Description
Congratulations to Alex Skovron for winning the Patrick White Award 2023! Rea
d more: https://tinyurl.com/2jaf8n4s
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.
Of especial interest to the author are the poetic dimensions and musical possibilities of prose. While the order of the pieces across the book’s three sections has been carefully plotted, they all stand as self-contained compositions linked, sometimes, by recurring motifs and echoes from one voice to another. Autographs is a book of many voices – and of the many signatures that underwrite our times.
“Skovron’s poetry is intelligent, witty, erudite, inventive, versatile in both subject and execution … the way his poems yield their many perceptions and positions so keenly, and with such virtuosity, is immensely impressive.” –Judish Beverage, writing about A Sweeping Range. See the full review here.
