2014—Wesley Michel Wright Prize and ReLit Award, Shortlisted
The sea with no one in it
In these two beautifully-produced volumes, The Porcupine’s Quill press and Pitt Street Poetry have provided their poets with first collections that are a pleasure to handle and read.
Both writers are impressive, too, in their contrasting ways, showing contemporary poetry to be hospitable to a variety of styles and modes.
The sea with no one in it provides an intriguing contrast to Chains of Snow [by Jakob Ziguras]. In many respects, though here, too, the writing is of high quality. Sound patterns and seductive brief phrases play off a metaphysical sense of the ocean, and its power over the imagination, against more concrete images and ideas.
Words and phrases nudge against each other and form alliances. … a number of ekphrastic poems exuberantly inhabit the work of modern artists and ancient monuments. Some readers will readily relate to the evocations of the work of Anselm Kiefer, Philip Guston and Maurice Sendak, and to Berlin’s Pergamon Museum. Others will be intrigued enough to seek out the originals.
These are two fine collections; the two poets will undoubtedly go on to produce more. This would be a good point for readers to acquire and enjoy first editions of their debut volumes.
—Christopher Ringrose, Adjunct Associate Professor in the Faculty of Arts at Monash University, Melbourne, Australian Poetry Journal (July, 2014)
The logic of a female explorer allows this very talented author to turn the many stories we have into ravishing poems. I hope the other new poets out there won’t be too envious. So much grace. This is the debut book of the season!
—David Donnell, author of the Governor General’s Award-winning book of poetry, Settlements
It is not surprising that Canadian poet, Niki Koulouris, who was raised in Australia and whose heritage is Greek, focuses her imagination on the sea. What is surprising is the stunning poetry she makes of her setting. These poems – with their unexpected turns, startling juxtapositions, dream sequences and mysteries – are in the service of a sibylline voice that makes Koulouris heir to MacEwen, Atwood and Lowther.
—Kenneth Sherman, author of the acclaimed Words for Elephant Man
Excerpts from The sea with no one in it
Today of all days
this is the sea with no one in it
is this all it will be
unable to dye all it touches
in primitive ink
what could you give the sea
but your stripes,
since you ask,
your war paint, your blindfolds
your appetite for westerns
in exchange for waves
as wide as trains
from the next frontier.
*
It looks like the ocean
with its cargo of gunpowder and ash
bottles the colour of bulls
from another era
longhorns moving ahead
and not much else
once it had been
half man, half sea
unhealed, yet unwounded
by the greyest of steeples
I do not think of the deep
what has been worn
will be worn again by sheiks
why leave these shores
when the rest of the waves
will come to us
what more can they bring us
these waves
with their formula-one
alligator instincts
but vast zithers
and drop sheets that
fall short of rafts.
*
It was there all along
as if undiscovered
the modern sea
already alive, sawn off
craved by gravel
summoned by the populace
that salvaged pendants
from the surgery of tides
even though it was the sea
it did not seem like it
nor did it seem like what it could be
it was not the sea I missed
on its way to another age
It has always been like the sky
on a day no one is born
it has become its counterpart
a half icon, as permanent,
from where can it be seized
how should it be adorned?