Rachael Briggs



20 Poets, a Free Anthology from Cordite Books

The geographic barriers that can, at times, hinder Australian literature are no longer relevant, and poetry communities around the world must be enlightened by the commanding, demanding and exciting trajectory of contemporary Australian poetics.

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Introduction to Rachael Briggs’s Common Sexual Fantasies, Ruined

Cover design by Zoë Sadokierski The polka originated in nineteenth-century Bohemia. A dance for two, it is reputedly simple to learn. Three steps and a hop, in fast duple time, with various steps – Turning Basic, Pursuit and Waltz Galop …

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Rachael Briggs Reviews Maxine Beneba Clarke

The blurb at the back of the book touts nothing here needs fixing as ‘a stunning attack on the pretentious white male gits who see poetry as an exalted profession to keep away from those who are loud, black, female, happy, or even in possession of lives outside poetry.’

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Linen Closet

The two men snarl across the sheets, a Babel tangle. He runs his tongue along the weird word of his body. He wraps his skin in moans behind a stack of towels, forgets his name, digs down to where delight …

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Review Short: Rachael Briggs’s Free Logic

Winner of the 2012 Thomas Shapcott Prize, Free Logic is the debut collection from poet and philosopher Rachael Briggs. The book is divided into nine sections, each poetically exploring themes of love, identity, and sexuality. Briggs infuses her poetic explorations with surreal allegories, moments of metamorphosis and a constant teasing of the ‘logical’, which allow for her poetry to forge an opening towards new possibilities. Briggs strikingly connects insightful fantasies with philosophical considerations.

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Review Short: Jackson’s Lemon Oil

The final poem in Lemon Oil, titled ‘The right metaphor’, combines the thesis of independence with the antithesis of loneliness to synthesise a new metaphor for love. Love, Jackson tells us, is not a chain, a cage, or a leash, but a long elastic cord that lets us fly free yet binds us to each other, ensuring that ‘there’s always/ a way home’. This tension between two desires (one for freedom, the other for closeness) is emblematic of the book as a whole.

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