Author(s): Wes Lee

Poetry | Educational Resources

By the Lapels is an oblique narrative told in fragments, scenes half-glimpsed. The poems unfold, adopting a variety of poetic personas, interrogating the body, interrogating memory, highlighting a tenuous sense of existence, a constant negotiation with being in the world. I was delighted by her ability to explore form and deploy a lucid, image-laden, evocative sense in her writing ... I kept thinking as I read these poems what they constantly achieve is aligned with the logic of ecriture feminine, and of what Irigaray promised us women writers would eventually achieve: 'Don't weep. One day we will learn to say ourselves.' - Jen Webb, University of Canberra The work is full of dark intimations and melancholy ... One is pummelled by life and weirdly joyous at the incredibly frank state of arrival of their own being in writing. - Eileen Myles, the Sarah Broom Poetry Prize 2018