4 poems published in Australian Poetry Since 1788

Alan Wearne was born and grew up in Melbourne. He became friendly with Laurie Duggan and John Scott at Monash University, where he studied history, which he describes as his only intellectual love. He hosted Conversations with a Dead Poet (1999) a television documentary about his friend, John Forbes. A supporter of Essendon, the Australian Rules football club, since 1954 he helped found the Nunawading District Junior Football League and has published a prose satire about Melbourne\u27s Australian Rules culture. He now teaches creative writing at the University of Wollongong, living part of the year in Wollongong and part in Fremantle, Western Australia, and regards himself as an exile from Melbourne

6am in the Universe: Selected Poems by Benjamin Frater

Frater died in 2007 in his late twenties and his book is a young man’s book dominated by manic energy and manic creativity – there is nothing “composed” or even merely “lively” about it. It is poetry that is important to preserve largely because it wrestles so convincingly with questions about what poetry essentially is. Benjamin Frater is an electrifying voice. He is sharp, full of abandon and wit, anxious and carefree, broken and hopeful, intuitive and bold. 6 am in the Universe comes with a DVD of Frater performing in his own distinctive style. It allows us to be surrounded by the sound of the poet and glimpse his presence on stage. Afterword by Tim Cahil

The lovemakers - book one: saying all the great sexy things

A novel in verse

Amazing Things, or an Essay Upon the Future

Three years back I was asked to complete a questionnaire for the Poetry International/website. One of the questions involved the Future of Australian Poetry. My god, I thought, how would 1 know? But then I chanced upon four very bright 10 year olds, all of who had poetry more than merely on their radar. Even better, due to special gifts I have, I was able to see how their careers were going to tum out. And here is what I wrote: One is a state school kid from Booragoon in Perth\u27s south-of-the-river suburbs. He loves making sounds,............

Prepare the Cabin for Landing

Wearne is Australia\u27s poet-moralist, a master of its idioms, the recorder of its pretensions, and the scourge of its big-noters, con-artists and crooks. In \u27The Vanity of Australian Wishes\u27 he pays tribute to Samuel Johnson and Juvenal, \u27who knew that combination of bemusement, annoyance, anger and despair to which your country can drive you, though always aware of its entertainment value and dramatic potential\u27. The collection includes an affectionate portrait of three Melbourne high school teachers in the early I 960s, and a saga which records the destinies of their pupils, satires on the world of finance and drug-dealing, literary academics and the libertinlsm of baby-boomers, and seven new poems based on Australian pop songs