Album Notes

From the first line, Judith Beveridge’s listeners will find themselves in the now. An argument that “now” is the place to be unfolds with subtle diplomacy. The persuasions for it are even-handed and unflinching as she considers dung collectors, storms, bird feathers and bats with equal love. In each work, the observations have a scalpel’s sharpness tempered by a Buddhist kindness. All of these poems, to borrow one of her phrases, qualify as devout inventories. Beveridge has an unfailing ear for how the music of the world can be translated into words. Here are concision and a virtuosic flex of language that speaks of enlightenment.

Judith Beveridge is one of Australia's best poets. She has published three books of poetry all of which have won major prizes: The Domesticity of Giraffes (Black Lighting Press 1987); Accidental Grace, (UQP, 1996) and Wolf Notes (Giramondo Publishing, 2003). She is the poetry editor of Meanjin. In 2005 she was awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal for excellence in literature. She currently teaches poetry at post-graduate level at the University of Sydney and at post-graduate and undergraduate level at the University of Newcastle. She has edited UQP’s The Best Australian Poetry 2006 as well as co-edited anthologies from the Newcastle Poetry Prize, Sunweight (2005) and The Honey Fills the Cone (2006).