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POETRY Snapshot of the Australian poetry scene John Tranter, ed. The Best Australian Poetry 2007. St. Lucia: U of Queensland P, 2007. 101 pp. n.p. ISBN 978-0-7022-3607-5
As editor John Tranter notes, any claim to represent the "best" of the poetic output of an entire country for a year is open to all sorts of challenges (xviii). Nevertheless this book can serve as a very useful and enjoyable snapshot of the poetry scene of a given moment, and also as a brief and up-to-date introduction to Australian poetry for relative newcomers.
The poets selected form an interesting mix, from a few well-known outside of Australia and Australianists (for example, Les Murray, Clive James) to a number who are widely published and well established nationally, to some relative newcomers. Refreshingly, the mix also includes a number who are not employed by universities. All have lived in Australia, but quite a few weren't born there, don't live there now, or both. The subject matter of the poems also ranges from quintessentially Australian themes-flora and fauna (platypuses, kookaburras, gum trees, parrots), rural and urban life, national politics, Aboriginal culture-to artistic traditions and pop icons shared by much of the English-speaking world: Dorothy (and William) Wordsworth, Jack (and WB.) Yeats, Lord Jim, Hurricane Katrina, 17thCentury Italian painting, Kubrick's The Shining, Mariah Carey, the Sub-Saharan African drought.
The style and form of the poetry varies, as...