51 Alterities

(Paperback)

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An incisive observer of Australian cultural life returns with a collection that satirically reimagines our era of chaos and chicanery.

'the republic of letters / a veritable la la land' writes Keri Glastonbury in 51 Alterities, a collection in which cacophony rhymes with simplicity, and device notifications rebound across the desert horizon. In her poems 'nepo boys are punching above their weight', haunted by the 'spectres of unreal estate'; 'the senate estimate's axe / falls in aggregates of joy' while 'budgies in their natural habitat' have 'no idea they are suburban pretty boys'.

Keri Glastonbury's previous collection Newcastle Sonnets was written as a riposte to Ted Berrigan's New York-based The Sonnets, and 51 Alterities began too as a loose adaptation, of British poet Sam Riviere's influential 2012 debut 81 Austerities. Riviere's collection was written in response to the impact of conservative UK austerity measures on the arts, and as a reconsideration of the function of poetry in the internet age. Wrestling with Antipodean 'alterity' more than ten years later, as a female queer poet a decade older than Riviere's millennial male, Glastonbury's 51 Alterities responds to the persistence of economic austerity, and to poetry's precarious place in a landscape dominated by billionaire tech bros and social media empires.

Praise for Newcastle Sonnets:

'A post-industrial love song... Glastonbury's sonnets, far from stultifying, are energetic and playful as they enact the associative freedoms of everyday speech.' Judges' citation, Prime Minister's Literary Awards

'A shifting and dangerously mesmerising simulacrum of contemporary Australian urban life... Through whip-smart core samples of observation, Glastonbury becomes the qwerty keyboard medium for social media within Newcastle and beyond.' Judges' citation, Judith Wright Calanthe Award

'Her poems are wonderful repositories of Aussie argot maggoted, grouse, fugly, bush doof, wheelie bins, sadcore, cankles, choofing and a chicken that's been stuffed up the jacksie all get a run but just as soon as you settle in, she changes gears.' Sarah Holland-Batt, The Australian

Author Bio

Keri Glastonbury is Associate Professor in Creative Writing at the University of Newcastle. Her poems have been widely published in magazines and collections. She has been the recipient of the Australia Council's BR Whiting Residency in Rome and an Asialink Literature Residency in India. Her poetry collection Newcastle Sonnets, published by Giramondo in 2018, was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Award and Judith Wright Calanthe Award. Her previous collections include Grit Salute (Papertiger, 2012).