This book, it seems, has been written for people like me – the ones who read a poem and either pretend they understand it immediately, or pretend they don’t have the time to explore it more deeply. Here are 50 short essays on poetry, predominantly featuring Australian poets, written by someone with no need of pretence. Sarah Holland-Batt has a consummate, passionate understanding of poetry.

I’d always considered the difference between prose and poetry as contrasting a standard crossword to a cryptic. Holland-Batt’s citing of Toby Fitch renders a much clearer definition: ‘If prose is a house / poetry is a person on fire running breakneck through it’. Because of the brevity of the form, there is a pinpoint emphasis on image and language. Expect multiple layers of meaning and often double meanings of words.

Each essay discusses a particular style or form, showcasing one poet and their poem. Holland-Batt often begins by discussing classical influences before delving into the poem. The first essay, featuring Judith Beveridge, provides a useful primer. Poems by Louise Glück and Jaya Savige are stunning.

Holland-Batt explains the purpose of using different poetic styles and provides clues as to meaning, without being didactic. Perhaps her most important phrase is, ‘In my reading …’ allowing her interpretation to sit beside, rather than above any other.

Each segment stands alone. The essay and poem can (should) be read and left to seep into the reader. Holland-Batt helps with unpacking each poem, but its meaning and impact is for the reader alone. Absolutely outstanding.

Reviewed by Bob Moore

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Sarah Holland-Batt is an award-winning poet, editor, and critic. Born in Southport, Queensland in 1982, she grew up in Australia and the United States, and has also lived in Italy and Japan.

Her first book, Aria, was the recipient of several literary prizes, including the Anne Elder Award, the Arts ACT Judith Wright Prize and the Thomas Shapcott Prize, was shortlisted in both the New South Wales and Queensland Premiers’ Literary Awards, and was commended for The Age’s Poetry Book of the Year.

Her second book, The Hazards, won the 2016 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry, and was shortlisted for the New South Wales Premier’s Kenneth Slessor Prize, the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards, the Queensland Literary Awards Judith Wright Calanthe Prize, and the John Bray Memorial Poetry Award. Her third book, The Jaguar, won the 2023 Stella Prize and the 2023 Queensland Premier’s Award for State Significance, and has been shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize and longlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize and the ALS Gold Medal. It was also named The Australian’s 2022 Book of the Year.

Her poems have been widely published in international journals and magazines, including The New Yorker and Poetry, and have been translated into several languages, including Spanish, Dutch, German, Swedish and Bahasa Indonesian. She has been a guest at literary festivals around the world, including in Germany, Spain, England, Scotland, Argentina, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Indonesia.

She has worked as an editorial consultant and assistant for publishing houses New Directions and Atria Books in New York, and as the poetry editor of Island magazine from 2014-2019. She was also the editor of Black Inc.’s The Best Australian Poems 2016 and The Best Australian Poems 2017.

In 2020, supported by the Judith Neilson Institute for Journalism and Ideas and the Copyright Agency, she was appointed the Poet’s Voice columnist at The Australian newspaper; her collected columns for this paper were subsequently published in Fishing for Lightning: The Spark of Poetry.

From 2022-23, she was the Judy Harris Writer in Residence at the University of Sydney’s Charles Perkins Centre. She presently lives in Brisbane, where she is Professor of Creative Writing and Literary Studies at QUT.

Visit Sarah holland-batt’s website