This week’s poetry spotlight celebrates the latest collections (yes, that plural is intentional, there’s two!) from the delightful duo Ken Bolton and Peter Bakowski. Waldo’s Game and On Luck Street will be officially launched into the world on November 4 (Adelaide) and November 8 (Melbourne).

On the back covers of Waldo’s Game and On Luck Street Millie Dickins gives these endorsements:

‘True, pithy—and curiously groovy’ (Waldo’s Game)

‘True, slyly pithy—and trenchant to the max’ (On Luck Street)

These quotes perfectly match the tone of Ken and Peter’s work – funny, slightly absurd and entirely unpretentious. Like their previous books The Elsewhere Variations and Nearly Lunch, Peter and Ken collaborated based off a ‘call and response’ method, excavating the subconscious to see what patterns and themes emerge. The resulting poems are deep and light at once; a myriad of figures in often banal situations contemplate art, pop-culture and the daily grind. It may feel at first that someone or something is being mocked, until you get a line that moves you unexpectedly. There is empathy in the parody.

The openness of each poem speaks to the next. Like a chain they depend on each other as parts of a narrative, offering both the escapism of a story and the mystery of a poem. You get the sense that Ken and Peter have as much fun writing these poems as I (and you will) have reading them.

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