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Five Islands Press was established in 1986 and is dedicated to the publication of fine Australian poetry. A new chapter in the history of FIP is now underway with a publishing team composed of: Kevin Brophy, Susan Fealy, Lyn Hatherly and Dan Disney plus our graphic designer, Libby Austen and our intern, Robert Glab.

NEWS:
Anna Kerdijk Nicholson's book Possession was launched on 20th February at Surry Hills Library. If you'd like to see an interview with Anna about the way she re-invents Captain Cook in Possession, please click on this link: Youtube interview

Tatjana Lukic's book la, la, la, has won the poetry section of the Canberra Critics' awards for 2009. If you'd like to read a review, please click on this link: Mascara review

Susan Hampton's new book News of the Insect World was launched in Canberra on November 13. Please order a copy from the New Books page

We're proud to announce that Sandy Fitts' book View from the Lucky Hotel was warded the FAW Anne Elder prize for a first book of poetry. For more details please read our press release
The most recent Five Islands Press publications are:

Judy Johnson Navigation

Barry Hill As we draw ourselves

Sandy Fitts View from the Lucky Hotel

Louise Oxley Buoyancy

Tatjana Lukic la, la, la

Ian McBryde The Adoption Order

Susan Hampton News of the Insect World

Anna Kerdijk Nicholson Possession

Other books planned for 2010 include new books from Grant Caldwell, Robyn Rowland and Claire Potter.

You can buy our books either through the PayPal facility that appears on the New Books page OR by downloading the Order Form and posting it to us. For larger orders, please contact us for a quote on postal costs.

If you'd like to be placed on the Five Islands Press email list to be advised of the publication of new titles and other news, please email: lyn@greenlife.net.au

Possession. Poems about the voyage of Lt James Cook in the Endeavour 1768-1771 -
Anna Kerdijk Nicholson
'Skilled . . Writing of poise and flair. Her angles of view are out of the ordinary.' Peter Pierce

Anna Kerdijk Nicholson's second book, Possession, explores colonial appropriation. These poems are modern artefacts: permeable and sophisticated - they examine how language, history and time serve to sift and subvert knowing. 'These meditations put fresh maps in the hands of Captain James Cook . . . find a contemporary phrasing for his thoughts.' Philip Salom

To purchase Anna Kerdijk Nichoson's book, Possession, please go to the 'New Books' page.

News of the Insect World -
Susan Hampton
' "I've been a caterpillar for so long now..." every poem here is a tiny part of life's wry pilgrimmage. Read them - tender, funny, surprising.' Kate Grenville

'News of the Insect World' uses closely observed and poignant details from the lives of insects to explore ideas about love, mortality, and transformation. In these poems a million purple-spotted butterflies try to avoid an elevated motorway in Taiwan, bogong moths block the ducts of Parliament House, a dragonfly considers its death. We are asked how fugues work, and why gods are invisible.

Susan Hampton's previous book The Kindly Ones, also from Five Islands Press, was shortlisted for five awards, and won The Judith Wright Poetry Prize.

To purchase Susan Hampton's book, News of the Insect World, please go to the 'New Books' page.

The Adoption Order - Ian McBryde
Canadian-born Ian McBryde is a long term resident of Australia. The Adoption Order is his sixth mainstream collection. His fourth collection, Domain concerning WW2 and Europe under occupation, was short-listed for The Age Poetry Book of the Year in 2005.
No cheating now. Spell rescue. Don't look.
Spell ruin. Spell empty well. Spell memory.

To purchase Ian McBryde's book, The Adoption Papers, please go to the 'New Books' page.

la, la, la - Tatjana Lukic From losing so much in her war torn home, Osijek, to locating new senses of self and context in Canberra, 'yes, I remember everything' says the poet. Transversing from 'there' to 'here' to 'anywhere', la, la, la is a collection of dialogues between present and past. Lukic's is a disarming poetics that wonders and then meditates meaning as she moves between her shifting worlds.
'these poems written in their author's second language have a certainty about them that belies the difficulties Lukic must have encountered at all stages of her writing life. They are tough, tender, resilient. It is so much more than a great pity that her first book in English should also be her last.'
Laurie Duggan
'She writes of injustices, warfare, struggle, pain and loss with forthright clarity, as well as with gentle and imaginative lyricism. She can be tough, wry, ironic, questioning. While in matters of the head and heart a "realpolitik" breathes through her words, there are also tender, redemptive moments: small suns will melt/ all mighty hills... a sagacious charm infuses the varied music of her work.'
joanne burns

To purchase Tatjana Lukic's book, la, la, la, please go to the 'New Books' page.

Buoyancy - Louise Oxley Coastlines are the source of Louise Oxley’s poetry. These poems are also expressions of love, loss and personal experiences. Of ‘Blaendigeddi’ Philip Salom wrote, ‘The language is rich and lush and is filled with a wonderfully sustained energy ... It is many things at once — a trip, a time-out, a love poem, an intense affirmation of alertness to new experience and it is a celebration of beauty and place ... it is beautifully made and by being so it thereby also celebrates poetry.’

Of her first book: ‘The achievement of Louise Oxley’s Compound Eye is remarkable ... using pitch-perfect language, Oxley creates marvellous personal arcs in which natural history, science and autobiography are transported specifically.’
Jennifer Harrison
‘The scope of these poems — the wide radar of their intelligence — is their appeal. They both embody and reflect upon consciousness, the integrity of the moment — historic, present, even prehistoric; it takes serious word-craft and acuity to achieve this. I’m drawn to the poems in this collection for their words, their ideas, and for their humanity.’
Sarah Day

To purchase Louise Oxley's book, Buoyancy, please go to the 'New Books' page.
To read a review of Louise's book, please click on this link: review by Martin Duwell

View from the Lucky Hotel - Sandy Fitts

The poems in ‘View from the Lucky Hotel’ are fully alive to the world.
Many are located in Vietnam; yet while embedded in the specifics of locality, their issues resonate far beyond, alert to economics, politics, culture, history, aesthetics and ethics. In this first collection, Sandy Fitts establishes a signature style that includes lyric, satire, essay, and narrative forms. This is poetry with range and a keen eye.

Droll, zestful, tender, complicated, meditative - Sandy Fitts’ poems invite the reader into tout le monde. Peter Steele

‘This joyful cartography’ might well define what Sandy Fitts is about in these poems, whether they’re mapping experiences of Hanoi or central Australia. Resonant with a poetic voice that is ‘strong, /strong enough to celebrate this time and this place ...’ Jennifer Strauss

A wonderfully fresh, subtle and endearing voice.
Helen Garner
To purchase Sandy Fitts' book, View from the Lucky Hotel, please go to the 'New Books' page.

To read a review of Sandy's book, please click on this link: review by Brendan Ryan

As we draw ourselves - Barry Hill

Barry Hill's new collection takes its title from 'Cliff,' one of his poems inspired by Fantastic Mountains, a celebrated exhibition of Chinese landscape painting:
how
as we draw ourselves
toward clouds
slopes wrap us
twist and knot
slow us like rocks

The 'drawing' pertains to moments in healing journeys on sacred mountains - from Taoist places in China to the snow white mountains at Carrara, from which Michelangelo drew his marble. The drawing also involves Hill's response to painters from Giotto to Bonnard, and to Michelangelo's way of drafting sonnets onto his sheets of sketches. Hill's work is an active circumscribing of how we are with ourselves and with each other in places as classically abroad as Italy as well as in our kitchen at home. As we draw ourselves reaches into art and into history, literary and personal, looping back to the homecomings and the loves that earth us.
'The whole series is very beautiful. A virtuoso poet seduces us. This is drawing as poetry, poetry as mark making --- intimate, transforming. I am deeply moved to find that there is so much Barry Hill can teach me about drawing.'                                  John Wolseley

To purchase Barry Hill's book, As we draw ourselves, please go to the 'New Books' page.

To read a review of Barry's book please click on this link: review by Ian Johnston

Navigation - Judy Johnson

In these poems the external world is used as a mirror for the internal, emotional landscape we all inhabit. By weaving together these inner and outer threads, thereby making new connections, Johnson redefines the familiar so that it becomes once again strange and convincing.
Navigation contains poems that are short, sharp pieces drawn from her abiding concerns with family, death, and love.
These contrast with longer poems in the book which are extended and meticulously researched historical narratives addressing issues of lasting ethical significance.
Judy’s historical verse novel Jack won the 2007 Victorian Premier’s CJ Dennis Poetry Prize.
Of her previous books:
‘This is a poetry both worldly and refined.’
                                  Judith Beveridge

'A powerful collection of poems, Johnson explores the complex interplay between the external world and the inexpressible, often intolerable inner world we carry with us.'
                             Peter Boyle

To purchase Judy Johnson's book, Navigation, please go to the 'New Books' page.

To read a review of Judy Johnson's book, please click on this link: review by Warrick Wynne

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