The latest issue of Australian Poetry Journal was curated by Stuart Barnes and Claire Gaskin, they selected a great collection focused on the idea of ‘local, attention’. Inside you’ll find some fantastic poems by poets like Jill Jones, Felicity Plunkett, Gavin Yuan, Ellen van Neervan, Rae White, Beth Spencer, Scott-Patrick Mitchell and heaps more.
I also love the APJ section – New Series, where a collection of commentators write about recently published poems. It’s a great way to encourage a bit of deep thinking about recent Australian poetry. In this issue you’ll find commentary about poets like LK Holt, Sara Saleh and Elsie Shiosaki.
You’ll also find my tiny poem – Fennel – it’s from a new batch of poems that will become my next collection. Here’s the opening:
Fennel
We stand, elbow-touching, thin-slicing fennel,
squeezing lemon. You use a potato peeler
to shave pieces of parmesan. This salad
has been working for days, years. I agitate
the oil and lemon. There’s a breeze coming
through the open window
Rico Craig 