Books published by Puncher and Wattmann

The short but remarkable career of American jazz guitarist, Emily Remler (1957-1990), ended with her death, amid still-disputed circumstances, in Sydney in 1990 while on tour. Emily played with virtually all the major jazz guitarists of the era and recorded six albums under her own name during the 1980s. Throughout this career, which was pioneering in terms of female jazz instrumentalists, Remler was widely interviewed in the musical press. It is mainly from these interviews, and other biographical material, that poet and jazz aficionado, Geoff Page, has written Elegy for Emily, a compressed and vivid account of her life and work, employing verse that both echoes and complements the rhythms and sonorities of her music.Geoff page has published twenty-three collections of poetry as well as two novels, five verse novels and several other works including anthologies, translations and a biography of the jazz musician, Bernie McGann. His awards include the Grace Leven Prize, the Christopher Brennan Award, and the 2001 Patrick White Literary Award. His book, 1953, was shortlisted in the 2014 Prime Minister's Literary Awards. He was also the editor of The Best Australian Poems 2014 and 2015 (Black Inc). Geoff has also presented monthly poetry readings and jazz concerts at successive venues around Canberra since 1994 and 2003 respectively.geoffpagepoet.com.au

This is a captivating and varied collection. No matter what Ella Jeffery turns her attention to, her subjects find sharp resolution in language that has been subtly crafted and beautifully honed. These poems carry their insights deftly and intensely, her lens always focussed on those alchemical images that move her work from sensation into perception, from observation into shimmering awareness. Everything shines with the gloss of her highly polished linguistic and imaginative skills. Her work is a triumph and a delight. - Judith BeveridgeAs its title suggests, Dead Bolt is a meditation on home and its ability to become suddenly unhomely or uncanny. Ella Jeffery's poetry ranges from the plangent and elegiac to the comic and satirical. It attends to both the eye and the ear; its extraordinary imagery is matched by a marvellous attention to poetry's sonic capacity. Dead Bolt is a compelling, exquisitely realised debut. - David McCooeyI love Ella Jeffery's poetry. Like Elizabeth Bishop's, it is companionable and unshowily surprising, and has perfect timing. Jeffery is clear-eyed and has a gift for the exact word, one that opens a rift. This is a masterly and original first collection - a major work. - Lisa Gorton

The Weekly Poem has been primarily designed with teachers and students of poetry in mind. It contains exercises using 52 different concepts and forms, all of which have been developed to inspire and expand poetic practice. Each exercise is accompanied by one or more poems - sourced from around the world, with a main focus on Australia - which provide guidance, depth and an invigorating sense of possibility.The Weekly Poem represents an invaluable resource for all poets - emerging or established - and may be of benefit both in the classroom or at the private desk.It's such a blessed relief to have some little formal problem to work out, so you don't have to think about the earthshattering importance of what you are going to say. - Howard NemerovLimitation makes for power... - Richard Wilbur

Who are we when we are with someone else?The characters in This Person Is Not That Person include mismatched flatmates, long-married couples, and mothers and daughters - all dealing with the fallout, fractures and misunderstandings of human relationships. They are ordinary people - flawed, slightly off-kilter - trying to work out what's real.Susan McCreery lives in Thirroul on the NSW south coast, an ideal location for an avid ocean swimmer. She has worked as a nursing assistant; Luna Park game stall attendant; waiter; EFL teacher and olive picker in Greece; youth hostel manager; and literacy tutor. For the past 20 years she has worked as a proofreader/copy editor. Her two previous books are Waiting for the Southerly (2012) and Loopholes (2016). She is working on her first novel.

Does it make sense to invoke the Muses today? Few of us believe our poems will be better for praying to stola-clad women sitting on a mountain in Greece. This book asks the reader to consider the Muse as something more - a vehicle for acknowledging cultural legacies that radiate out from the past and into contemporary Australia. In addressing the Muses we talk to that inheritance.In these essays Simon West examines our metaphors for reaching back after inspiration. Rather than cultural rubble ripe for plunder, he celebrates our waterways in imagining that heritage, rivers that nourish the red gums across floodplains. In doing so he ranges widely, bridging Classical and European interests with a celebration of Australian poets, while asking, always, where is Parnassus now?Simon West is the author of four collections of poetry and an edition of the Italian poet Guido Cavalcanti. He is represented in anthologies including Thirty Australian Poets (UQP), Young Poets: An Australian Anthology (John Leonard Press), and Contemporary Australian Poetry (Puncher & Wattmann). His third book The Ladder was shortlisted for the Prime Minister's Literary Awards, and his most recent, Carol and Ahoy, was published in 2018.