The Taste of River Water

new and selected poems
Cate Kennedy

‘Pack[s] an emotional punch. Kennedy excels at drawing extraordinary details out of the seemingly mundane minutiae of everyday life, with a sharp, focused eye for the politics of the personal. Her depictions of rural life and the Australian landscape are particularly evocative. It's a welcome addition to the often-underrated canon of Australian poetry.’

Herald Sun

‘Cate Kennedy presents a long feast in The Taste of River Water. In describing the act of living — as she does with such potency; mouth-watering — she creates a new life.’

InPress Magazine

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‘Kennedy's career as a poet has evolved in parallel with her success as a short-story writer and novelist and her accessible poems display the hallmarks of a poet increasingly well-practiced in her craft. There is much to admire here.’ ** (four stars)

Bookseller and Publisher

Disarming, warm, and always accessible, Cate Kennedy’s poems make ordinary experiences glow. Everything that suffuses her well-loved prose is here: compassion, insight, lyrical precision, and the clear, minimalist eye that reveals how life can turn on a single moment. Musing on the undercurrents and interconnections between legacy, memory, motherhood, and the natural world, the poems in this exhilarating collection begin on the surface and then take us, gracefully and effortlessly, to a far more thought-provoking place. Grounded in lived experience, with all its mysteries and consolations, they resonate with a passionate, sensuous honesty.

Herald Sun

‘Cate Kennedy presents a long feast in The Taste of River Water. In describing the act of living — as she does with such potency; mouth-watering — she creates a new life.’

InPress Magazine

View all reviews

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Details

Format:Paperback

Size: 210mm × 135mm

Extent:96pp

ISBN (13):9781921844003

RRP:$24.99

Pub date:2 May 2011

Rights Held: World

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AWARDS

2011 Victorian Premier's Literary Awards C.J. Dennis Prize for Poetry - Winner 2011 Western Australian Premier's Book Awards - Short-listed

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AUTHOR

Cate Kennedy

Cate Kennedy is the author of the highly acclaimed novel The World Beneath, which won the People’s Choice Award in the NSW Premier’s Literary Awards in 2010. She is an award-winning short-story writer whose work has been published widely. Her first collection, Dark Roots, was shortlisted for the Steele Rudd Award in the Queensland Premier’s Literary Awards and for the Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. She is also the author of a travel memoir, Sing, and Don’t Cry, and the poetry collections Joyflight, Signs of Other Fires and The Taste of River Water, which won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry in 2011. She lives on a secluded bend of the Broken River in north-east Victoria.