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Published: 2012
No of Pages: 72
RRP: 24.95
ISBN Print: 978-1-921556-31-9

Asymmetry

Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature 2012, shortlisted
Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards 2012, shortlisted

“What greater challenge for a poet than the recovery of language after its loss? These dense, powerful poems are the fruits of Coleman’s year-long struggle. They read like some profound and moving metaphor for the process of writing poetry itself, but on a far more important plane, as we follow him from struck muteness to the dredging up of the bare bones of language, a process of reclamation that seems to find its fullest and most joyous expression – its cure – in the sensuous love poems for his wife that conclude the book, the wife who was at his side every painful inch of the way.” Peter Goldsworthy

‘The lyrics of Asymmetry show us by turns the sorrows of dire illness and the joys of love.

Aidan Coleman sees and feels things in sharp and memorable ways; yet he not only makes us perceive the world better but also he leads us to appreciate it the more. Australian poetry is the richer for this book.’ Kevin Hart

“Dizzying imagery, executed with utter control. Coleman’s artistry puts him in the forefront of young poets anywhere.” Les Murray

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About the Author

Aidan Coleman

Aidan Coleman is a poet, speechwriter and author of a series of Shakespeare textbooks.  His poetry collections, Avenues & Runways and Asymmetry have been shortlisted for numerous national awards, including the NSW Premier’s Kenneth Slessor Prize, the Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature and the Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards. He has been awarded numerous grants and residencies, including two from the Australia Council for the Arts.  His poetry has appeared in numerous anthologies, as well as newspapers, magazines and journals in Australia, Ireland, Lithuania, the UK and US. His work is featured in the “Gen X-Y” episode, from ABC Radio National’s Australian Poetry series, “A Pod of Poets”.

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