Melissa Ashley

The Apparition at Large is Black Pepper’s managing director K.F. Pearson’s second outing as the commentating enigma, most recently encountered in The Apparition’s Daybook (1995). Opening poems map the identity’s regular ‘haunts’ – the bars and cafés of inner-Melbourne – via evocative sketches of daily life’s unexpected sensuality: ‘A colour can completely drench our consciousn ... (read more)

Folly & Grief, Melbourne poet Jennifer Harrison’s third collection, reads on one level as a playful enquiry into the centuries-long association of folly with innovative live performance. Lizard men abseil down gallery walls; an extreme body artist creates a living sculpture of bees; a ventriloquist’s dummy stirs to life; New Age travellers toss firesticks, knives and chainsaws high into th ... (read more)