
Hothouse
Tracy Ryan(Author)
John Kinsella(Editor)
Arc Publications (Publisher)
Published on 3. November 2006
Book
Paperback/Softback
106 pages
978-1-904614-13-5 (ISBN)
Description
"Hothouse" - If things could be forced like this feelings produced out of place sticky plumbago a blue mild as your eyes, or the wild throaty red of hibiscus slapping at me, an arranged memory - not what I'd choose. Home I never thought to miss. Specimen too, I sweat under glass, space false as a moonbase or slow deserted zoo. What you may visit but never know. "Hothouse", Tracy Ryan's most recent collection of poems, was published in 2002 in her native Australia to great critical acclaim. It is essentially a collection of flower poems which focus, not on the alienation of humans from the plant world, but instead their similarities. In them we see the grafting of the organic world onto the personal, the emotional, and the sexual, in language which is both 'bluntly luscious' (her own phrase) and at the same time 'pruned' into deceptively simple, short lines.
Reviews / Votes
"Hothouse is a collection of intense poems which explore with great precision the ever shifting and precarious boundaries between self and the world. Sometimes Tracy Ryan reminds me a little of Sylvia Plath - sometimes she reminds me a little of the strength and savagery of Gig Ryan, but mostly she is her own self, dancing with a language forged in talent and courage." Dorothy Hewett (Australian Book Review)"More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Lancs
United Kingdom
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 138 mm
ISBN-13
978-1-904614-13-5 (9781904614135)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Persons
TRACY RYAN was born in Western Australia and has taught literature and creative writing at various universities in Australia and in England where she was a Judith E Wilson Junior Visiting Fellow at Robinson College, Cambridge in 1998, and where she taught a course on Australian Literature, Art and Film at the University of East Anglia in 1999. She has also worked as an editor on literary magazines in Australia. In 2000, she won the Western Australian Premier's Prize for Poetry for he collection The Willing Eye (FACP, Australia / Bloodaxe, UK).
Content
Half/9, Extremities/11, Hothouse/13, Mallee Root/14, Meat/15, On-line/16, The Bower/19, The Peacocks/20, March/24, 'Cambridge considered as the Cocos & Keeling Islands'/26, Dublin/27, Dalkey/28, Avowal/30, Kin/31, Closure/33, Cycle/34, Yellow Roses/35, Holy Island/37, Castle Hill/38, Exchange/39, Two Views/40, Chandler Sonnet/41, Two after Rodin/42, Cranach's Venus/45, Hyacinths/46, Hydrangeas/48, Liebchen/52, In the absence of hair/55, Clinical/57, 'Joseph's Coat'/58, A Preservation/60, Wasp Diary/62, Green/69, Against the grain/71, She gives/73, She takes away/75, Piano/77, Outside the glasshouse/78, Iris Poems/79, Landing/83, Homecoming/84, Moreton Bay Figs/85, Regeneration/88, The Last Orchid/90, Oleander/92, Fragile Cycles/93, Cowslip Orchids/95, Metaphysical/99, Australia/100, Biographical note/103