Articles & Reviews

Like many people, I have opinions. Sometimes I get the chance to share those opinions with other people using the futuristic medium of the internet. Thus are my thoughts on things like comics and poetry projected far and wide for others to experience. Because it always helps to know what other people think about the things that you like to read, right? Then read on!

Book reviews || Articles || Comic reviews

Book reviews

Tom Doig: Hazelwood (via The Saturday Paper)
“When Doig spent 24 hours in Morwell during the fire, he developed headaches and started coughing up blood.”

John Kinsella: Hollow Earth (via The Saturday Paper)
“Kinsella’s dystopian spin on these tropes is certainly clever and truthful, but its nihilism may ultimately frustrate its readers, even those sympathetic to its concerns.”

Benjamin Gilmour: The Gap (via The Saturday Paper)
“It’s a rare memoirist who has the skill to take their everyday life and use it to create a strong narrative arc with a pleasing balance between text and subtext.”

Rae White: Milk Teeth & Anders Vilani: Aril Wire (via cordite)
“The debut collections of Brisbane-based Rae White and Melbourne-based Anders Villani are the work of people with honed and confident voices.”

Lawrence Ferlinghetti: little boy (via The Saturday Paper)
“…largely written in breathless free-associative prose with next to no punctuation. Paragraphs run for anywhere between three and 16 pages.”

Kristen Roupenian: You Know You Want This (via The Saturday Paper)
“Roupenian has a great ability to fill her characters’ internal monologues with anxiety, pointed self-doubt and barely adequate self-justification.”

Jasmin B. Frelih: In/Half (via The Saturday Paper)
“…chaos, mimetic or otherwise, is, for many people, something to be endured rather than enjoyed.”

Ada Limon: Bright Dead Things (via Bookslut)
“Limón’s poetry shares its stories and observations with a whispered honesty that commands attention. Her voice is as natural as a shared conversation, beguiling with a musicality that belies the weight of its revelations.”

Averil Curdy: Song And Error (via Bookslut)
“To her credit it doesn’t feel like Curdy is dabbling in fifty-cent words for their own sake. Their use is exact and sparing, just enough to give her writing an indicative tone that demonstrates her poetic leanings toward the classical.”

Thirty Australian Poets edited by Felicity Plunkett (via cordite)
“…if you’re happy with a slight caveat, Thirty Australian Poets (Who Mostly Write for the Page and Who Have Been Around Long Enough to Develop Both A Body of Work and The Networks to Get Said Body of Work Published) is a good and broad selection of contemporary Australian poets from within its openly established parameters.”

Fiona Wright: Knuckled (via cordite)
“This is a poetry charged with image and emotion that leaves enough unsaid to allow the reader their own responses, but which is detailed enough to be unambiguous.”

Alan Wearne: The Australian Popular Songbook (via cordite)
“It’s surprising, then, how hard it is to understand the poems in Alan Wearne’s latest collection…”

Articles

The Secret Origin of Poem: Spaceknight (via From the Earth to the Stars)
“Why not write some poems about these comics? I thought. Why not write one poem in response to each?  That might be fun.“

Should I switch from phone to camera toy photography? (via Toy Photographers)
“I’m curious about what it might take to transition from being a phone-only photographer to one of those adepts who chats casually about shutter speed and swaps out a lens without looking.”

Why I am a Toy Photographer (via Toy Photographers)
“Some toy photographers are photographers first. The toys come second. For me, the toys came first.”

Australian podcasting’s state of play (paywall) (via screenhub)
“Today’s podcasting landscape is rich and deep. Even as the technology that gave its name to the form continues to decline in sales, podcasts are on the rise.”

Who’s Looking Out for Male Writers? (via Overland)
“When I first heard about this all-men anthology, I thought it was a joke.”

How to Scam a Readathon (and a Promise Not To) (via Just Read)
“I started out okay, but after reading a few books I got worried I wasn’t going to end up reading as much as I’d hoped, so I got a little creative with my record-keeping.”

One Weird Reason to Quit Your Novel Today (via Writers Bloc)
“‘Novelist’ is what people assume you mean when you say ‘I’m a writer’. Not ‘poet’.”

My First Job (via Writers Bloc)
“One of the things to consider when looking around for a job that’s going to pay your bills to make up for the fact that your writing doesn’t…”

Zoning Out (via Writers Bloc)
“My last piece was a faux-sonnet that stole half of its lines from a Bert and Ernie bit from Sesame Street and ended with a hand-drawn picture of a rhinoceros. He loved it.”

Comic Reviews

Dare by Grant Morrison and Rian Hughes (via popimage)
“This is a nice little morality tale, and even though its forceful anti-Tory stance may date it somewhat, the broad strokes of its message still come across clearly.”

The Deep: Here Be Dragons by Tom Taylor and James Brouwer (via Australian Comics Journal)
“Finally, a comic that sounded like it was going to tackle undersea adventure in a real and scientific way. Little did I know.”

Eightball #23 – “The Death Ray!” by Dan Clowes (via popimage)
“…an eye-catching delight, a symphony of experimental techniques in terms of colour, dialogue, pacing and even panel composition.”

Kramer’s Ergot #4 (via popimage)
“These comic artists understand the importance of story-telling and have explored the possibilities of narrative as much as they have the possibilities of drawing.”

Lucifer: The Devil in the Gateway by Mike Carey, Scott Hampton, Chris Weston & James Hodgkins, Warren Pleece & Dean Ormston (via popimage)
“There are difficulties inherent in treating mythology as you would a soap opera.”

Mysterious Suspense #1 by Steve Ditko  (via popimage)
“As such, this is not so much a fast-moving action story as it is a dialogue-heavy morality play.”

Police Comics #1 by Jack Cole, Will Eisner and others (via popimage)
“Look back at 1941 and you’ll discover a time when comics were just for kids. As long as the kids were interested in poor drawing and inexplicable stories, that is.”