Australian Things
Penguin Books, 1990. 79 pp.
Here I took inspiration from Sei Shonagon, a 10th century Japanese poet, fond of making lists, such as in her famous Pillow book. I used it as an artisitic method of organising my own "lists" of observations and impressions made whilst travelling in Australia from 1983 to 1986. These resulting poems, set out in constrasting pairs, are "recursive" in structure, with the sense of the poem being derived from the constant interaction, in syntax and meaning, between the title and the linked images and thoughts which form the body of each poem.
Now out of print. Copies are still available from me.
Praise for Australian Things
"It's not just its innovative features of form and style. The landscape reoccupation is present, but in this
work there is satisfying integration of the natural, the rural, the urban, the social and the personal which
distinguishes it from the writing of many of his peers... Australian Things is one of the few books
by male poets to which I have returned several times, drawn by the pleasures and challenges of freshness,
orginality, and individuality, and by authenticity." -- Bev Roberts (ABC Radio National, 1 July
1990)
In manuscript form, this book was awarded joint second prize for book-length
collections of poetry in the Australian Bicentennial Literary Awards in 1988.