“Wearne’s epics and fragments are like the traces of a
ruined culture, in which everybody got to star in their own domestic drama or
screwball romance. Until you realise that it’s happening, here and now: you are
being waltzed around the living room of middle-class folklore.” – Bonny Cassidy
“Australia’s finest verse satirist” – Peter Pierce
Alan
Wearne specialises in monologues and verse narratives. A young widow in
post-war Melbourne fends off the approaches of her best friend’s husband; a
retired femocrat recalls her lovelorn Maoist youth; a single mother falls into
an abusive relationship with a drifting musician; a heroin addict is haunted by
his dealer’s murder of a youth. Also included is ‘The Sarsaparilla Writer’s
Centre’, a collection of satires on music, football, religion, politics, and
poets.
Alan Wearne’s verse novels The
Nightmarkets and The Lovemakers
and his collections The Australian
Popular Songbook and Prepare the
Cabin for Landing won the National Book Council Banjo Award, the NSW
Premier’s Poetry Prize and Book of the Year Award, the Judith Wright Calanthe
Award, the Grace Levin Prize and the Colin Roderick Award. He is the publisher
of Grand Parade Poets.
