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A blog about books and writing, through rainbow-tinted glasses

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Tag: Poetry

Review: Nganajungu Yagu by Charmaine Papertalk Green

A beautiful, profoundly moving tribute to the relationship between mother and daughter.

Australian, Colonialism, Contemporary, Indigenous writers, Poetry

Review: Crow by Ted Hughes

A fascinating and ugly collection of poetry.

Poetry, Ted Hughes, UK

Review: Guillotine by Eduardo C. Corral

These are brutal, bruised poems, like desert storms, lit with lightning strokes of beauty.

LGBTIQ, Mexico, Migrants, Poetry, queer, US

Review: Rainforest by Eileen Chong

These are austere, still poems about the things embodied in words.

Australian, China, Poetry, Singapore

Review: The Lost Arabs by Omar Sakr

The Lost Arabs is a collection of cosmological, mystical poetry, a search for belonging and god in hell on earth.

Arabic writing, Australian, Colonialism, Middle East, Poetry

Review: Throat by Ellen van Neerven

Ellen van Neerven conjures magic from trauma in this fluid collection full of warmth and light.

Australian, Indigenous writers, Poetry

Review: The Tradition by Jericho Brown

The tradition is violation: of the land, of women, and especially black men’s bodies.

Contemporary, Poetry, Pulitzer, queer, US

Review: Blakwork by Alison Whittaker

Whittaker’s poetic language is urgent but timeless, vernacular but formally rigorous, totally unique.

Australian, Contemporary, Poetry

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“It's just the lottery of circumstance, a game she lost before she was even born. Lay down your arms, woman: this isn't a battle, it's a rout. And yet. And yet.”
Chinese writer Mo Yan won the 2012 Nobel Prize for his “hallucinatory realism”. That’s fully on display in this book about garlic farmers in 1980s China.
My fourth read from the #2021stellaprize shortlist is Evie Wyld’s forensic examination of misogyny in all its forms.
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