Giramondo has inaugurated two new series of books - New and Selected collections by distinguished Australian poets; and Giramondo Shorts, a special series of short form, short print run books, designed to take account of the new technologies of digital printing, and to appeal to a community of literary readers. The series carries a quote from Les Murray’s poem ‘The Dream of Wearing Shorts Forever’: ‘it is time perhaps to cherish the culture of shorts.’
To celebrate these new series, Giramondo is offering a special deal on their respective first titles. Order Gig Ryan’s New and Selected Poems and Michael Wilding’s Wild & Woolley: A Publishing Memoir together for $40 - at a saving of 25%. Postage is included free.
Michael Wilding - Wild & Woolley: A Publishing Memoir
‘In 1973, Michael Wilding, writer, lecturer, West Midlander and originator of many a literary wheeze and scheme, met Pat Woolley, Californian dynamo and publishing neophyte, at a party. Before many a glass of wine had passed, they set up a small firm to produce and import new-style fiction and poetry. How could they not have called it Wild & Woolley?’
Wild & Woolley: A Publishing Memoir is Wilding’s rollicking account of the literary scene in Sydney in the heady bohemian years of the 1970s and 80s, charting the growth, the experiments, and finally Wilding’s departure from this innovative small press, against a background of social upheaval and cultural change in Australia. It is peppered with irreverent anecdotes and details – publication of the best-selling manual All About Grass, the purchase of decommissioned panel vans for ‘urgent book deliveries’, accounts of long and boozy book launches – and with vivid portraits of some of the most important literary figures of the time.
Gig Ryan - New and Selected
Gig Ryan’s poems have exerted an influence over two generations of writers and readers since the publication of her award-winning collection Division of Anger in 1981. An important figure in Australian poetry, her work is studied in high schools and universities, and represented in anthologies, but has not been available as a whole until now. New and Selected Poems is Ryan’s choice of her poems from the last thirty years, and includes new poems written since the publication of her previous collection.
Ryan’s poetry is remarkable for its dramatic qualities, which break through the conventions of language, charging word and image with expressive power. Her scenes open large perspectives, directed by irony, humour, compassion, or satiric intent. Her use of the vernacular captures the pretensions and vulnerabilities within everyday relationships. She employs traditional literary forms, one of the few contemporary poets to combine a hard-edged, disjunctive modern style with classical antecedents.
