CONTRIBUTORS

Bev Braune

Dr Bev Braune is interested in practice-led research in poetry and theories of literature. She completed a Doctorate in Creative Arts (UOW, 1999) in the areas of Epic Poetry and Old Norse Poetry, its history, criticism and translations into English, with the first part of her poem Skulváði Úlfr. Her related areas of interest are reader theory and aesthetics. She brought out a book poems on the search for beauty entitled Camouflage. Excerpts of her thesis appeared in Cordite and other journals, such as Sulfur 44: Anglophone Poetry & Poetics Outside the US and UK and Salt 15: An ABC of Theory & Praxis.

Review Short: Jordie Albiston’s XIII Poems

Posted on July 22, 2014 by Bev Braune

XIII PoemsXIII Poems might be seen as a snapshot of what Albiston’s main concerns have been since Botany Bay Document (1996) appeared culminating with, I think, Vertigo (2007). Her publications since the mid-2000s reflect on similar concerns but with more biographical tones. Albiston’s main interests have been history, limitations or framed lives, their voices and interpretations of them, often using easily located words to tie groups of poems (‘heart,’ ‘black,’ and ‘white’ feature in XIII Poems).

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Essentially Human

Posted on February 1, 2014 by Bev Braune

In the Southern Highlands I think I’ve made a friend on the ground. She tells me the baby inside her has not moved. Her husband doesn’t know how not to smile anymore. The baby is dead but she does not …

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Bev Braune Reviews Kate Lilley

Posted on April 1, 2013 by Bev Braune

LadylikeKate Lilley’s second collection, Ladylike, is a tightly constructed and complex work on love and language. Reminding me of Welsh poet Gwyneth Lewis’ wry, poignant words concerned with Welsh language, use of English and meaning-frauds, Kate Lilley enlivens her readers to assumptions, contradictions and the various erections of judging behaviour that surround the definition of a woman today or in any recent age.

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The Geography Lesson

Posted on October 31, 2012 by Bev Braune

from Skulváði Úlfr: Legends Skulváði challenges Fossiker in ‘the simple game’1 to win a compass sought after by Sultans They faced the cups. They sowed. They winnowed. Four cards moved. They tilled. Amulets danced. Hunter drew. The Wolf dodged. Less …

Posted in 40.0: INTERLOCUTOR | Tagged

Supra-text Sequences

Posted on December 1, 2011 by Bev Braune

Image: A series of frames require me to shade some of the evenly-distributed sets-of-3, black or blank. How I apply notions of form (actual space) and appearance (virtual space) to my experience in the world is very much like my …

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So the story goes: Glámis, the bride

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Bev Braune

So the story goes: Glámis, the bride was a sad one when he was found by the tide veiled seaspray, dead urchins daughter of ambition, queen of blood sickened by the dark fate of her deepest love Sickened with herself. …

Posted in 31.1: POST-EPIC | Tagged

from Skulváði Úlfr: The Legend of the Son of Nadlan the Rus’

Posted on December 1, 2009 by Bev Braune

So the story goes: Glámis, the bride

Posted in 31.0: EPIC | Tagged

Bev Braune Reviews David Malouf

Posted on September 30, 2008 by Bev Braune

width=150 class=”alignleft” vspace=5 hspace=5 />Revolving Days: Selected Poems by David Malouf

University of Queensland Press, 2008

In the very appropriately titled Revolving Days, David Malouf has put together a selection of poems that addresses the past, place and its importance to self-definition, the memory of houses emptied of family and objects yet full of what's left behind and filling up the present. The poems exhibit a quality which, with political comments more subtle than Les Murray's and longings less romanticised than Robert Adamson's, declares that the places where the emotions taken from another world rendezvous are always present and clear in comprehending the discrepancy between place-and-mind and feeling-and-emotion.

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Concentrate on the Utensils’ Constructions

Posted on June 30, 2008 by Bev Braune

It is not uncommon to accept dinner invitations here. An evening with a Chinese ambassador, a Chef and a Snake Charmer is unexpected. The dates are closely timed. Each man wants me for himself. A tour bus arrives to cheer …

Posted in 28.0: SECRET CITIES | Tagged

Bev Braune Reviews Angela Gardner

Posted on March 17, 2008 by Bev Braune

Parts of Speech by Angela Gardner

University of Queensland Press, 2007

Angela Gardner's Parts of Speech shows what a substantial first book of poetry is all about. Gardner has responded, above all, to an ideal opportunity to show what excites her thoughts and propels her into action as a poet. Her ability to turn that initial energy into a form of words both excites and challenges the reader. In this regard, Gardner seems urged to speak about what small actions may be worth pursuing to maintain or re-create a natural and preferred order of events.

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Bev Braune reviews Peter Minter and Nathan Shepherdson

Posted on May 15, 2007 by Bev Braune

blue grass by Peter Minter

Salt Publishing, 2006

Sweeping the Light Back into the Mirror by Nathan Shepherdson

University of Queensland Press, 2006

Peter Minter's latest book blue grass and Nathan Shepherdson's début collection Sweeping the Light Back into the Mirror work with extraordinary images to convey the demands made on memory for accuracy in its language. Both poets set out, deliberately, to interrogate such a language and its subsets – naming, recognition, and the calculation and politics of categories. For while as writers and readers, we have limitations on the material claims we can make to increase emotional satisfaction in our lives, we have an unlimited capacity to request answers from what appears to be immaterial – the memory of words spoken by both loved ones in absentia and barely remembered friends. We not only demand these words, but also try to challenge their immateriality with concrete language.

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Bev Braune reviews Peter Boyle

Posted on October 12, 2004 by Bev Braune

Museum of space by Peter Boyle

University of Queensland Press, 2004

Peter Boyle strikes me as a poet who likes the air, much as Peter Minter likes water; Robert Adamson, leaves; Jordie Albiston, defined/confined spaces; John Tranter, lines or, rather, the lineage of the cursive. Boyle most reminds me of Robert Adamson with his gentle, probing style, his yearning approach to all that should be desirable–an understanding of ourselves in space and time, wherein we point all our limitations. In this context, Boyle holds his place very well as a watchful observer of the world (e.g. the wind, sunlight, birds, music, reflections, waves) and other writers (e.g. Rilke, Saint-John Perse, Jabès).

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