The Office of Literary Endeavours
by
Mark Roberts
Publication date
ISBN:
March
2025
978-1-923248-09-0
About the author
For much of the last four decades, MARK ROBERTS has been involved in writing, criticism and publishing. In 1982, he established P76 magazine in with Adam Aitken and has been involved in small press publishing ever since. In 2011 he set up the on-line journal Rochford Street Review, which has recently published its 41st issue; the Review is one of the leading and most long-lasting independent (that is non-funded) cultural journals in the world.
The Office of Literary Endeavours is Mark’s third book, after Stepping out of Line (Rochford Street Press 1986) and Concrete Flamingos, Island Press 2016. After the publication of Stepping Out of Line, Ron Pretty—the legendary founder of 5 Islands Press—invited Mark to Wollongong University to talk to his students about writing, criticism and small press publishing. For many years following, he wrote reviews and criticism for the University’s SCARP magazine.
Mark was the winner of the 2016 Byron Bay Poetry Prize and runner up in 2013 Joanne Burns Award. He longlisted in the Joanne Burns Award in 2014 and 2019, and the Liquid Amber Poetry Prize in 2023.
About the book
The Office of Literary Endeavours is a wise and reverential book by a gentle and accomplished poet at a high point of his writing life. This collection of keenly observed and deeply human poems traces inner and outer journeys, within Australia and overseas. Roberts lends his deft touch to subjects and places both new and old. In this engaging, accessible, insightful, entertaining, witty and, at times, playful book, you will find poems of exile and dispossession; about the landscape, and the passion of lovers; about old friendships and favourite films. In this witty and insightful book, Roberts evidences a life spent in appreciation of poetry, in deep observation and in participation in ecologies of many kinds. The experience and wisdom acquired show in the breadth of his subject matter, and his mastery of tonal range.
This is a book evidencing a life spent in appreciation of poetry, deep observation and participation in ecologies of many kinds. Discomfort is constant but there is succour and reprieve in kin and creative expression. The Office of Literary Endeavours is a wise and reverential book by a gentle and accomplished poet at a high point of their writing life.
--AMANDA JOY
The poetry is carefully crafted and elegant. The subject matter wide ranging and richly brought to life within the forms Roberts has chosen. Reading through this collection has been a privilege and a delight.
--LES WICKS
The Office of Literary Endeavours is a witty and insightful collection characterised by its lucidity. The strength of these poems lies in their interrogation of migration and colonisation through poignant familial memories that are never sentimental but always elegiac, with their critique of colonisation and account of Irish dispossession. A feature of the collection is the way it deftly navigates different moods, so that alongside the poems of migration and colonisation there are also poems about the landscape, the passion of lovers, old friendships, and favourite films. A sharply observant eye unites these poems into a cohesive manuscript of layered emotions and experiences.
--TINA GIANNOUKOS
Roberts lends his deft touch to subjects and places both new and old, and specifically to what must always resonate as essential to the human condition--continuously, from pram to old age. In his shared memories, real and invented, ancient and modern, a jam jar or two might be shot for target practice, deadly snakes slung over wire fences, trains might be caught or missed. Here is subject matter to engage seasoned poetry readers, as well as keen students of Australian literature and cultural history: a lively content able to both re-trace and advance, often simultaneously.
--JOHN JENKINS
The Office of Literary Endeavours is an excellent collection of poetry that demonstrates the poet’s range, skill, talent, experience and wisdom, along with his willingness to experiment with form (including lines, stanza structures and the shape of the poem) and to engage with crucial contemporary issues (such as Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationships to country) as well as European culture and history (as demonstrated through the sequence of poems inspired by films). The book is engaging, accessible, insightful, entertaining, witty and, at times, playful.
--NATHANAEL O'REILLY