This week’s spotlight once again shines on Peter Bakowski and Ken Bolton’s tandem collection Nearly Lunch, this time highlighting the poem ‘Selling Yourself’.
‘A spectrum of individuals, from the naive to the kind, caustic to the stoic, to those who suggest other ways of being – either hopeful, philosophical, grateful or resigned – pleased, though, all of them, that it’s NEARLY LUNCH.’ – Cover blurb
Working in the Wakefield bookstore, with hundreds of books laid out before me, I am often in the position to judge the books by their covers, searching for the most interesting looking ones to flick through and sometimes (often) buy. The cover image (shown above) was why I picked this particular book off the shelf, and I was surprised to find that Wakefield’s own Jonny Inverarity had designed it!
In this week’s poetry spotlight, I’ve chosen to feature ‘Farewell to a Colleague’ by Julian Zytnik.
Following this week’s announcement that Jelena Dinić has won the Mary Gilmore Award, it seems fitting we resume our Poetry Spotlight series by focusing on her startling debut collection.
The release of Trouble is My Business coincides perfectly with an exciting announcement from Sisters in Crime. Lisa’s first Olivia Grace mystery, The Girl with the Gold Bikini, has been shortlisted for two awards in this year’s Davitt Awards! Lisa has been shortlisted in both the YA and debut crime category.
Both Olivia Grace mysteries are set on the Gold Coast and in Byron Bay, where sunny facades hide deeper, darker stories. Read on for Lisa Walker’s thoughts about ‘sunshine noir’, and setting her teen detective novel on the sun-drenched east coast of Australia.
Fresh off the press, Nearly Lunch is another collaboration from these two poets, after their previous Elsewhere Variations (also published by Wakefield Press), which is a companion volume.
Award-winning poet Geoff Goodfellow is back with another vivid, affecting, laconically dark-witted collection that pulls no punches as it masterfully chronicles Australian life.
As always, Geoff delivers a series of brilliantly captured portraits of working-class life, from the street scenes of formerly industrial Port Adelaide and his home suburb of Semaphore, with its heightened blend of affluence and poverty, to his fearless inhabitations of teenagers beset by home lives that feature domestic violence and addiction.
These poems reflect on travel, on staying at home, on the passing of time, and on our afflicted world. Both tough and gentle, nostalgic and sharply political, Kenneally’s work is enlivened by flashes of gallows humour.
Launched by Jan Owen, and Emceed by Louise Nicholas, the launch was held on the beautiful grounds of St John’s church on Halifax Street, on a balmy evening befitting Helen’s gorgeous poems.
We are delighted to be publishing Jan Owen’s launch speech from the evening here for all to enjoy.
Relaxed and laconic, Live at Mr Jake’s riffs on a mix of highbrow and popular culture references. Accessible yet literary, this collection celebrates a diversity of voices from Australia and beyond. Spanning four continents, the poems are equally at home in the front bar as they are on the literary trail in Paris or San Francisco. Cool and understated, Brock surfs the cultural interstices of the Latin American influences on his life and work to create a poetic vision transpacific in scope.