Rose Lucas

Rose Lucas is a Melbourne poet and academic. Her first poetry collection, Even in the Dark (UWAP, 2013) won the Mary Gilmore Award; her second collection was Unexpected Clearing (UWAP, 2016). Her most recent work is the poetry collection This Shuttered Eye (Liquid Amber Press, 2021) and the edited anthology Lockdown Poetry: The Covid long haul (Liquid Amber Press, 2021). She teaches in Graduate Research at Victoria University where she also supervises in creative writing and literary studies.

Rose Lucas reviews 'Stone Scar Air Water' by Judy Johnson

October 2013, no. 355 • 27 September 2013

Judy Johnson’s sixth collection of poetry brings us a strong range of closely observed, powerful poems. As the title suggests, they are all linked together by elemental themes: the apparent solidity of stone, the persistence of scar tissue, the promises of air, and the complex gifts of water. In their often very different ways, each of the poems negotiates something of this elemental field, eith ... (read more)

Rose Lucas reviews 'Australian Poetry Journal Volume 2.1 technology' edited by Bronwyn Lea

October 2012, no. 345 • 25 September 2012

Australian Poetry Journal, the biannual publication published by Australian Poetry, offers a national focus for poetry and criticism. It includes contributions from established writers and from new voices. All in all, APJ indicates a cheering and cohering centre of gravity for all things poetic in contemporary Australia. ... (read more)

Rose Lucas reviews 'Ladylike' by Kate Lilley

June 2012, no. 342 • 22 May 2012

Like all good titles, Kate Lilley’s Ladylike offers the reader a coded and evocative entrée into her new collection. These poems are concerned with exposing and critiquing some of the expectations of femininity, of being ladylike, as found in the past and the present, in contemporary cultures such as the cinema and in the discourses of the academy. The idea of ‘liking ladies’ is also centra ... (read more)

Rose Lucas reviews 'Knuckled' by Fiona Wright

February 2012, no. 338 • 20 January 2012

Knuckled, poet and editor Fiona Wright’s highly anticipated first collection, arrives with an assuredness of style and voice that augurs well for Australian poetry. The overarching idea of ‘knuckles’ – of being knuckled, of beating knuckles, of the working joints of bare hands, even the throwing of knuckles in a game of chance – gives us a strong clue to the collection’s main themes. T ... (read more)

Rose Lucas reviews 'The Wing Collection: New and Selected Poems' by Diane Fahey

December 2011–January 2012, no. 337 • 24 November 2011

Over nearly thirty years and ten books, Diane Fahey has made a significant contribution to Australian poetry. The Wing Collection, from Puncher & Wattmann, showcases a wonderful array of her work. This generous collection offers a rich journey through Fahey’s key images and the recurring preoccupations that have made her work so distinctive. The six sections of this book have been grouped in ... (read more)

Rose Lucas reviews 'amphora' by Joanne Burns

September 2011, no. 334 • 22 August 2011

joanne burns has long been a force in Australian poetry. amphora, her thirteenth collection, builds on that legacy with the energy and vital idiosyncrasy with which readers have come to associate her work. The collection’s title – one of the sections of poetry – gives us a clue as to what we will find here. burns offers her reader an amphora, and thereby casts her book as a beautiful jar bri ... (read more)