Welcome to The May edition of the Substack. Apologies for the relative lack of content here over the last couple of months but things should be back on track from now. In this edition we have an interview with Lauren Smith from the National Library of Australia about the last work of poet Jordie Albiston, Frank, book news and we look at the closure of Book Depository.
Book News
Recent and upcoming titles;
From Bellevue Literary Press we have
Like the Appearance of Horses by Andrew Krivak
The Impostor - by Edgard Telles Ribeiro Translated by Kim M. Hastings and Margaret A. Neves
Grimmish by Michael Winker is out now through Coach House in U.S. If you haven’t picked up your copy go and grab one.
David Keenan’s Monument Maker is out through Europa.
Deep Vellum have Journey to the South by Michal Ajvaz Translated by Andrew Oakland
Over at Corona Samizdat the first volume of Margie and The Atomic Brain by Zach Tanner. I can’t wait for this.
At FSG Biography of X by Catherine Lacey which sounds a little like Ezra Maas.
Industrial Roots by Lisa Pike is out soon from Heloise Press
Wall from Jen Craig out through Puncher and Wattmann in Australia and through Zerogram in the US
Falling Hour by Geoffrey D Morrison is out from Coach House
Gone To The Wolves by John Wray is out through Pan-Macmillian
The Kirschbaum Lectures - Seth Rogoff is out from Sagging Meniscus
John Kinsella’s verse novel Cellnight is out from Transit Lounge
Thomas Legendre has Spring Fever out through Valley Press
INTERVIEW
Lauren Smith - Publisher at the National Library of Australia speaking about Frank by Jordie Albiston.
BTZ: Could you briefly tell us about your work with the NLA?
LS: I’m the publisher here at the National Library of Australia. NLA Publishing produces books that draw on the Library’s collections. Given that the Library holds more than 10 million items, from the Bringing Them Home oral history project with members of the Stolen Generation to the papers of Harold Stewart, it gives us a fairly wide remit. We mostly publish general non-fiction and also children’s books, but can occasionally do some projects outside our regular lines.
BTZ: You recently published the final work of the Australian poet Jordie Albiston, Frank through the National Library of Australia. Before we speak about the book, could you tell us a little about Jordie who sadly died in March last year at the age of 60?
LS: Jordie is a luminary of the Australian poetry landscape. She wrote numerous books, won awards, including the Mary Gilmore and the Patrick White. She continually imposed new boundaries on her work, but in doing so expanded the possibilities of the form. She came to the National Library as the 2021 Creative Fellow to look at the diaries of Frank Hurley. I didn’t get to meet her properly before she passed, though we exchanged emails. I know her by her work, and by her family, and through that I know her as someone deeply passionate who looked at the world with a great deal of empathy and curiosity.
BTZ: Let's talk about Frank. it is a beautiful book of documentary prose poetry based on the experiences of James Francis (Frank) Hurley, a photographer who joined Mawson and Shackleton on their explorations of the Antarctic. Could you tell us a bit more about the book and Jordie's interest in Hurley?
LS: Jordie gave a presentation on her work when she neared the end of her Fellowship that speaks more eloquently to this than I could, so I’d be remiss if I didn’t point you towards that as a first answer here.
Before working on Frank, Jordie had already been exploring the concept of documentary poetry, including in Botany Bay Document and The Hanging of Jean Lee. In her Fellowship presentation, she makes clear her belief that ‘as writers we can express our own particular sorrows, desires, thoughts and belief in some kind of beauty when we reach beyond our individual histories and tap into and respond to broader historical events in our work’.
She was drawn to Hurley and his Antarctic diaries because she was drawn to the ‘concept of entering a place totally new, totally alien and almost totally white’. She talks about the need she felt to interrogate the expanse, and also how Frank’s journeys focus on notions of survival, endurance, discovery, spectacle and awe.
BTZ: Jordie discusses how she worked on the diaries of Frank during his travels and how she has structured the poems. Could you tell us a little about the composition of the work?
There are three sections in the book. The first follows Hurley’s journey with Mawson on the 1911–14 Australasian Antarctic Expedition, the second the well-known journey with Shackleton on the Endeavour from 1914-1916 and then the third is based on his diaries from a tour he did around Australia in 1919-1920, which he called In the Grip of the Polar Pack-Ice, with additional sections from the Shackleton diary.
Jordie read through Hurley’s diaries, here at the Library, and using only his words (including his dashes and misspellings) under the ‘pressure of poetic form’ created something new. It’s fragmentary and deeply moving. You get these snapshots of the group of men on board a ship, sailing for the unknown, or huddled in sleeping bags waiting for salvation. I would include here, if I could, a dozen of the poems, but here is a sample:
a day
31 August 1916— I am not so susceptible to emotions but
this happy reunion with our comrades whom we had almost
given up for lost & our happy release with these lonely peaks
like mute sentinels witnessing our departure has left indelible
feelings two boat-loads suffice to carry all worldly belongings
& selves on board & 2PM we are underway engines at speed
racing for the open seas & freedom o! the bliss of feeling the
motion of the sea the music of fresh though foreign voices &
to sense at last our anxieties & privations are ended & we will
soon be re-united with home & civilization yet as those noble
peaks fade into mist I can scarce repress sadness to leave this
land that has rained on us its bounty & has for so long been
our salvation
BTZ: How would you describe the importance of Jordie's work to the Australian literary landscape and the NLA?
LS: This is such a beautiful example of the kind of work that is often done here at the National Library. We hold this deep, rich collection not because we are all endlessly nostalgic (although I am) but because the past warrants investigation and interrogation. We can know ourselves more fully, and our place on this planet, with a greater understanding of the past. We have readers and academics and family historians and students and people of all sorts coming into the building or onto the website every day to look for connection, understanding and meaning. Jordie’s work here is the epitome of that work.
In terms of Jordie’s significance to Australia’s literary landscape, she has been described as a colossus. She was prolific, she challenged the form, she mentored newcomers. She was generous with her wisdom, teaching and editing other poets. Her body of work is phenomenal.
BTZ: Does she have comparable peers in the world of poetry ?
LS: I think comparison is difficult in poetry, and difficult with Jordie. She was so skilled with her craft that she had the ability to slip between forms. I will say that during the process of working on this book, I also looked at Archival-Poetics by Dr Natalie Harkin, an electric and powerful text that deeply interrogates the past using docu-poetry. The other work that springs to mind is Late Journals, Antigone Kefala’s final work in her memoir trilogy.
BTZ: For those people wanting to read Jordie Albiston's work, where can they buy Frank and are there other works you would recommend?
Frank is available online through the NLA Bookshop and at those bookshops that celebrate poetry. I’m not usually a completist, but please read all her work. We’re lucky to have it.
Book Depository
For many of us the closure of Book Depository was a pretty big blow. For those of us in places like Australia they provided access to a world of books that were not available locally but without the massive shipping costs. Delivery was also fast and reliable. I rarely had a book go missing and if it did it was replaced without a complication. After opening in 2004, Book Depository was bought by Amazon in 2011. From April 26 no more orders will be taken and the operation will close in the coming months. While no real reason was given for the closure, Amazon stated that it had decided to ‘eliminate’ a number of positions across its devices and book businesses. Of late Amazon has attempted to push people into Prime memberships in order access cheaper shipping rates on books and other Amazon products so perhaps this is all a way to consolidate their business and boost profits by cutting staff and pushing the membership model. The rising cost argument continues to be a catch cry and we as book lovers are paying the price. That said, where the fuck can we go and buy books at a reasonable price?
I do encourage readers to go to their local bookshop and ask them to order titles they would not normally stock but this can take ages and might cost just as much buying direct from the publisher. If you are buying direct why not team up with some local friends and save on shipping. Ebooks are also an alternative that I am increasingly reliant on and e-readers are so much better than they used to be.
There ares some good alternatives to Book Depository or Amazon. Here are a few to try out;
Booktopia - Australia’s biggest online bookshop. They have flat rate shipping to Australia and NZ
World of Books - I love this site. Free shipping and delivery is fast but this is for second hand books.
AbeBooks - owned by Amazon but still a great place to buy new and used books and shipping is often much cheaper than Amazon.
Blackwell’s - Great selection and decent shipping rates
Kennys.ie - One of my favourites.
https://www.powells.com another favourite
https://asterismbooks.com Recently announced that they offer discount shipping to many countries around the works and they distribute some of the best indie publishers around. I urge you to check out their website and buy through them.
If you have a great tip on where to get books let me know.
slightly irrelevant suggestion here, but I think it would be amazing if you could get Daisy Rockwell, translator of Geetanjali Shree's Tomb of Sand, on the pod - and it would be great to potentially hear about other works of Indian literature from her