Despite (and perhaps at times, because of) the anger and rejection, Ouyang Yu’s voice has become a quintessentially Australian voice. We are almost all migrants, and most people have felt the kind of self and societal alienation that many of these poems touch on. This deep-seated irony is obvious enough to add power even to those poems that anchor themselves in silliness.
Tag: poetry
A review of Broken Land by Coral Hull
This is very powerful, and more so because it doesn’t rely on appealing to the reader’s intellectual sense of right or wrong. It is about pain and beauty, about loss and longing, and the full loss of life is as…
Interrogations at Noon by Dana Gioia
The variety and range is considerable with such a brief collection. I found myself unable to complete the reading process when I reached the last poem in the book and went back to the beginning to reread some of the…
A review of The Burial at Thebes by Seamus Heaney
The difference is startling but the poetry is unmistakable and convincing in its authenticity. But may it be the authenticity of Heaney rather than of Sophocles? Reviewed by Bob Williams The Burial at Thebes by Seamus Heaney Faber and Faber…
A review of The Gods of Winter by Dana Gioia
Poetry is not popular, perhaps because unlike fiction it demands a reader capable of giving all of his or her attention to the text. Dana Gioia’s own book (Can Poetry Matter?) is the best examination of the problems that poets…
A review of Nosferatu by by Dana Gioia
The poetic needs of a libretto can be reduced to very few. The words assist the music and are absorbed into it. Music must bolster up the more pedestrian passages but needs effective words to support dramatic action and vivid…
A review of The Body’s Question: Poems by Tracy K. Smith
Her poems are unpretentious, intelligent and consistently arresting by their beauty and their honesty. This is another triumph for Graywolf Press which seems unable to publish any but distinguished books. Reviewed by Bob Williams The Body’s Question by Tracy K.…
A review of Can Poetry Matter By Dana Gioia
The reader will not need to agree with Gioia to enjoy this book. It constitutes by the nature of its subject a wandering into both the unknown and the unknowable. But Gioia seldom goes so far into speculation that he…
A review of Poet Power by Thomas A Williams
If you are hording your masterpieces in a desk draw, hoping, like Emily Dickenson, to be discovered after your death, you may be doing the world a disservice. If you think that getting your poetry published is an impossible task,…
A review of All I Ever Wanted Was A Window by John West
The poems in John West’s fourth collection of poetry are strong, stark, and filled with a very ordinary ennui and pain that most readers will be able to relate to. At 61 pages, this slim volume contains an equal number…