Before Starting Over is an informal chronicle of several important developments in English-language poetry during the nineties and the turn of the century, most importantly Asian American poetry, digital poetics, and the changing face of poetry’s “experimental” wing.

A collection of essays predominantly concerned with modern poetry, with problems of translating poetry, and with the relationship between poetry and philosophy. There is also some material dealing with music, the visual arts and religious belief.

A fascinating literary “travelogue,” and a truly valuable read, Justifying the Margins is highly recommended to both the specialist and general reader interested in experimental art, thought, poetry and poetics.

On Listening is a collection of essays covering many of the key areas of contemporary debate in creative writing. From translation as the art of the impossible to the significance of community writing projects, by way of teaching debate and personal enthusiasms, it affords a portrait of the field as a whole.

This is a wide-ranging, incisive study of contemporary poetry, its predicament and its rich traditions. While it focuses on Australian cultural conditions, it sees them in terms of the English-language ecumene, for example setting an Irish poet beside an Australian, and ranging from Keats as our strong forebear to the modern Polish poet Zagaweski.

The Lyric Touch brings together essays by John Wilkinson on twentieth century British and American poetry, several now recognised as classic but hitherto hard to obtain. Throughout this book, writing previously seen as startlingly modern is reconnected with the English Romantic tradition. Formidable poetry is made to become irresistible.