It isn’t necessarily an advantage in the poetry world, especially the American poetry world, to be known for writing things that aren’t poetry. We’re suspicious of dabblers; we’d prefer for the poet to have, as Emerson put it, “only this one dream, which holds him like an insanity,” and we sometimes view single-minded devotion to poetry’s institutions as evidence of that larger dedication.

The New York Times has David Orr’s review of Clive James’s Opal Sunset.

Poets & Writers notes that Melbourne has been named a city of literature by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization.

Recommended with reservations.

He’s produced 11 volumes of novels and short stories, but he lives in western Australia, one of the remotest parts of the world. People don’t know about him. They don’t know what they’re missing.

Writing for the Washington Post, Carolyn See reviews Tim Winton’s Breath.

Recommended.