The Strange Matter
These poems span streets and gardens, books and films, people and things, creating a landscape that feels both close and surreal.
Sometimes the language is sharp, sometimes lavish, each poem a document of life as a waking dream, a relentless exploration of the everyday. Ali Jane Smith writes, ‘It is a relief to turn thoughts and feelings into a poem. Sometimes it is like making a chair, and sometimes it is like smashing concrete with a crowbar.’ Here, the chair might wobble, the cracks in the concrete twist like rivers. They take you somewhere, or they tell you something.
Ali Jane Smith’s poems have been published in literary journals, including Southerly, Cordite, Australian Poetry Journal and Overland. She is a Red Room Poetry and Varuna Alumni. In 2018 she was shortlisted for the David Harold Tribe Poetry Prize and in 2016 she was one of three writers selected for the inaugural Sydney Review of Books Emerging Critics program.
