apparently

Shortlisted for the 2020 NSW Premier's Literary Awards Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry

The poems collected in apparently appear like visions, intensely experienced but barely real. Where does a poem come from? Over four sections, this question is considered.

The first section gathers poems spring-boarding from the clues and solutions to crossword puzzles; the second recounts unsettling dreams in the form of prose poems or microfictions. 'Dial', the longest section, acknowledges the bewildering sense of daily time and the dizzying spectacle of social and worldly matters contained within. Finally, from a more restful or relaxed vantage, 'the random couch' presents a number of drifting poems, written while the poet was lounging on the sofa.

Praise for Joanne Burns's poetry:

"It is a fascinating achievement that Burns is able to confront the surface din and wreckage of society and bring us through the other side as readers with a healthier pulse." - Jessica L. Wilkinson

"With subtlety and skill [Burns] reprises her spare yet concentrated appraisal of the polis, the legends and strands of the indigenous, inter-generational, confessional, and archaic presences that wash up upon its shores and into her net of words." - Cordite Poetry Review