INTERVIEWS
‘What would happen if Nature was given the chance to speak? How gentle would she really be?’ Sophie Finlay Interviews Megan Kaminski
Three sisters in the form of a conceit, branch from one another like the limbs of a tree. Three personifications of nature speak from the depths of allegory, rewriting themselves and in the process, reveal our entanglements with the more-than-human world.
‘The very act of our daily lives is resistance’: Andréa Ledding Interviews Marilyn Dumont
Marilyn Dumont is an accomplished writer and poet of Cree and Métis ancestry whose award-winning collections include A Really Good Brown Girl (1996) which received the 1997 Gerald Lampert Memorial Award.
‘Mix it with grit’: Claire Albrecht Interviews Jill Jones
Adelaide poet Jill Jones sits down 1,525.5 km from me, Claire Albrecht in Newcastle, to discuss her sparkling twelfth book A History of What I’ll Become.
‘It is a gift for you’: Danny Silva Soberano Interviews Manisha Anjali
In my mind, Manisha Anjali is most neatly described as a ‘poet’, though her body of work cannot be so neatly classified.
‘Multiple things at once’: Hana Pera Aoake Interviews Jackson Nieuwland
Jackson Nieuwland is a writer born and based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara, New Zealand. They studied writing at the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) at Victoria University, graduating in 2015.
Gin, Poetry, and Slaying the Devil: Joel M Toledo Interviews Lourd De Veyra
I caught up with award-winning writer and frontman of the jazz outfit Radioactive Sago Project as he prepares for the launch of his new book of poetry, Marka Demonyo.
Conjuring Merlín with an ‘í’: Shannon Maguire Interviews Erín Moure
Erín Moure is an internationally recognised, award-winning, poet and translator.
‘Chops and surrender’: Nam Le Interviews Jaya Savige
Jaya Savige was born in Sydney, raised on Bribie Island, and lives in London. Jaya has lived overseas since 2009, when he received a Gates Cambridge Scholarship to read for a PhD on James Joyce at the University of Cambridge (Christ’s College).
‘A way of breathing together’: Winnie Dunn Interviews Merlinda Bobis
Merlinda Bobis is a poet first and foremost but her extensive body of work has transpired across novels, plays, performances, essays, and works for radio. A single dialogue between us can in no way capture her incredible writing, which is …
On Presence, Defiance and Honesty: daniel ward Interviews CAConrad
CAConrad is the author of 9 books. Their most recent book JUPITER ALIGNMENT: (Soma)tic Poetry Rituals is forthcoming this year through Ignota Books. The rituals are explorations of ‘extreme presence’, in which they invite us to locate, access and utilise …
‘Desire’s temporality is going to be perverse’: Elena Betros López Interviews Lisa Robertson
Lisa Robertson and I were introduced through my dear friend Marnie Slater following an invitation by Autumn Royal to undertake an interview for Cordite Poetry Review. I felt the need to be completely transparent with Lisa in stating that I’m …
‘The amorphousness of meaning-making’: Elena Gomez Interviews Toby Fitch
I did write some poetry at school, just never with much intent.
‘To map the language I write in’: Jo Langdon Interviews Albena Todorova
Image courtesy of Albena Todorova Albena Todorova is a Bulgarian writer currently living and working in London. She is the author of three books of poetry: an award-winning self-published debut, poems (stihotvoreniya) (2014); Poems That Make You Want to Love …
‘Beware! This is not a real biography!’: Ali Alizadeh Interviews Jessica L Wilkinson
To many, biographies are a generic section in a bookshop which showcase – as this interview will discuss – a supposed element of ‘truth’. Suggestions of worthiness through platitudes such as ‘based on a true story’ or a ‘definitive biography …
‘A means of resistance’: Susie Anderson Interviews Alison Whittaker
Some writing teaches you possibility. Possibility in a number of ways: seeing yourself reflected in a body of work, echoing familiar words, places, or ideas; some writing is a lesson about form, or acts as an overall object to aspire to.
‘That is some crafty bite’: Trisha Pender Interviews Melinda Bufton
In her eagerly awaited second collection, Superette (Puncher & Wattman, 2018), Melinda Bufton delivers dramatically on the promise announced in her 2014 debut, Girlery (Inken Publisch, 2014).
‘You’re never disembodied from the action’: Dylan Frusher Interviews Judith Beveridge
Judith Beveridge is the author of six collections of poetry and throughout her writing life she has received multiple awards, including the Queensland Premier’s Literary Award, Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards and the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry.
‘The Rally Is Calling’: Dashiell Moore Interviews Lionel Fogarty
The poetry of Yoogum and Kudjela man, Lionel Fogarty, may be hard to follow, often distorting colloquial phrases or standardised grammar to retool the colonising English language into a form of resistance.
‘There is nothing more shared than language’: Carolyn DeCarlo Interviews Gregory Kan
Gregory Kan is a New Zealand poet and arts writer currently living in Wellington. He received an MA in Creative Writing from the International Institute of Modern Letters (IIML) at Victoria University in 2012, and was awarded the 2017 Grimshaw Sargeson Fellowship, during which he held a six-month tenure at the Sargeson Centre in Auckland.
‘Language can multiply itself and form secret and unusual patterns’: Andrew Pascoe Interviews Ania Walwicz
In it, she was putting the manuscript of her new book, Horse: A Psychodramatic Enactment of a Fairytale, into an oven at La Mama – where she had performed a few years’ prior. The book caught alight.
An Unwitting Pariah: Kathryn Hummel in Conversation with Kaiser Haq
At the close of his poem ‘Autumn Fragment’, Kaiser Haq asks: ‘Can one write / Verse that is free of ambiguity?’ A more pointed consideration for contemporary writers hailing from Bangladesh is whether perhaps one should.
‘We mirror what we see’: Holly Childs Interviews Cristine Brache
Cristine Brache is a Toronto-based poet and artist. Her work explores the nuanced power dynamics inherent in many of our relationships. Brache’s practice incorporates video, sculpture, poetry and a multitude of limited edition objects, prints, t-shirts and publications.
‘Refusing to be published, refusing even to perish’: Amelia Dale Interviews Ouyang Yu
Ouyang Yu, now based between Melbourne and Shanghai, came to Australia in mid-April 1991 and, by early 2018, has published 96 books of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, literary translation and literary criticism in English and Chinese. He also edits Australia’s only Chinese literary journal, Otherland.
‘Myth is not merely decorative’: Prithvi Varatharajan Interviews Michelle Cahill
The subject of my interview with Cahill is her second book of poems, Vishvarūpa, which is a highly unusual book by a contemporary Australian poet. In Vishvarūpa Cahill reanimates figures from ancient Hindu mythology.
