Peter Minter

Macquarie PEN anthology of Aboriginal literature edited by Anita Heiss and Peter Minter

May 2008, no. 301

In 1938, the year of Australia’s sesquicentennial celebrations, trade unionist William Ferguson and former boxer John Patten helped to organise the first Aboriginal Day of Mourning and Protest on January 26; later that year, they co-wrote the pamphlet from which the above excerpt is taken, on behalf of the nascent Aborigines Progressive Association ...

... (read more)

Other Worlds: Poems 1997–2001 by Dorothy Porter

by Peter Minter •

September 2001, no. 234

Peter Minter reviews 'Other Worlds: Poems 1997–2001' by Dorothy Porter

Without the slightest hint of irony, Jewel Kilcher, the young Alaskan poet and singer whose first volume of free verse, A Night without Armor, was published to popular acclaim a year or two ago, quotes Dylan Thomas in her preface: ‘A good poem is a contribution to reality.’ Thomas, thankfully, was right, and although we might argue, as poets often do, about the shape reality might take, it remains true to this day that good poetry contributes more to what we know, as individuals and as communities, and helps provide the ground for knowing what our realities can become.

... (read more)

Ivor Indyk reviews poetry by Karen Attard, M.T.C. Cronin, Lisa Jacobson, Peter Minter, Sue L. Nicholls, and Mark Reid

by Ivor Indyk •

April 1996, no. 179

These six poetry titles represent the third series of New Poets to be published by Five Islands Press. Each title runs to exactly thirty two pages – no more, no less. It is, in a sense, a mini-collection, or a semi-collection, midway between a reading and a book. The series as a whole is therefore like a showcase of new talent – you applaud some of the poems, and get impatient with others, much as you do with the poets themselves. This is a good thing – it presents poetry as the provisional affair it really is, most of the time, for poet and reader alike.

... (read more)