Friendly Street Poets Thirty
From Orrmulum_2006
Review
Cathryn Matto
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The latest edition of Friendly Street Poets Thirty, edited by Rob Walker and Louise Nicholas, comes from Australia's longest running community open-poetry reading venue, Friendly Street, started in 1975 by Andrew Taylor, Richard Tipping and Ian Reid. This edition includes a selection of the best 100 poems read at Friendly Street Poets in 2005, its thirtieth year. |
An impressive fact about Friendly Street Poets Thirty, and indeed all Friendly Street Readers, is that the poems are written by poets based in South Australia. It is easy to recognise descriptions of places and landmarks in the poems and feel they come ‘close to home’.
The variety of featured poets provides a variety of topics and styles, with each turn of the page leaving the reader curious as to what will be tackled next. All of the poems have distinguishable characteristics, from the humorous to the emotional, to the ones that simply make you sit and think. There is sure to be a poem to suit every taste.
A number of poems discuss the beauty of South Australia, in topics such as the surrounding parklands, the city of Adelaide, public transport and the beaches. Coming upon the old orchard by Dawn Colsey is set at the Torrens Linear Park, describing the plants and the wildlife. Cameron Fuller writes about viewing Adelaide whilst driving through the hills at dusk in Adelaide from a near distance. David Mortimer’s Early train to town focuses on the narrator’s observation of a woman at the end of the train carriage, dreaming, and him comparing her to an angel. These three poems offer just a small taste of the great variety of poems in Friendly Street Poets Thirty.
Overall, Friendly Street Poets Thirty is a very good read. The diversity of poets and topics maintained my interest from cover to cover. The book was hard to put down as I wanted to find out what the next poem was about. The varying lengths of the poems provided for enjoyable reading, with my emotions often changing along with each poem. It also feels great to be supporting the work and talent of local poets. I highly recommend Friendly Street Poets Thirty to readers and non-readers of poetry alike.
- Editors: Rob Walker and Louise Nicholas
- Publisher: Friendly Street Poets/Wakefield Press
- Year of Publication: 2006
- Price: $19.95
| Write from the soul, not from some notion of what you think the marketplace wants. The market is fickle; the soul is eternal—Jeffrey A. Carver |
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