Reviewed by Rama Gaind.
By Michael Farrell, Giramondo Publishing, $24.00.
Farrell’s poems aspire to both importance and connotation, and to invoke new Australian realities – ‘the rhyme’s a moral that becomes a fence; a fallen-down fence is a joy forever.’
The publicity blurb does it justice. The tone is playful and ironic, more under the skin of the mind than in its face. Poems like ‘Into a Bar’, in which Blue Poles and INXS entertain themselves with digital prune juice and a video burger, or ‘Cate Blanchett and the Difficult Poem’, with the actor and Waleed Aly, add new dimensions to Australian icons.
There’s a Mad Max riff (‘Put Your Helmet On’); a One Direction revision (‘Drag Me Down’); and new appreciations of lyrebirds, kangaroos and chocolate frogs. For something unusual, there’s everything that loves poetry: Weetbix, Iron Maiden T-shirts, motorbikes, and you.
There is Sid Vicious and there are lamingtons.
‘Great Poet Snowdome’ is a story of kitsch involving Sydney and a pope – a recurring figure in the book, since he reappears as Pope Pinocchio, alongside the Professor of Milk and Sugar.
Then there’s diversity.