Publications
LOVE POEMS
Latest from Kardoorair Press: Love Poems.
(Cover photo by Will Sturgess)
The launch of Love Poems in Berry, NSW.
Media release
Kardoorair Press publishes Mortifications & Lies
ISBN 0 908244 70 6 64 pp RRP $20
Mortifications & Lies is a book long-awaited for those who have heard these poems read or performed. The poem 'Lies' (under its earlier name 'Yarmul') was first performed in the Queensland Art Gallery after winning the Premier's Award; '&' was first performed in Tasmania and later was runner up for the Sub Versive prize in Queensland and was later performed in venues all around the country. While 'Lies' talks about dispossession and the nature of belonging to country, '&' is an anti-war poem for our times. Both of these poems deal with imperialism Ð cultural and otherwise, with wars past and present, and with the nature of truth. The poem 'country' was written last (though it appears first in the collection) and talks explicitly about the conundrum of place and heritage in Australia. These three poems make up this powerful collection.
As the blurb says, 'Ambitious, outrageous, formal in overall structure, often wild and argumentative by the line, the three poems in this book talk about a person's physical and ethical place in the world: truth and country.'
Of the three poems, '&' is the most directly challenging. The long lines and the cumulative images are demanding of the reader. Everyone is examined, no one escapes in this attempt to illuminate the source of the unethical and shameful situation the world finds itself in. It's powerful, abrasive but at its heart, passionate and formal. The poem is in seven movements each with its own defining formal shape and discipline.
'country' and 'Lies' directly consider the question of country and identity. The poem 'country' introduces the voice of the book and lays out the contradictions of being human and wanting country when your heritage is mixed. 'Lies' closes the book with a long meditation as Mansell experiences the country where her father was born: the encounters she has there and the dislocation of a person who has no ground, no place, where their roots extend deep and long.
Kardoorair has existed in some form for several decades and has recently added education texts; socio/political writings; memoirs; novellas and biography to its core activity: the poetry list.
For reviews and criticism go to Analysis + Reviews
Publications in brief
Poetry and prose fictionBooks of poetry
Love Poems (Kardoorair, 2006)Mortifications & Lies 2005 (Kardoorair)
Fickle Brat (IP Digital, Brisbane, 2002)
Stalking the Rainbow (PressPress, 2002)
Day Easy Sunlight Fine in Hot Collation (Penguin, Melbourne, 1995)
Shining Like a Jinx (Amelia, Calif., USA, 1992)
Redshift/Blueshift (Five Islands Press, Wollongong, 1988)
Head, Heart & Stone (Fling Poetry, Melbourne, 1982)
Small collections/pamphlets of poetry &/or prose
poem about the road (2004), [five n twenty] (2004), Fantasy suite (2000), honey honey (1999), On Edge (1998), the other river (1998), Death of a poet (1988), Being there at the birth (1998), Epitaphs (1998), Words on Words (1998), The event horizon (1992), On the railway near the sea (1992), Zoom poems (1988), Taking heart (1987), Delta (1978)
Recorded
Cafe Sun (new media poems)(forthcoming) (IP Digital, Brisbane) Mortifications & Lies (audio)(forthcoming) (IP Digital, Brisbane) The Fickle Brat (Audio + Text) (IP Digital, Brisbane, 2002)
CD from Wollongong Voices, includes 'The Final Vinyl'
LitLink One: readings by writers from across NSW
Raptors Blue Audio cassette (Well Sprung Productions, Sydney, 1989) with music by Rob Cousins
Children's Books
Little Wombat (New Holland, Sydney, 1996)
In major anthologies
Australian verse from 1805: a continuum ed. Geoffrey Dutton (Currey O'Neil Ross, 1984)
Best Australian Poems 2005 ed. Les Murray (Black Inc Books, 2005)
Best Australian Short Stories 2005 ed. Frank Moorhouse (Black Inc Books, 2005)
Contemporary Australian Poetry: an anthology ed. John Leonard (Houghton Mifflin Australia, October, 1990)
Off the Record ed. PiO (Penguin, Melbourne, 1985)
Influence ed. Peter Skrzynecki (Transworld, Sydney, 1997)
The Oxford Book of Australian Light Verse selected by R. F. Brissenden and Philip Grundy (Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1991)
The Oxford Book of Australian Love Poetry ed. Jennifer Strauss (Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1993)
The Oxford Book of Modern Australian Verse ed. Peter Porter (Oxford University Press, Melbourne, 1997)
The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets ed. Kate Llewellyn and Susan Hampton (Penguin Australia, Melbourne, 1986)
The Sting in the Wattle: Australian Satirical Verse ed. Philip Neilsen (University of Queensland Press, 1993)
Virago Book of Wicked Verse ed. Jill Dawson (Virago Press, UK, 1992)
Other collections of poetry or prose
101 poems to help you understand men (and women) ed. Daisy Goodwin (HarperCollins Publishers, London, 2002)
Anthology of the Illawarra, ed. Ron Pretty (Five Islands Press, 1994)
Blithe Parrot (Cockatoo Coop, 1982)
A book to perform poems by ed. Rory Harris and Peter McFarlane (Australian Association for the Teaching of English, 1985)
Cold collation (Cockatoo Coop, 1984)
Eat the Ocean ed. Lizz Murphy (Literary Mouse Press, Perth, 1997)
The Last Poet's Choice ed. P. Roberts (Island Press, Sydney, 1979)
Minute to Midnight: New Writing for Peace and Disarmament ed. Christopher Kelen, Anna Couani et al. (Red Spark Press, 1985)
On the line (Cockatoo Coop, Sydney, 1985)
Outlook: An Anthology of Australian Poetry for Senior Secondary Students ed. R. Pretty (Longman Cheshire, 1992)
Outrider: a Year of Australian Literature 90 ed. Manfred Jurgensen (Outrider/Phoenix Publications, 1990)
Repression anthology eds Sue Moss & Karen Witek Knight
She's a train and she dangerous: Women alone in the 1990s ed. Lizz Murphy (Literary Mouse Press, Perth, 1994)
The Song in Your Head: A Way to Write and Read Poetry ed John Foulcher (Rigby Heinemann)
Sustaining the Earth: An Anthology of Green Poems in English, ed Hedwig Hinzmann & Norbert Platz (Volker Lopau, Germany, 1996)
Up from Below: Poems of the 1980s ed. I. Coates et al. (Redress Press, 1987)0
Voices of the Downs ed. Kate Fawns and Angelica Fremd-Wiese (Writers at Work, Toowoomba 1994)
Installations
'Split' (poem) included in Community Prayer Wheel installation (Wallace Burns) May 1997
And other poems, stories and articles in print and electronic journals.