[Stephen Romei, 'A Pair of Ragged Claws', ALR blog, October 20th 2009]:
Speaking of good poems, I’ve just received advanced copies of The Best Australian Poetry 2009 (UQP), edited by Alan Wearne, author of the much-admired verse novel The Lovemakers, and much more besides, and The Best Australian Poems 2009 (Black Inc), edited by the equally illustrious Robert Adamson.
It’s very pleasing to see the ALR so well represented in each volume, and with poets ranging from Peter Porter, who needs no introduction, to Fiona Wright, who made the Adamson book for her fine poem about the Victorian bushfires, Kingslake. I’m gratified, too, to see that John Tranter‘s long poem The Analglyph, which ran over two pages in the May 2009 ALR , made Adamson’s cut.
It is good, too, the see the ALR’s young and talented poetry editor, Jaya Savige, in both volumes for the same poem, The Pain Switch, though I’ll have to have a word with him about giving is best material to The Other Place (it was published in The Age).