OPEN HOUSE
TJ Ryan Marketing and Publicity UQP
David Brooks
OPEN HOUSE
poetry
David Brooks
Poetry | ISBN: 978 0 7022 5352 2 | February 2015 | B-format paperback | 168 pp | $24.95
From the author of The Conversation comes Open House, a striking new collection of poetry that celebrates David Brooks’ highly acclaimed talent for continuously delivering sharp and significant works.
Continuing a logical sequence of concerns and preoccuptions from his previous volume of poetry, The Balcony, Brooks’ draws upon his Slovenian life, his concern for animal rights, and his time in the Blue Mountains to provide subtle, yet potent commentary on our priveleged position within nature’s hierarchy.
Spare and honed, the poems in Open House take a number of forms, drifting between nature and philosophy, evoking a meditative quality that is both contemplative and full of grace. From observations of the smallest creatures and textures underfoot, to the telescopic, the poems reveal the smallness of human endeavour from a thoughtful distance.
In the kingdom of shadows, world without end,
slugs traverse the prairies of the soul,
mice enter the pure land,
cockroaches conquer the valleys of death.
In the kingdom of shadows, dominion
of cats and sugar gliders,
moths are mastering the constellations, spiders
whispering their histories to the stars.
(extract from ‘In the Kingdom of Shadows’)
In writing Open House, Brooks drew inspiration from both the courageous animal activists he has worked with here and in Europe, as well as from the remarkable animals he has encountered that have quite literally changed his life. For him, it was important to use a form of ‘high-culture’ expression to expose the inherent cruelties and prejudeces against animals.
Brooks has also reflected deeply on his own life, one that involves him living an increasingly solitary existence in the country with the space to fuel his thought and advocacy. Recent medical challenges – surviving a heart attack and living with Multiple Sclerosis – have also forced him to come to terms with the animal that he is.
Powerful, resonant and unreserved, Open House offers a fresh perspective on nature, philosophy and the world we share.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
David Brooks is the author of four previous collections of poetry, three of short fiction, four highly acclaimed novels, and a major work of Australian literary history (The Sons of Clovis, UQP 2011). His The Book of Sei (1985) was heralded as the most impressive debut in Australian short fiction since Peter Carey’s, and his second novel, The Fern Tattoo (UQP 2007), was short-listed for the Miles Franklin award. Until 2013 he taught Australian Literature at the University of Sydney, where he was also the foundation director of the graduate writing program. He is currently co-editor of literary journal Southerly, lives in the Blue Mountains of New South Wales, and spends several months each year in a village on the coast of Slovenia.