The Best Australian Poems 2013

The Best Australian Poems #11

by Lisa Gorton (Editor), Les Murray, David Malouf

'What characterises Australian poetry now is its variousness ... Here are collage poems with a confessional impulse, short short stories, late surrealist couplets, poems that weave satire and lyric together, fragmentary essays in epistles, metaphysical pastorals, epic narratives glimpsed through keyhole lyrics, and lyrics that explode the idea of what a lyric can say, and be.' -Lisa Gorton

This engaging collection presents the outstanding Australian poems of the last year - a fascinating array of voices and styles, subjects and moods. Including many of Australia's most admired literary figures as well as exciting newcomers, The Best Australian Poems 2013 celebrates the wonder and diversity of language.

Poets include: Les Murray, Judith Beveridge, Dan Disney, Ann Vickery, David Malouf, Michael Brennan, John Kinsella, Maria Takolander, Pam Brown, David Musgrave, Mandy Sayer, John Tranter, Tracy Ryan, Kate Middleton, Robert Adamson, Vivian Smith, Clive James, Ouyang Yu, Lachlan Brown, Gig Ryan, Kate Lilley, Joanne Burns, L. K. Holt, Jill Jones, Chris Wallace-Crabbe and many more ...

Lisa Gorton's first poetry collection, Press Release, was shortlisted for the Melbourne Prize Best Writing Award and the Mary Gilmore Poetry Prize, and was awarded the Victorian Premier's Prize for poetry. She has also been awarded the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize. This year her second poetry collection, Hotel Hyperion, will be published by Giramondo and her novel, Establishment, will be published by Scribe.

Genres: Poetry

240 pages, Kindle Edition

First published November 2, 2013

About the author

Lisa Gorton lives in Melbourne. Her first poetry collection, Press Release, was shortlisted for the Melbourne Prize Best Writing Award and the Mary Gilmore Award, and won the Victorian Premier’s Prize for Poetry. Lisa completed a doctorate at Oxford University on John Donne’s poetry and prose, winning the John Donne Society Award for Best Publication in Donne Studies. She received the inaugural Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize. Her novel for children, Cloudland, was one of The Age Books of the Year in 2009.

Reviews

[Dale Harcombe · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was so looking forward to reading this collection. Perhaps it was partly the problem that I had such high expectations, that in the end I was a little disappointed. There are some very well known poets represented and other names that are not as familiar to me. I also thought there were some well known poets not represented at all and wondered at that.
Some poems I liked in order of how they appear in the book were: At Lerici, Chimney, Dawn, Dust, from Ephemeral Waters, Five Abstractions of Blue, Little Book of Mourning, Meeting with the Same River., Ochre, Sorrowful, The Slide, Under the Radar, Watching How a Rain Front Stops, When You Showed Me the Stars, Women in Classical Love Poems . Others I read and either felt unaffected or was left scratching my head. As with any anthology there are always going to be poems that don’t strike a chord with some readers. So, in the end this is a good collection but just not as good as I was expecting. Maybe when I read it again I will find other poems that appeal.

[Highlyeccentric · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was good, and many of the poems were good - but I found the A-Z by title organisation offputting and lazy. My engagement with this book dropped drastically when I finished my Poem a day for 2013 project, but that does not mean I didn't enjoy it all the same.

[Romilly Gia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Favourites included "Darkness Speaks", "The God of Bone and Antler", "To Drag the Saints back from Heaven" and "Women in Classical Chinese Love Poems".