books of poetry and four chapbooks, most recently Eighth Habitation (Giramondo, 2009) and November Already (Vagabond Press, 2013). He teaches cultural studies and academic literacy at UTS.
Ali Alizadeh’s last collection of poetry, Ashes in the Air (UQP, 2011) was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award, Poetry. His new book is a work of fiction, Transactions (UQP, 2013). He is a lecturer in literature and creative writing at Monash University.
Ivy Alvarez is the author of Disturbance (Seren, 2013) and Mortal (2006). A recipient of writing residencies from MacDowell Colony, Hawthornden Castle and Fundación Valparaiso, her work appears in journals and anthologies in many countries and online, with individual poems translated into Russian, Spanish, Japanese and Korean. www.ivyalvarez.com.
Chris Andrews teaches at the University of Western Sydney. He has published two books of poems – Cut Lunch (Indigo, 2002) and Lime Green Chair (Waywiser, 2012) – and has translated books of Latin American fiction, including Roberto Bolaño’s By Night in Chile (New Directions, 2003) and César Aira’s Shantytown (New Directions, 2013).
Louis Armand is a Sydney-born writer who lives in Prague. He is the editor of Contemporary Poetics (Northwestern, 2007). His most recent collections of poetry are Letters from Ausland (Vagabond Press, 2011) and Synopticon (with John Kinsella, LPB, 2012). He is an editor of the VLAK magazine.
Cassandra Atherton has published a book of poetry, After Lolita (Ahadada Press, 2010), a novel, The Man Jar (Printed Matter Press, 2010) and a book of literary criticism. Her book of interviews with American public intellectuals, In So Many Words, is forthcoming from Australian Scholarly Publishing. See her website for more information: www.cassandra-atherton.com.
Bai Helin, whose real name is Tang Ruibing, was born in Pengxi, Sichuan, China, in 1973. He began publishing poetry in 1993 and has been widely published in China, won many prizes and published a number of poetry books, including chexing tuzhong (Travelling by Train on the Way).
Peter Bakowski has been writing poetry for over thirty years. He keeps in mind the following three quotes: ‘Use ordinary words to say extraordinary things’ – Arthur Schopenhauer; ‘Writing is painting’ – Charles Bukowski; and ‘Make your next poem different from your last’ – attributed to Robert Frost. In 2014 Hunter Publishers will publish Personal Weather, his fifth poetry title.
Judith Beveridge is the author of The Domesticity of Giraffes, Accidental Grace, Wolf Notes and Storm and Honey, all of which have won major prizes. Her new collection will be published by Giramondo in 2014. She is the poetry editor for Meanjin and teaches poetry writing at postgraduate level at the University of Sydney.
Kim Cheng Boey has published five collections of poetry and a travel memoir. He emigrated from Singapore in 1997, and currently teaches creative writing at the University of Newcastle.
A gay, light-hearted bastard, Ken Bolton cuts a moodily romantic figure within the dun Australian literary landscape, his name inevitably conjuring perhaps that best known image of him, bow-tie askew, grinning cheerfully, at the wheel of his 1955 Jaguar D-type, El Cid.
Michael Brennan lives in Tokyo, where he is an associate professor in the Faculty of Policy Studies, Chuo University, and runs Vagabond Press (www.vagabondpress.net). His most recent collection is Autoethnographic (Giramondo, 2012), versions of which are also being published in Vietnamese and Japanese.
David Brooks’ latest collection is the highly acclaimed The Balcony (UQP, 2008). A new collection, Open House, will be published by UQP in early 2015. His most recent publication is the novel The Conversation (UQP, 2012). He is an honorary associate professor at the University of Sydney, and co-editor of Southerly.
Lachlan Brown currently lectures in English literature and creative writing at Charles Sturt University, Wagga. He grew up in southwest Sydney and his poems have appeared in journals such as Heat, Mascara, Westside and Relief. Lachlan’s first volume of poetry, Limited Cities, was published by Giramondo in 2012.
Pam Brown has published many books and chapbooks, most recently More than a feuilleton (Little Esther, 2012) and Home by Dark (Shearsman, 2013). She divides her time between Zlín, Moravia, and Alexandria, Sydney.
Melinda Bufton is a Melbourne poet and reviewer. Her work has appeared in a number of publications, including Cordite, Rabbit, the Age and (translated) the Chinese poetry journal Du Shi. Her debut collection is forthcoming from Inken Publisch (www.inkenpublisch.com).
Joanne Burns is a Sydney poet. Her most recent poetry collection is amphora (Giramondo, 2011). ‘snowy’ is included in a new poetry manuscript, brush, which she is currently assembling.
Michelle Cahill is a Sydney poet. Her collection Vishvarūpa (Five Islands Press, 2012) was shortlisted in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards. She received the Val Vallis Award and is the CAL/UOW Fellow at Kingston University, London. Her fiction and essays appear in Southerly, Westerly, Antipodes and Wasafiri.
Bonny Cassidy is a Melbourne poet, essayist and reviewer. Her debut collection, Certain Fathoms (Puncher & Wattmann, 2012), was shortlisted for the WA Premier’s Book Awards, and she has a second book forthcoming from Giramondo in early 2014.
Justin Clemens’ most recent books are Psychoanalysis is an Antiphilosophy (Edinburgh University Press, 2013) and a new, expanded version of his mock-epic poem The Mundiad (Hunter Publishing, 2013). He teaches at the University of Melbourne.
Jennifer Compton lives in Melbourne and is a poet and playwright who also writes prose. Her book of poetry Barefoot (Picaro Press, 2010) was shortlisted for the John Bray Award, and This City (Otago University Press, 2011) won the Kathleen Grattan Award. Ungainly came out in 2012 with Mulla Mulla Press.
Nathan Curnow is an award-winning poet and past editor of Going Down Swinging. He was recently described by Martin Duwell as ‘a sort of poetic equivalent of Louis Theroux’. His books include No Other Life But This (Five Islands Press), The Ghost Poetry Project (Puncher & Wattmann) and RADAR (Walleah Press).
Sarah Day’s most recent book is Tempo (Puncher & Wattmann, 2013). Awards for her work include the Judith Wright Calanthe Queensland Premier’s Award, the Judith Wright ACT, the University of Melbourne Wesley Michelle Wright Prize and the Anne Elder Award. She lives in Hobart, where she teaches Year 12 creative writing.
Brett Dionysius was founding director of the Queensland Poetry Festival. His poetry has been widely published in literary journals, anthologies, newsp
apers and online. His eighth poetry collection, Weranga, was released in August 2013. He lives in Ipswich, Queensland, where he runs, watches birds, teaches English and writes sonnets.
Dan Disney has published poems, reviews, and essays on contemporary poetry and creativity in journals in Australia, Europe and Britain. His collection of poems, and then when the, was published by John Leonard Press in 2011. He teaches at Sogang University in Seoul, Korea, in the English literature program.
Eugene Dubnov was born in Tallinn, and educated at Moscow and London universities. Two collections of his poems in Russian came out in London; his verse and prose in English translation and written in English have appeared in many periodicals and anthologies. His recent poetry collection in English, The Thousand-Year Minutes, was published by Shoestring Press in 2013.
Laurie Duggan was born in Melbourne and has lived in Sydney, Canberra and Brisbane. In 2006 he moved to England, where he lives in a market town in East Kent. His most recent volumes are The Pursuit of Happiness (Shearsman, 2012) and The Collected Blue Hills (Puncher & Wattman, 2012).
Daniel East is an Australian writer currently working in Sydney. His work has appeared in Cordite, Mascara, Going Down Swinging, cutthroat, Contrappasso, Voiceworks, Red River Review and Verity La. He co-wrote Sexy Tales of Paleontology, which won the 2010 Sydney Fringe Comedy Award. Perhaps you’d like to follow his informal Tumblr, damnnearhysteria?
Will Eaves is the author of three novels, most recently This Is Paradise (2012), and a collection of poetry, Sound Houses (2011). He was arts editor of the Times Literary Supplement for many years and now teaches at the University of Warwick.
Ali Cobby Eckermann is a poet and memoirist. Her collections of verse include little bit long time (Australian Poetry Centre, 2010), Kami (Vagabond Press, 2010) and Love dreaming & other poems (Vagabond Press, 2012). Her two verse novels are His Father’s Eyes (Oxford University Press, 2011) and Ruby Moonlight (Magabala Books, 2012).
Stephen Edgar’s most recent collection is Eldershaw (Black Pepper). In 2012 The Red Sea: New and Selected Poems (Baskerville) was published in the US. A new collection, Exhibits of the Sun, is due out from Black Pepper in late 2013.