Poetry

The 56 prose-poems that make up this collection explore provinces of the self – time and the allure of memory, the mosaics and masks of identity, fantasy’s realms, eros and the affections, the will to imagination, our shifting perspectives on ‘reality’. The autographs vary in tone and texture, colour and pulse; some resemble miniature stories, others are freely autobiographical, while others again present strange tableaux, searching meditations, or introduce a named, presumably fictitious protagonist.

In this bilingual autobiographical collection, the poet celebrates different kinds of survival: the Holocaust; displacement; breast cancer. Through poetry, she has been able to transform these experiences, to make peace with them. That ‘wakefulness’ which is the legacy of ever-present danger is also a source of inspiration. Nevertheless, the poems sound a warning to those who overestimate the resilience of children: these early experiences of trauma will never be erased.

One side of each double-page spread is a painting of groupings of animals, which Raffaella Torresan has drawn skilfully and painted in pastel delicately, On the other side of each double-page spread is a poem relating to that animal by Australian poets of the calibre of Les Murray, Patrick McAuley, Alex Skovron, Kevin Brophy, Bruce Dawe, Merv Lilley, and Barry Dickins.

Li Qingzhao is the most famous female poet in Chinese history. She lived almost a thousand years ago during turbulent times in the Song dynasty.

Li Yu was the last ruler of the tenth century Chinese kingdom known as the Southern Tang. The author comments:  “This book contains my translations of, and musings about, the surviving poetry of the ruler of an area of China during the confused period between the collapse of the Tang dynasty in 907 and the re-unification of the country under the Song in 960 …

“Stop words are those words which are so common that they are useless to index or use in search engines or other search indexes,” says Wikipedia. 

Regardless, the poet deftly uses these useful words to make meaning of our lives. Each poem uses a stop word as a point of poetic departure, around which he sews a context, impressionistically, sketchily, pencilling a mood, a feeling, tension between the sexes. Relationships are at the heart of his poems, love, death, time, the possible, the impossible, the probable, the emotive, in short sensibilities.

"If warmth and wisdom are the two dominant qualities of this book, it is the voice of the poems which makes them so attractive." Brook Emery, Mascara Literary Review http://tiny.cc/kbbau

‘My poems’ meaning reads like open palms …’

Nora Krouk writes of ardour, intimacy and pain in great age with wit and spontaneity. Her candour and the idiosyncratic rhythm and lineation of her verse contribute a strong and different voice to Australian poetry. She writes through a prismatic cultural perspective and with unremitting honesty of what it is to love and lose love at 90. Her technique and the tenor of this work make it powerful and haunting. Anna Kerdijk Nicholson

Read another review on Whispering Gums: 
http://whisperinggums.wordpress.com/2011/10/21/nora-krouk-warming-the-core-of-things/

White Lines (Vertical) is a new collection of poetry by Marcelle Freiman. These moving poems highlight the poet's sensibility towards the complex, varied facets of identity and her perceptions of the world.