Spirals
Collected Poems Volume Three (2014-2023)
Spirals is the third and final volume of John Kinsella’s collected poems and dates from 2014-2023, seeing Kinsella through his fifties and without an end in sight. Spirals is not a case of a poet growing older, steadier, and more sedate but rather brings an ongoing sense of development that is also recursive and spatial. Politically, institutionally, and attitudinally, Kinsella remains an outsider.
John Kinsella’s poetry is collected in one place for the very first time and includes poems that have appeared in chapbooks, publications outside of Australia, and some that are no longer in print. In this final volume, the spiralling effects of time combined with Kinsella’s probing and connections in space have brought his poetry an authority and a sense of being listened to not only with awe but with respect. And still, Kinsella renounces any inflated self. Instead of basting in a perversely satisfying white guilt, or retreating to a passive melancholy, Kinsella is active, dynamic, and even exuberant. His poetry is replete with astounding energy that is creative and forward-looking while remaining concerned about environmental damage, exploitations of neoliberalism and militarism, and the continuing illegitimacies of unacknowledged settler occupation. Kinsella’s final volume marks the culmination of his Collected Poems and cements itself as a landmark addition to Australian poetry.
'The invitation of this sweeping collection provides the opportunity to consider the development of Kinsella’s writing from its raw earliest examples to the skilled technique evident in his current writing.' — John Hawke, Australian Book Review, on volumes one and two of the Collected Poems
'Works of immense range, from extended lyrical meditations to taut experimental sonic poems and everything in between.' — WritingWA, on volume one of the collected poems, The Ascension of Sheep
John Kinsella is the author of over fifty books of poetry, fiction, criticism, plays and cross-genre work. His many awards include the Australian Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry, the Victorian premier’s Award for Poetry, the John Bray Award for Poetry, the Judith Wright Calanthe Award for Poetry (twice) and the Western Australian Premier’s Award for Poetry (three times). He is a frequent collaborator with other poets, writers, activists, artists and musicians. He is a committed environmental and rights activist. He is Emeritus Professor of Literature and Environment at Curtin University, Western Australia, a Fellow of Churchill College Cambridge, Adjunct Professor with the School of Humanities at UWA and an Affiliated Scholar with Kenyon College, Ohio. He lives on Ballardong Noongar country at ‘Jam Tree Gully’ in the Western Australian wheatbelt. In 2007 he received the Christopher Brennan Award for Lifetime Achievement in Poetry.
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