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Absolutely Revolting

May 2025, no. 475

ABR marks the end of an era as Peter Rose publishes his final issue after twenty-four transformative years as Editor. We feature Peter’s final Diary and tributes from senior contributors, including new Editor Georgina Arnott, and we announce the creation of the Peter Rose Editorial Cadetship. Also in the issue, we announce the winners of the 2025 Calibre Essay Prize, now worth $10,000, and feature the winning essay. Simon Tormey investigates ‘British politics in an era of poly-crisis’ and ABR turns its eye to colonial legacies as it considers Näku Dhäruk by Clare Wright and Unsettled by Kate Grenville. We review books about second-wave feminist Beatrice Faust, Henry James, and Dante, the Hong Kong exhibition Picasso/Asia, and books by Colm Tóibín, Robert Dessaix, Sonia Orchard, Bill Gates, Josephine Rowe, Gregory Day and more.

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Chris Lee reviews ‘The Wild Reciter: Poetry and popular culture in Australia 1890 to the present’ by Peter Kirkpatrick
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Contents Category: Poetry
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Article Title: Shaming hyenas
Article Subtitle: When poetry resounded
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In his 1928 collection of poems, Odd Jobs, Ernest ‘Kodak’ O’Ferrall caricatures recitation as an onerous entertainment that has passed its use by date:
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Book 1 Title: The Wild Reciter
Book 1 Subtitle: Poetry and popular culture in Australia 1890 to the present
Book Author: Peter Kirkpatrick
Book 1 Biblio: Melbourne University Press, $34.99 pb, 344 pp
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Book 1 Readings Link: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780522880298/the-wild-reciter--peter-kirkpatrick--2024--9780522880298#rac:jokjjzr6ly9m
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In his 1928 collection of poems, Odd Jobs, Ernest ‘Kodak’ O’Ferrall caricatures recitation as an onerous entertainment that has passed its use by date:

Way out in the suburbs howls the wild Reciter,
Storming like a general, bragging like a blighter;
He would shame hyenas lurking in their dens
As he roars at peaceful folk whose joy is keeping hens.

…
Tie his hands and gag him as he rolls his eyes,
Bag his head and bear him swiftly through the night.
That’s the only remedy for villains who recite.

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Gus Goswell reviews ‘The Clinking: A powerful ecological love story about grief and hope in a warming world’ by Susie Greenhill
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Contents Category: Fiction
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Article Title: Irrational, beautiful hope
Article Subtitle: Climate fiction for our present reality
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Rising seas, mega fires, drought, melting glaciers, and animal extinctions are not exactly the stuff of fiction in 2025. But these themes are also precisely the domain of fiction that speaks of the climate at this moment in the planet’s history, as Susie Greenhill’s début novel, The Clinking, demonstrates with its tender yet insistent call for us to pay attention to this fragile world.
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Book 1 Title: The Clinking
Book Author: Susie Greenhill
Book 1 Biblio: Hachette, $32.99 pb, 294 pp
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Book 1 Readings Link: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780733652332/the-clinking--susie-greenhill--2025--9780733652332#rac:jokjjzr6ly9m
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Rising seas, mega fires, drought, melting glaciers, and animal extinctions are not exactly the stuff of fiction in 2025. But these themes are also precisely the domain of fiction that speaks of the climate at this moment in the planet’s history, as Susie Greenhill’s début novel, The Clinking, demonstrates with its tender yet insistent call for us to pay attention to this fragile world.

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Paul Hetherington reviews ‘Lamb’ by Barry Hill
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Contents Category: Poetry
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Article Title: Fossil and Lamb
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Barry Hill has written thirteen collections of poetry, including Eagerly We Burn: Selected poems 1980-2018 (Shearsman, 2019). These volumes demonstrate his interest in the natural world, Australian history, White Australia’s relationships to Indigenous and Asian cultures, and cross-cultural experiences more generally. His poetry explores politics, art and ekphrasis, literature, autobiography, and spiritual issues, including, persistently, Mahayana Buddhism and its teachings about ‘emptiness’.
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Book 1 Title: Lamb
Book Author: Barry Hill
Book 1 Biblio: re.press, $30 pb, 199 pp
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Book 1 Readings Link: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9780648728276/lamb--barry-hill--2024--9780648728276#rac:jokjjzr6ly9m
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Barry Hill has written thirteen collections of poetry, including Eagerly We Burn: Selected poems 1980-2018 (Shearsman, 2019). These volumes demonstrate his interest in the natural world, Australian history, White Australia’s relationships to Indigenous and Asian cultures, and cross-cultural experiences more generally. His poetry explores politics, art and ekphrasis, literature, autobiography, and spiritual issues, including, persistently, Mahayana Buddhism and its teachings about ‘emptiness’.

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Barney Zwartz reviews ‘Jesus Wept: Seven popes and the battle for the soul of the Catholic Church’ by Philip Shenon
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Contents Category: Religion
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Article Title: ‘The carnival is over’
Article Subtitle: A septet of very different popes
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For centuries, popes have been remote figures, information about their private lives carefully controlled to safeguard their image and promote the mystique of the office. Jesus Wept, describing the past seven popes, provides a good argument for this traditional strategy; it shows what fallible, flawed men they are when details emerge. They were often unpleasant, sometimes bullies, sometimes cowards, sometimes expedient, always intensely political – though the last is an unavoidable part of the job.
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Book 1 Title: Jesus Wept
Book 1 Subtitle: Seven popes and the battle for the soul of the Catholic Church
Book Author: Philip Shenon
Book 1 Biblio: Knopf, US$35 hb, 590 pp
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Book 1 Readings Link: https://www.readings.com.au/product/9781101946411/jesus-wept--philip-shenon--2025--9781101946411#rac:jokjjzr6ly9m
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For centuries, popes have been remote figures, information about their private lives carefully controlled to safeguard their image and promote the mystique of the office. Jesus Wept, describing the past seven popes, provides a good argument for this traditional strategy; it shows what fallible, flawed men they are when details emerge. They were often unpleasant, sometimes bullies, sometimes cowards, sometimes expedient, always intensely political – though the last is an unavoidable part of the job.

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Publishers of the Month with Linsay and John Knight
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Linsay and John Knight are the founders and publishers of the Sydney-based specialist poetry imprint Pitt Street Poetry. When the press was founded in 2012, most mainstream publishers had stopped publishing Australian poetry. Many well-established mid-career Australian poets were cast adrift. PSP was created to help fill that gap. It was generously supported by the Australia Council in its early years.
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Linsay and John Knight are the founders and Linsay and John Knight 2025.jpg publishers of the Sydney-based specialist poetry imprint Pitt Street Poetry. When the press was founded in 2012, most mainstream publishers had stopped publishing Australian poetry. Many well-established mid-career Australian poets were cast adrift. PSP was created to help fill that gap. It was generously supported by the Australia Council in its early years.

 

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