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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
4 days ago
Martin Duwell on "A Blink of Time's Eye"
This review of David Adès's “A Blink of Time’s Eye” (5Islands Press, 2025), which appeared in “Australian Poetry Review” on April 1 2026, also covers David’s smaller book, “The Toolmaker and Other Poems”, published by Walleah Press earlier last year. It places both books within the context of David’s substantial oeuvre, reaching back to his first book, “Mapping the World”, which came out nearly twenty years ago. By doing this, reviewer Martin Duwell has done us all a favour,
Apr 5
Commendation: Song of the Quiet Revolution
Congratulations to 5Islands Press Managing Editor, Mark Tredinnick, on the commendation of his poem "The Song of the Quiet Revolution" in the 2025 Moth Poetry Prize. The quiet revolution is poetry, of course. Mark has written of the poem that: The poem is a quiet paean to the ordinary, the lyric, the undemonstrative, things. But when, this morning, I tried to record the poem, trains rolled past along the line and vacuum cleaners roared down the hall and dogs yelped and butch
Apr 5
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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