double feature in melbourne

Many thanks to Michael Farrell for organising this double feature. (Margaret and David both give it five stars.)

Double Poetry Feature: 2 Launches

Poetry International 7/8, to be launched by John Mateer, featuring readings by Martin Harrison, one of the issue’s editors.
Struggle and Radiance, a chapbook by Sydney poet Jill Jones and published by Irish press, Wild Honey, to be launched by Michael Farrell.

Venue: Collected Works Bookshop, First Floor Nicholas Bldg, 37 Swanston St, Melbourne
Time: Thursday 22 July, 5.30 for 6pm start
Free/ All welcome / Light refreshments

Further details of publications and writers follow.

Poetry International: double edition 7/8

A world selection of recent poetry in English, the current double edition of the Californian journal Poetry International (7/8) takes the idea of guest editing to dizzying heights. English language poets from Africa, the US, Canada, South East Asia, the Caribbean, the UK join company with a selection of contemporary Australian poetry and a selection of recent New Zealand poetry. Guest editor of the Australian section, poet Martin Harrison, invited thirteen contemporary Australian poets to contribute recent work to the double edition. What results is a moment of excitement, a glimpse of the enormous range of accomplished, future tending poetry being written in Australia.

The double edition is an extraordinary attempt to give an account of the ways the language is on the move around the world. Poets represented in this issue include John Ashbery, Gerald Stern, Ruth Stone, Kim Addonizio (U.S.) Kofi Anyidoho, Taban Lo Liyong, Lupenga Mphande (Africa), Agnes Lam, Edwin Thumboo, Cecil Rajenda, Alfian Saat (Asia), John Tranter, John Mateer, Jill Jones, Peter Minter, Martin Harrison, Jan Owen (Australia) Gary Geddes, Don McKay, Patrick Lane, Stephanie Bolster (Canada), Derek Walcott, Kamau Braithwaite, Pam Mordacai, Lorna Goodison (the Carribean) Jo Shapcott, Alan Jenkins, John Burnside, Mimi Khalvati (United Kingdom [edited by John Kinsella] ) Seamus Heaney, Michael Longley, Mary O'Connell, Peter Fallon (Ireland) John Geraets, Paula Green (New Zealand) and many, many others.

The Poetry International website has more information.

John Mateer is a poet and art-critic. He has published four books of poems in Australia, among them Barefoot Speech (which won the Victorian Premier's prize), and a number of chapbooks that have appeared in South Africa, Australia, Indonesia and - in translation - in Japan. His most recent publication is a work of non-fiction, Semar's Cave: an Indonesian Journal.

Martin Harrison is the author of The Distribution of Voice (University of Queensland Press 1993), The Kangaroo Farm (Paper Bark Press 1997) and most recently, Summer (Paper Bark Press 2001) which was shortlisted for a NSW Premier’s award and which won the Wesley Michel Wright award, and the inaugural Platform Papers essay, Our ABC. A Dying Culture? (Currency Press). He teaches poetry, poetics and writing at the University of Technology in Sydney. He has also been the recipient of various Australia Council fellowships, including residencies in Italy and the USA. He is now at work on a new collection of longer, narrative poems.

Struggle and Radiance: Ten Commentaries, is the latest publication by Jill Jones. It was published in Ireland by Wild Honey Press in 2004. See the Wild Honey Press website for further details of their publications.

Jill Jones won the Mary Gilmore Award for her first book of poetry, The Mask and the Jagged Star (Hazard Press). Her fourth book, Screens, Jets, Heaven: New and Selected Poems, published by Salt Publishing in 2002, won the 2003 Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize. She is currently involved in a number of collaborative projects. They include the DiVerse series of readings at galleries and museums in Sydney; c-side, a project of word and image live music slideshows by poets, photographers and DJs; as well as multimedia presentations with photographer, Annette Willis.

Michael Farrell’s ode ode (Salt) was published last year. He is the Australia editor of slope, and recently edited an Australian poetry feature for Gutcult. He teaches poetry when he gets the chance.

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