news

 

just published

LK Holt, Patience, Mutiny. 978-0-9805269-7-4,  50pp,  RRP: 24.95

David Musgrave, Phantom Limb. 978-0-9805269-9-8,  64pp,  RRP: 24.95

Petra White, The Simplified World. 978-0-9805269-8-1,  52pp,  RRP: 24.95

 

latest awards and shortlistings

NSW Premier's Awards 2010

Jordie Albiston's the sonnet according to 'm' has won the 2010 Kenneth Slessor Prize. Morgan Yasbincek's white camel was shortlisted for the prize. See here for details. 

ACT Poetry Prize 2010

Jan Owen's Poems 1980-2008 was highly commended (2nd place) in the ACT Judith Wright Prize.  Marcella Polain's Therapy Like Fish: New and Selected Poems and Peter Steele's White Knight with Beebox: New and Selected Poems were shortlisted.

Australia Centre Awards 2009

Elizabeth Campbell won the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize.

Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal 2009

Peter Steele won the the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for Poetry, announced at the 2009 Mildura Writers Festival.

NSW Premier's Awards 2009

LK Holt's Man Wolf Man won the Kenneth Slessor Prize. See here for details.

'The Summer Read'

Peter Steele's White Knight with Beebox was shortlisted for the State Library of Victoria's promotion, 'The Summer Read', 2008-9. It is the first poetry book ever to make this shortlist. 

 'Best of 2008'

The end-of-2008 Christmas recommendations in The Age and The Australian Book Review (some well-known authors citing several of their favourite books of the years) featured a little poetry, including four from JLP. 

The Age, 'Favourite Literary Encounters of the Year', December 13 2008: 

Robert Adamson on Elizabeth Campbell:

Elizabeth Campbell, in Letters to the Tremulous Hand (John Leonard Press), writes of a 13th-century monk who was a copyist in Worcester and wrote with a tremor in his hand. It was enchanting to be taken back by a brilliant illuminator such as Campbell to the point of these ancient illuminations.

Luke Davies on LK Holt:

This year's Australian poetry scandal is the omission of newcomer LK Holt's powerful debut collection, Man Wolf Man (John Leonard Press), from any of the prize lists. [There] is formal elegance and fierce intelligence [to] these brilliant, difficult poems. . . . Holt's is one of those voices that blast from the sky now and again, like a lightning bolt. Be forewarned. Enormous future.

Chris Wallace-Crabbe on Peter Steele:

In poetry, I was utterly diverted by the hopscotch mind, covering all bases, in Peter Steele's White Knight with Beebox (John Leonard Press): the poems have as much dazzle as the strange title might hint at.

Australian Book Review, 'Best Books of 2008', January 2009:

Morag Fraser on John Jenkins:

John Jenkin’s sustained poetic narrative Growing up with Mr Menzies manages a double perspective: a transparent and guileless child’s view of an Australian world occasionally interrupted by the detached assessment of an era, given through the tone and actions of Robert Gordon Menzies. It is the extraordinary, open-eyed detailing of childhood that makes this work so memorable.

Mary Gilmore Prize 2008

Man Wolf Man by LK Holt and Cube Root of Book by Paul Magee: highly commended.

South Australian Festival Awards for Literature 2008

A Bud by Claire Gaskin: shortlisted, 2008 South Australian Festival Awards for Literature, John Bray Prize. Judges' comments:

'This is an exceptional first book. Claire Gaskin's poetry is eloquent and attentive, bright with striking and precise images, yet has a darker undercurrent acknowledging absence and pain. She writes, often obliquely, of the elemental and the transient - children, flowers, cats, clouds, rain, birds, dreams, leaves and wind. Her spare, disciplined structures stringently contain and intensify the emotions evoked, and her sculpted style can make of a poem an almost tangible object of beauty.'

Cube Root of Book by Paul Magee: shortlisted, 2008 South Australian Festival Awards for Literature, Award for Innovation. Judges' comments:

'This collection of poetry is in 11 loosely sequenced sections, each containing a fresh translation of a major Latin poet. The book is a disarming combination of poetic invention, literary pastiche and original translation. Magee invites the reader to explore metaphorical connections and implicit narrative movements, in no fixed order, but with the promise of a rich encounter with the literary heritage of the west.'

Anne Elder Award 2007

Letters to the Tremulous Hand by Elizabeth Campbell and The Incoming Tide by Petra White: commended, Anne Elder Award.

Queensland Premier's Awards 2007

The Incoming Tide by Petra White was shortlisted for the 2007 Queensland Premier's Literary Awards, Judith Wright Calanthe Prize. Judges' comments:

'This is a stunning first book by a poet who has bypassed the usual hallmarks of a "young writer" and emerged with a fully formed voice and startling ease of style. Petra White's book eschews the seductions of self-referentiality and language games. She is present in all her poems, but deeply integrated, her concern being to connect with others and the environment with unfailing intelligence, ironic humour, originality of image and acute observation.'

The Age Poetry Book of the Year 2007

The Incoming Tide by Petra White received 'Honourable Mention' in The Age Poetry Book of the Year 2007.

Anne Elder Award 2006

Cube Root of Book by Paul Magee was 'Highly Commended' in the 2006 Anne Elder Award.