There are, perhaps, bigger names in #Australian #poetry but it is difficult to find someone who is more universally respected than Tim Metcalf. From his own work (ten collections, one of which – The Moon the Bone – is a volume of selected #poems) to his editing of others’ work in the award-winning collections Verbal Medicine (2006) and Maybe Street: Selected Poems of Anna Buck (2021), Dr Metcalf has developed a deserved reputation as a #poet completely in charge of his quietly explosive powers and as a sensitive reader with a physician’s precise skill in textual criticism of poetry.
I was therefore gobsmacked recently to discover that Tim had not only read my 2024 collection of #pandemic poems, After Spruce, but that he had gone to the extra trouble of reviewing it.
And what a #review it is! In fact, I am not too proud to freely admit that I am firmly of the view that the review of the #book is better than the book itself. I have never, and I know I will never again, receive the praise that Dr Tim has seen fit to lavish on my little book. It’s both humbling and validating and is a most welcome birthday gift for After Spruce, which celebrates its first anniversary of #publication this month.
Huge thanks to Dr Tim for his very kind words and also to Graham and Marie Farram who subtly worked in the background to ensure that ‘the book with the #pangolin on it’ made it across Dr Tim’s desk. I am most grateful.
You can read the review at my website here:
https://claythistleton.wixsite.com/claythistleton/reviews-of-after-spruce
#AustLit #ExperimentalPoetry
