Pumped for Poetry: 8 New Collections We Can't Wait to Read in 2023
Let it be known: 2023 is set to be a fantastic year for poetry, if these recent and forthcoming Aussie-side releases are anything to go by! As ever, this is barely scratching the surface, and there are plenty more excellent titles set to be published later in the year (look out for a part two!).
I am late to the party with some of the collections featured on this list, but the good news is that they’re already published, ready and waiting for you to get your sticky mitts on them.
Enjoy!
Hate Poems by Natalie Mariko
Published: January 2023, by No More Poetry
Hate Poems is the debut anthology from Berlin-based writer Natalie Mariko, and if the title alone doesn’t snare you, the description of what’s contained within certainly will. Mariko advises about the collection, “It is a book of poems that invites the reader to observe language within what they already know and understand how there might be something worth exploring within what you call your every day.” Bold, observant, and “exploding in rhythmic and prosodic pleasures”, this is a collection of “motivations and melodies of vibrant transsexualism.” *Add to Cart* and *heavy exhale*!
Like to the Lark by Stuart Barnes
Published: February 2023, Upswell
Barnes's stunning second collection of poetry “reimagines the poetic form and fearlessly explores topics of illness, death, rape, remembrance, ecology and love.” Drawing on his lifetime fascinations with music, sound, form and transformation, Barnes takes the reader on an epic journey, plunging “ into seas, scoots across countries and hurtles towards space”, all while showcasing a superb range of poetic formats. In her review, Maggie Ball advises, "Like to the Lark is a fantastic primer for anyone looking to learn more about poetic forms such as sonnets, sestinas, tritinas, duplexes, pantoums, ghazals, prose poems and villanelles” - consider this reader sold.
Yearning at the Opera Bar by Jessica Rose Pearson
Published: March 2023, No More Poetry
At only 52 pages long, Yearning at the Opera Bar looks like a short but sharp powerhouse of a read that descends “into the exact document of sex, love and living that you could hope for.” Pierced through with Pearson’s wicked sense of humour, these poems reveal “something of deep philosophical intrigue”. Described as “concise, considerate and intelligent”, Pearson attempts to define love in various playful, strange ways: “a pizza hut pamphlet, a green apple, car sex, hourly spoonfuls of yoghurt, stanley tucci.” She had me at Stanley Tucci. Short though this one may be, it’s set to be a collection that will stay with you long after turning the page on the final scene.
Noisy Animal by Ōsaki Sayaka, translated by Jeffrey Angles
Published: April 2023, Vagabond Press
Noisy Animal is the first collection published in English by a rising star of Japanese poetry, Sayaka Ōsaki. The collection title refers to a moniker Sayaka calls herself - a noisy animal 'that walks about speaking endlessly.' Sayaka draws on personal themes while also blending current and socially relevant commentary. Poetry International describes her style as “simple, everyday language but penetrates the surface of this time and space and reaches the depths of mythology that underlie our ordinary lives.” Expertly translated by Yomiuri Award-winning poet Jeffrey Angles; this is an exciting addition for any keen poetry collector.
Chinese Fish by Grace Yee
Published: June 2023, Giramondo Publishing
I am utterly in love with the sound of this one: detailing the journey of Ping leaving Hong Kong to live in the South Island of Aotearoa, New Zealand, with her husband and four children. Ping quickly learns that this new life will not be as utopian as she first believed. Described as a family saga spanning the 1960s to the 1980s and narrated by Ping and her family, Yee weaves a multi-layered poetic experience that offers “an intimate glimpse into the lives of women and girls in a community that has historically been characterised as both a ‘yellow peril’ menace and an exotic ‘model minority’.”
In the Photograph by Luke Beesley
Published: July 2023, Giramondo Publishing
This forthcoming collection from acclaimed writer, artist and musician sees Beesley returning to find form in his mastering of the surreal and observational. Unfolding in “domestic and suburban settings”, In the Photograph wondrously manages to capture “the exact moment of writing: how, from it, possibilities branch out into observation, memory, wordplay, analogy, fantasy, other artworks and other art forms.” Beesley’s work has been described by Michael Farrell for The Australian as “lush or dreamy” with Farrell adding, “there’s a jittery, jokey, upset the image kitsch-cart motive afoot also…This is a poetry of possibility.” Beesley’s latest collection of work looks set to follow firmly in these footsteps and is one to keep your eyes out for.
The Flirtation of Girls/Ghazl el-Banat by Sara M. Saleh
Published: Forthcoming 2023, UQP
The debut poetry collection of talented Arab Australian writer and activist Sara M. Saleh, The Flirtation of Girls /Ghazl el-Banat explores “the complexity of Arab-Australian Muslim women’s identities, as well as exploring gender and power dynamics, intergenerational trauma and transformation, and the burdens and blessings of dislocation and relocation.” A wide-ranging collection, Saleh dives deep into archival and contemporary narratives of “women’s experiences of war, colonial and patriarchal violence, and exile and migration.” Simultaneously deeply personal and conversational, Saleh’s hotly anticipated collection is also “urgent, timely and of universal resonance.” Saleh is already a well-known and powerful voice across the Australian literary scene (and beyond) - this is not to be missed.
Riverbed Sky Songs by Tais Rose Wae
Published: Forthcoming 2023, Vagabond Press
This dreamy-sounding collection comes from Tais Rose Wae, whose work tends to focus on themes of connection, motherhood and her Aboriginal ancestry. Riverbed Sky Songs is an “admiration and imagining of the inherent links between ecosystems and the human experience”. Wae uses her connection to Country to challenge colonial form and storytelling, weaving “moments of enamour amidst soft pockets of moss at the edge of a riverbed, in the reminder of the strength and of spirit as reflected in the surface of a pearl, to the ancestral songs and knowing that are passed on through blood.” I am not familiar with Wae’s previous work, but this is one I’ll be eagerly anticipating reading this year.
Elaine Chennatt is a writer, educator and psychology student currently residing in nipaluna. She has a special interest in bibliotherapy (how we use literature to make sense of our lives) and is endlessly curious about the creative philosophies of others. She lives with her husband and two bossy dachshunds on the not-so-sunny side of the river (IYKYK). Find her online at wordswithelaine.com
