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A Panoply of Poems You Cant Afford to Miss
Just out this week is Jonathan Cant's Finding Pan. You will not have read of book of poems quite like this one. Finding Pan is a journey of discovery: verbal, thematic, tonal and formal. The exhilaration of Jonathan’s wordplay is infectious and intoxicating. Words are rarely left as he finds them, but walked around and re-applied, taken apart and reconstructed, hidden parts of them revealed. As Audrey Molloy has written, “Rarely in contemporary Australian poetry do we find t
May 9
Melanie Jansen and Steve Meyrick @ Readings
Dr Melanie Jansen is a paediatric intensive care specialist, and her powerful poems explore the emotional landscape of this demanding but rewarding work, as well as the challenges and joys of the private life that must be lived alongside her professional one. Steve Meyrick's wide-ranging and deeply reflective collection provides the perfect foil. Why not join us when they read from and discuss these two quite different books, and find surprising touchpoints that connect them,
May 3
Submerge yourself in "Brood Chamber" now
Front cover of Annie Mairéad Hunter's Brood Chamber We are proud to announce the publication of Annie Mairéad Hunter’s impressive debut collection, Brood Chamber. The poems in this book cover an astonishing range. They muse over the fate of childhood dolls, and tell of a surreal mountain ascent with her dead father on her back; mourn the ravages of climate change and celebrate a chance poolside encounter with an imaginative youngster; unflinchingly confront the evils of col
May 3
A Gray Day Out
By a very happy coincidence, Australian Book Review chose to publish Mark Tredinnick's excellent essay on Robert Gray in the same week as 5 Islands Press opened submissions the 2026 Robert Gray Prize for poetry. Mark, as some of you will know, knew Robert Gray well, and was a great admirer and promoter of his work. Last year, he conceived, coordinated and edited Bright Crockery Days —a festschrift in Gray's honour. Twenty-four literary luminaries each contributed an essay on
The Ease of Eggs: Nourishment for the Soul
This week, we celebrate the arrival of Benjamin Dodd's third poetry collection, The Ease of Eggs . The world Dodds witnesses and recalls in these tidy, playful lyric poems has a dignity and courtesy and unexpected kindness. And what a various, surprising and surprisingly tender world it is. As Carol Jenkins has written: "This book ... is a cabinet of the eclectic: school observations, the universe at large, men and gender, cinematic culture, science at work. But always we a
Definitely A Woman We Should Listen To
A Woman Talks to Her Tongue speaks of a family, its secrets and silences, unacknowledged griefs and inherited traumas. Written from the point of view of the fifth child in a complex family, the early poems catch and release a few moments in a daughter’s life, from her early childhood to parenthood. The second section of the book is a kind and passionate cry for truth-telling, femininity and creativity, and includes a series of remarkable monologues that examine silence and b
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