The Language in My Tongue: An Anthology of Australian and New Zealand Prose Poetry

by Cassandra Atherton (Editor), Paul Hetherington (Editor), Adam Aitken (Contributor)

This new anthology of Australian and New Zealand poetry is remarkable for its exuberance, its vitality, and the notably youthful vibrancy of its free verse as well as its innovative prose poetry. Including a wide range of voices from such well-known poets as John Kinsella, Pam Brown, and John Tranter to relative new-comers like Chris Tse and essa may ranapiri, The Language in my Tongue is full of surprises and special pleasures.

—Marjorie Perloff, Professor Emerita of English at Stanford University and Florence R. Scott Professor of English Emerita at the University of Southern California

Here are vernaculars. Here are modern-day classics. Here is a “mind in an unclear world,” “a space perfection will never survive.” Here is invention permitted to travel the world, in dense prose poems and in chatty ones, in capable free verse and ghazals, “emissaries” and “a russet lock in an envelope.” Here Echnida meets the Spider, “making things transparent,” and here [is] bodily frailty and erotic love. Here, readers, are some highlights of the Antipodes, two—no, far more than two—poetic traditions, made available for you. Investigate. Drink deep.

—Stephanie Burt, Professor of English at Harvard University

236 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2022