Ruby Street

I am pleased and gratified that my most recent book, Viva the Real (UQP), has been shortlisted in the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards for 2019 . Awards and prizes aren’t obviously the be-all and end-all but they do repay some of the faith the writer (in this case, me) and publisher had in the book. It's a welcome thing, especially as a genre like poetry pretty much gets ignored by book reviewing culture, literary festivals, and the like. The judges say of the book : Viva the Real by Jill Jones is an heroic celebration of the everyday: … For Jones the poem is an artefact freeze-framing thought: she is interested in the connections between the quotidian, attentiveness, and the resourcefulness of the poem to make legible our familiar. … An antidote to distraction, Viva the Real is a marvellous contribution to the poetics of everyday life: it magnifies the moment and resonates long after reading. A couple of years ago on this blog, I posted some thoughts I had about what my...

The shortlist for the Whitmore Press Manuscript Prize 2011 have just been announced. The following poets, listed in alphabetical order, have been shortlisted for the prize: B. R. Dionysius Paula Green Dominique Hecq Jill Jones Jo Langdon Laura Jean McKay Eddie Paterson Nathan Shepherdson Lucy Todd Corey Wakeling The organisers say: "With 116 entries received, a number of other very worthy submissions did not make the shortlist on this occasion. We found the entries to be of a very high standard. ...." Part of the condition of submitting to the award was to only put forward unpublished work of up to 150 lines and to have a longer work, for the complete chapbook, in mind. As Anne Kellas points out on her blog , these conditions may be what resulted in the 'very high standard'.   The winner, whose work will be published in a limited edition chapbook in early 2012, will be announced before the end of September.

A sequence I wrote, 'The Linden Tapes', has been shortlisted (though being part of a list of 23 poems suggests a very lo-o-ong list) for the Newcastle Poetry Prize . Essentially it means I will be in the 2011 anthology, which is neat. The prize presentation thingie will happen in Newie in a couple of weeks. I could go, but I am planning an overseas trip (slightly postponed) so can't really afford to. And clearly I'm not a winner or runner-up. But my real point is that the poems are very much out of living in this place (ie Linden Park). I would have called the sequence 'The Linden Park Tapes' but I wanted to keep a little mystery in these essentially suburban songs (yes, all 14 liners). Linden Park is a very suburban place in a very suburban city. I feel as though I am back where I started, the very suburban Australia I was born into. Unsettling. I'm not sure if there are any linden trees here. I presume there must be, somewhere. Plenty trees, plenty bird...

And as you may have picked up from the interview mentioned below, or other sources, Dark Bright Doors has gotten a shortlisting in the NSW Premiers Literary Awards for the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize , along with quite an array of other Australian poetry books. The business is now in the lap of the gods but I will get across to Sydney to toast whatever happens with the other poets. To poetry!