- 114: NO THEME 13with J Toledo & C Tse 113: INVISIBLE WALLSwith A Walker & D Disney 112: TREATwith T Dearborn 111: BABYwith S Deo & L Ferney 110: POP!with Z Frost & B Jessen 109: NO THEME 12with C Maling & N Rhook 108: DEDICATIONwith L Patterson & L Garcia-Dolnik 107: LIMINALwith B Li 106: OPENwith C Lowe & J Langdon 105: NO THEME 11with E Grills & E Stewart 104: KINwith E Shiosaki 103: AMBLEwith E Gomez and S Gory 102: GAMEwith R Green and J Maxwell 101: NO THEME 10with J Kinsella and J Leanne 100: BROWNFACE with W S Dunn 99: SINGAPOREwith J Ip and A Pang 97 & 98: PROPAGANDAwith M Breeze and S Groth 96: NO THEME IXwith M Gill and J Thayil 95: EARTHwith M Takolander 94: BAYTwith Z Hashem Beck 93: PEACHwith L Van, G Mouratidis, L Toong 92: NO THEME VIIIwith C Gaskin 91: MONSTERwith N Curnow 90: AFRICAN DIASPORAwith S Umar 89: DOMESTICwith N Harkin 88: TRANSQUEERwith S Barnes and Q Eades 87: DIFFICULTwith O Schwartz & H Isemonger 86: NO THEME VIIwith L Gorton 85: PHILIPPINESwith Mookie L and S Lua 84: SUBURBIAwith L Brown and N O'Reilly 83: MATHEMATICSwith F Hile 82: LANDwith J Stuart and J Gibian 81: NEW CARIBBEANwith V Lucien 80: NO THEME VIwith J Beveridge 57.1: EKPHRASTICwith C Atherton and P Hetherington 57: CONFESSIONwith K Glastonbury 56: EXPLODE with D Disney 55.1: DALIT / INDIGENOUSwith M Chakraborty and K MacCarter 55: FUTURE MACHINES with Bella Li 54: NO THEME V with F Wright and O Sakr 53.0: THE END with P Brown 52.0: TOIL with C Jenkins 51.1: UMAMI with L Davies and Lifted Brow 51.0: TRANSTASMAN with B Cassidy 50.0: NO THEME IV with J Tranter 49.1: A BRITISH / IRISH with M Hall and S Seita 49.0: OBSOLETE with T Ryan 48.1: CANADA with K MacCarter and S Rhodes 48.0: CONSTRAINT with C Wakeling 47.0: COLLABORATION with L Armand and H Lambert 46.1: MELBOURNE with M Farrell 46.0: NO THEME III with F Plunkett 45.0: SILENCE with J Owen 44.0: GONDWANALAND with D Motion 43.1: PUMPKIN with K MacCarter 43.0: MASQUE with A Vickery 42.0: NO THEME II with G Ryan 41.1: RATBAGGERY with D Hose 41.0: TRANSPACIFIC with J Rowe and M Nardone 40.1: INDONESIA with K MacCarter 40.0: INTERLOCUTOR with L Hart 39.1: GIBBERBIRD with S Gory 39.0: JACKPOT! with S Wagan Watson 38.0: SYDNEY with A Lorange 37.1: NEBRASKA with S Whalen 37.0: NO THEME! with A Wearne 36.0: ELECTRONICA with J Jones
Jennifer Compton
Jennifer Compton Reviews Peter Boyle and Izzy Roberts-Orr
First, I salute Vagabond Press – its progenitors, its long-time toilers in the vineyard of poetry, its patrons, its cheer squad, and those who work in the shadows. Any small press, surely, is a hub of more-or-less willing volunteers. It is very expensive, in all sorts of ways, to make a book. Count the cost. But year after year after year, since 1999, Vagabond Press has been turning aside from the multifarious, ever-present griefs of the world, and privileging poetry.
Posted in BOOK REVIEWS
Tagged Izzy Roberts-Orr, Jennifer Compton, Peter Boyle
Your Common Or Garden Mint
Beg a few inches of the white root and put it almost anywhere. It is forgiving. Clings on. Goes underground if conditions are extreme. Twines and twines and twines inside a pot. Throws out runners if unchecked and seems to …
Posted in 112: TREAT
Tagged Jennifer Compton
Jennifer Compton Reviews Sarah Holland-Batt and Gavin Yuan Gao
Both of these considerable books, The Jaguar by Sarah Holland-Batt and At the Altar of Touch by Gavin Yuan Gao, arrived into my hands, out of their padded envelope, with all of the gravitas of prize-winners. They are, both of them, winning books—they shine with sincerity and reach and craft—and they won me over with minimal resistance on my part.
Posted in BOOK REVIEWS
Tagged Gavin Yuan Gao, Jennifer Compton, Sarah-Holland-Batt
Another View
Landscape and jacaranda — Grace Cossington Smith Is she sitting? Or is she standing? In the open air. No, she is sitting. Her eyeline lifts towards the flowering. The sun is behind her but I cannot see her shadow on …
Posted in 96: NO THEME IX
Tagged Jennifer Compton
Under the House
I would put on dress-ups and run around our house singing. You could run right the way around our house. I would run, a little bit skippingly, with draggle skirts and shawls awry. And the song I would sing was …
Posted in 95: EARTH
Tagged Jennifer Compton
Andy Jackson Reviews Solid Air: Australian and New Zealand Spoken Word
Is an anthology greater than the sum of its parts? Does it effectively capture its milieu? Who’s been included, who left out? Is it genuinely of the moment? Will it endure?
Posted in BOOK REVIEWS
Tagged Amanda Stewart, Anahera Gildea, Andy Jackson, Ania Walwicz, Anne-Marie Te Whiu, Arielle Cottingham, Behrouz Boochani, Claire G Coleman, David Stavanger, eddy burger, Emily Crocker, Evelyn Araluen, Grace Taylor, Hani Abdile, ian mcbryde, Jennifer Compton, Ken Arkind, Lionel Fogarty, Pi O, Quan Yeomans, Rhyan Clapham, Sean O’Callaghan, Te Kahu Rolleston
Review Short: Jennifer Compton’s Now You Shall Know
Jennifer Compton’s ear and predilection for the colloquial is one of the threads linking the poems in this latest collection of apparently autobiographical works. Poems further cohere around irony, sometimes translating as humour.
Posted in BOOK REVIEWS
Tagged Jennifer Compton, Julie Maclean
Ex-Yugo
All the good songs come from the men leaning on staves – watching sheep graze on a field without fences. So I am told. In this country they dry hay on this sort of wooden rack – and in that …
Posted in 33: PASTORAL
Tagged Jennifer Compton
Open City
Like breathing out forever we announce our imminent absence. The oracle told each of us at the same time in a specific voice that the great conversation of armed rhetoric and counter-attack that the flags and insignia, the fine, high …
Posted in 31: SECRET CITIES
Tagged Jennifer Compton
The Woman of Rome
La Romana. By Alberto Moravia. I read it at 13 snugged up in bed in my aunt's house in Kilbirnie – having rejected my own home in Rongotai. For the usual reasons. One hand on my mons veneris eyebrows approaching …
Posted in 28: INNOCENCE
Tagged Jennifer Compton
The Devil His Due
The Professor of Philosophy with sad black holes in his head riffs the collective consciousness in the Cafe of Hopeful Poets she is negatively charged her hair writhes she is smoking seething she reefs in her bitter tongue with the …
Posted in 06: NEW POETRY
Tagged Jennifer Compton
Safe House
for David Quinlivan and the Wingello Rural Fire Brigade caught in the fire near Johnstones Creek on New Years Day Turn this house inside out braced and joisted by a man with a builder’s smile he hummed as he worked …
Posted in 04: UNTHEMED
Tagged Jennifer Compton
In the Worst Way
I want to sniff your armpits arsehole: I want to lick your toes until they clench & writhe: I want to nibble buttocks: strive against your tautened breasts: sink teeth into your clattering eyes: sing on a note of garbled …
Posted in 03: NEXT WAVE
Tagged Jennifer Compton
Dear Les,
I think you ought to write a poem BUSH POET AT DEATH’S DOOR. I wonder what death’s door looks like. I’ve been there, in fact stepped through it – to be precise in an ambulance stopped at the red lights …
Posted in 01: UNTHEMED
Tagged Jennifer Compton
