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.

“Moments of lyrical beauty, song and poignancy sit side by side with portraits of suffering, anger and loss.

Reflections on Country, family and nurturing culture are measured by the harrow of colonisation, mining and fear. Saunders' poems are knots of memory and resilience, expressions of survival and richness.

Above all, and especially in her remarkable poems about musicians and painters, she reminds us that her art is first and foremost a deeply human utterance, to be spoken, heard and shared.”
   Peter Minter

A selection of short stories, articles and poetry written by the author over a period of 30 years, many previously published in newspapers, magazines, and journals, and are here collected in book form for the first time. The stories examine the relationships between often-predatory men and the women they lovelessly and manipulatively use. 

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.

The Otherness of Words is a collection of poetry written over a period of forty years. Selected from twelve separate collections as well as more recent poems, they offer an insight into the development of a poet whose voice is strikingly different from that of most other Australian writers. Its central preoccupation is a search for identity and the quest for redemption. 

To hear Manfred in conversation with Richard Fidler on Monday 4 February 2013 click here

Through an immigrant's eyes: Late Night Live with Phillip Adams 5 February 2013 listen here