Review of The Folly of Spring: A Study of John Shaw Neilson's Poetry by Cliff Hanna, and Dimitris Tsaloumas: Poet by Con Castan

Abstract

The appearance within the space of a few months of two monograph-length studies of the work of individual poets is an event to savour, especially as marketplace conditions make it a difficult form to sustain. One to two hundred pages is the ideal length for a work which concentrates on poems and contains either no biographical material, or a very brief biographical sketch. But given that the size is awkward and the market (shorn of readers of literary biographies) is currently very small, it is greatly to the credit of both the University of Queensland Press and Elikia Books that these two monographs have appeared. It would take no effort at all to list twenty contemporary poets who would benefit from this kind of extensive analysis, and it will be a sign of a healthier literary culture when such a project succeeds.