Through the Tunnel
Books & Poetry
With 17 contributors, this is the second anthology from an eclectic group known as the Hills Poets. Meeting once a month in an historic Adelaide Hills wayside inn, the group has grown over the years. A few original members may have moved on, but others have come along, resulting in a healthy increase in numbers. Nowadays inspiration is two-way – coming from members down on the plains, as well as from those in the hills.
Through the Tunnel, ed Jill Gower, Ginninderra Press, $18.50
Editing an anthology is said to be one of the hardest jobs in publishing, bearing in mind the adage about poets being, by nature, opposed to anything smacking of consensus. Yet the solitary nature of composition can make poets long for company. Managing all that might seem to require walking a fine line indeed, but editor Jill Gower is well qualified for the task – she has seen two collections of her own work to print and was also editor for the group’s first anthology, Frost and Fire.
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Through the Tunnel offers an eclectic, skilful mix of styles, ideas and tastes, resulting in the formal poem and the relaxed one, the serious, sad and funny.
It is difficult to quote from anthologies; representing all contributors fairly is done best by the book itself. But it’s hard to resist a few lines from Gower to which all poetry lovers, writers or readers will relate: This morning / I saw in my bath / an extra-long millipede. / I called him Longfellow / and asked him if he was a poet.
A nice section of biographical notes on all contributors rounds off the book.
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