Description
Temporarily out of stock
Title: Cocky’s Joy
Author: FARRELL MICHAEL
Format: PAPERBACK
Publication date: 01/03/2015
Imprint: GIRAMONDO PUBLISHING COMP
Price: $24.00
Publishing status: Active
Michael Farrell has a reputation as the most adventurous and experimental of
contemporary Australian poets, since he continually pushes the boundaries of what
our poetry can do. Cocky’s Joy is likely to be his breakthrough collection, the one which
wins him a wider audience, and part of the reason for this lies in the use it makes of
Australian history and popular culture. Farrell was born and raised in rural NSW and
as its title suggests, many of the poems in this collection are rooted in the bush, which
they present as a surreal wonderland, connected to the world in magical and often
hilarious ways. There are love poems too, and gay riffs on such figures as the cowboy,
the waiter and the ‘romantic woman’. Farrell’s experimentalism doesn’t prevent him
from offering really moving tributes, to parents and lovers, and scenes remembered
from the past. In fact, it is precisely his eye for metaphor and the strange combination,
for punning and word play, that gives his poetry its humour and energy. “Catherine/
designed pages for ads where tiny buffalo/ roamed a celery patch, leaving health
warnings/ on the stalks. Why not just use ants? objected/ Heathcliff.â€
ISBN: 9781922146762
Weight: 150gr
Dimension: 210mm X 150mm