GHOSTLY SUBJECTS

Salt, 2009.

In Ghostly Subjects, Maria Takolander applies her unflinching gaze to topics ranging from the Madrid train bombings to sex dolls, from domestic violence to poetry readings, and from love games to cosmetics. The world portrayed in this striking collection is intensely uncanny and rendered with a distinctive precision of language and vision.

‘Takolander is a new kind of shaper of poems: a postmodern lyricist, she searches for the essence of what makes the poem and finds, in the end,  that the poem matters. She won’t be categorized, because she is constantly exploring the nature of categories. A brilliant first book by a poet who will show us where to look next.’—John Kinsella.

‘Challenging and . . . disturbing . . . always polished, always surprising.’—Martin Duwell.

‘This is zesty writing, individual and unintimidated by the sharp nature of much of the material.’—Peter Rose.

‘At times either disarming yet penetrating, or mysterious yet blunt, in Maria Takolander’s Ghostly Subjects poems move from the You Yangs to Finland, contrasting or embedding the human with nature in rich imagery and stark thoughtful reflection. The last powerful section Culture uses art as palimpsest . . . In these jagged vivid portraits, each artist blindly pursues her/his own elusive ghostly subjects, and Takolander, haunted in turn, reinterprets them in a unique new voice.’—Gig Ryan.

Honours

Short listed for a 2010 Queensland Premier’s Literary Award (Arts Queensland Judith Wright Calanthe Award).

Reviews

‘Takolander’s poems are ruinous, diabolical, all the more so for their polish and precision. Here, as in Baudelaire, beauty is inextricably linked with evil: it’s “the dark italics”, as Wallace Stevens phrased it, that compels the poetic imagination . . . Don’t be surprised if they take up residence in your body after reading them . . . it’s just that kind of book.’—Westerly.

‘Poetry is always ruthless but few poets are as willing as Takolander to explore that ruthlessness . . . The poems could be written by a ghost . . . or unfairy godmother.’—The Sydney Morning Herald (2010).

'The edges of the meanings are clean and the level of insight at its most convincing . . . there is, moreover, an extended density to the material which is compelling . . . A poet needs an edge to her words, and Takolander has developed one. It will be fascinating to see what she goes on to do with it.’—Island.

‘An exciting new poet . . . it is always a treat to read poems of consistently high quality written by a young Australian poet which sound so unlike the poems of other young Australian poets.’—Australian Poetry Review.

‘Takolander’s style, because of the tremendous weight each word and line carries, deserves close attention . . . Nothing in the book feels haphazard. She masterfully crafts strong sounds that pound the image into the psyche . . . Maria Takolander’s Ghostly Subjects reverberates within me. Every poem is filled with danger, and every poem is delightfully haunting.’—Antipodes.

‘After reading Ghostly Subjects, it is impossible to look at the world in quite the same way . . . she ushers in a new era for a cerebral grittiness in Australian poetry.’—Blue Dog.

‘Like Kafka and Plath, Takolander seeks to “defamiliarise the familiar” . . . Her poetry alternates between being highly metaphoric and disturbingly literal.’—The Canberra Times.

‘Fascinating yet grotesque . . . a kind of haunting.’—Australian Book Review.

‘Violence is a recurring theme, as well as something of a structural strategy . . . it is an encouraging fact that Maria Takolander’s daring and subversive work is not being marginalised.’—Cordite.