{"title":"Alan Wearne","description":"\u003cp\u003eAlan Wearne’s work delves into the nuances of contemporary life with a sharp eye for detail and a rich literary style. His writing often explores themes of personal experience and cultural reflection, blending poetic insight with storytelling that resonates deeply within the realm of \u003cem\u003eArts \u0026amp; Culture\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eReaders can expect a thoughtful journey through vivid narratives and evocative verse, where everyday moments are transformed into striking meditations on identity, place, and the complexities of human connection. Wearne’s books offer a compelling voice for those drawn to intellectually engaging and emotionally resonant literature.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"prepare-the-cabin-for-landing-by-alan-wearne-9781920882945","title":"Prepare the Cabin for Landing","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlan Wearne is this country's most public poet, a master of the Australian idiom, the recorder of its fashions, and the scourge of its big-noters, pretenders, and crooks. They are the targets of the central poem in this collection, \u003cem\u003eThe Vanity of Australian Wishes\u003c\/em\u003e, which draws on Samuel Johnson and Juvenal, 'who must have known that combination of bemusement, annoyance, anger and despair to which your country can drive you, though always with an eye to its entertainment value and dramatic potential'.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThere is an affectionate portrait of three high school teachers in suburban Melbourne in the early 1960s, satires on the world of finance, the lifestyles of the beautiful people, and literary intellectuals, as well as seven new poems based on Australian pop songs, with Johnny O'Keefe and Shane Warne in starring roles.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47362954035436,"sku":"9781920882945","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/25326363482871.jpg?v=1772906498"},{"product_id":"these-things-are-real-by-alan-wearne-9781925336320","title":"These Things are Real","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"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\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\"Australia's finest verse satirist\" - Peter Pierce\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAlan 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAlso included is \u003ci\u003eThe Sarsaparilla Writer's Centre\u003c\/i\u003e, a collection of satires on music, football, religion, politics, and poets.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAlan Wearne's verse novels \u003ci\u003eThe Nightmarkets\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eThe Lovemakers\u003c\/i\u003e and his collections \u003ci\u003eThe Australian Popular Songbook\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003ePrepare the Cabin for Landing\u003c\/i\u003e 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.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHe is the publisher of Grand Parade Poets.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47384051253484,"sku":"9781925336320","price":29.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/13688533482873.jpg?v=1773399965"},{"product_id":"mixed-business-by-alan-wearne-9781923099265","title":"Mixed Business","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA sequence of inter-connected narratives from pre-World War One to the 2020s, \u003ci\u003eMixed Business\u003c\/i\u003e is Alan Wearne's latest contribution to the verse novel genre. Propelled at times (though never exclusively) by politics, there is, of course, plenty of room for satire. The scope of the tales ranges from tragedy to tragicomedy to comedy to farce, with all the muses contributing. Given there are over one hundred characters in the cast, this is a book to be seen as a risky, imaginative, large-scale history of 20th and 21st Century urban Australia.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eMixed Business\u003c\/i\u003e offers a broad sweep across Melbourne's past century. It is sharply observed, written as a fine verse novel, with poet Alan Wearne exhibiting a rare historical and sociological imagination. Wearne brilliantly succeeds in his aim of \"trying to capture how Australians yap\/ with use of rhyme to give that extra snap.\" - Jim Davidson\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eAlan Wearne's \u003ci\u003eMixed Business\u003c\/i\u003e is an epic adventure, its energies tied poetically to the everyday. Wearne introduces a cast of characters whose voices, and those of their descendants, speak to each other across the manuscript's over-a-100-year span. Each narrative, whether a domestic or political saga, has its own social and cultural imprint. A reader is guided down streams of consciousness where Wearne's subtlety with the natural rhythms of vernacular registers plays into and against the intellectual toughness of his satire. With discursive shifts between the charming and the garrulous, Wearne's lens is, as always, on the social contract between individuals, its harmonies and disruptions. - Michelle Borzi\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eOf Australia's poets, Wearne may be most like Banjo Paterson, without regional pretensions and with fewer animals. Or he may be a late last flowering of social realism, albeit in a liberal-democratic key. Whatever Wearne is and to whom, this is an odd book, in the best sense, that is sure to startle the younger generations. And you're probably in it. - A J Carruthers\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47425858273516,"sku":"9781923099265","price":32.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781923099265.jpg?v=1774768066"},{"product_id":"near-believing-by-alan-wearne-9781922571298","title":"Near Believing","description":"\u003cdiv class=\"book-description\"\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a selection from a poet who believes that Australia still has countless stories to tell, re-tell and imagine. These are works by someone intrigued by the varieties of poetic forms, who is a lover of verse satire and a believer in the contemporary power of dramatic monologues. Tradition is, for Alan Wearne, of continuing relevance since as he tells us: 'I work for an outfit called Narrative Verse in English, company founder being a man called Geoff, Geoff Chaucer.' \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cem\u003eAlan Wearne\u003c\/em\u003e rampages through the timid, dismal and so terribly polite terrain of contemporary English language culture and poetry, blowtorch at hand, laying waste the cant, hypocrisy, delusional self-narratives, rapaciousness and just plain unkindness, be it politicians or other insalubrious types. Wearne's energy, range and variety are without equal, whether in free verse, rhyming couplets or villanelle. Any poet of equivalent unbridled intelligence and coiled ferocity would be denied entry in America at Customs or put under house-arrest by the local Woke Taliban. A very naughty boy is on the loose. Bravo. \u003cstrong\u003eAugust Kleinzahler\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe depth and breadth of these narratives and monologues are extraordinary. Wearne's narrative strategies, psychological insights, and understanding of history, politics, as well as the dynamics that can play out in relationships are gripping. These poems explore and reveal much of the dark underbelly in Australian society and culture. Public and private worlds play off against each other in searing ways. Wearne is a master of tone and voice, of giving his poems a colloquial authenticity few can match. His wit and technical skill are enduring pleasures. \u003cstrong\u003eJudith Beveridge\u003c\/strong\u003e \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Hachette Aotearoa New Zealand","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47431720173804,"sku":"9781922571298","price":34.99,"currency_code":"NZD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0705\/7784\/8556\/files\/9781922571298.jpg?v=1774557327"}],"url":"https:\/\/bookhero.co.nz\/collections\/alan-wearne.oembed","provider":"Book Hero","version":"1.0","type":"link"}