SOOB - New Writing 2005
Straight out of Brisbane minds and into the palm of your hand.
SOOB: New Writing 2005 scoops the cream of work delivered from the loins of the Straight out of Brisbane festival of, what else, 2005. Young writers charged with the burden of facing a world that looks upon them for more than just cheap labour. Young writers with solid voices.
Presenting a selection of works from Brisbane minds, editors Mandy Beaumont and Chad Parkhill have chosen pieces here that, when read as a whole, reflect a meandering pace and a deathly throbbing of lives.
Stories which find themselves taking up stock in the pages vibrate on a similar wavelength and frequency of youth and echoes for a want of escape. Escape from the doldrums, the inhibitions of life, the structures of standing still. Reflective of this mood, the selected writers have opened up their souls to moments passing right before their very eyes. Be it in the past or as they are in the very moment of now.
Poetry, like many things taken to with a suggestive glare, take time in parts. They might even go nowhere. But where can poetry go if not inside the skull to kick out from behind the eye sockets of humanity? And here, while they may strive for such lofty notions, manage so far as to rattle a few fixtures within their limited frames. Decidedly as hard to write as it is to fully comprehend, enough time spent soaking in images and visuals strips away any notion that only those on their deathbeds can appreciate the full array of human emotions carried through life.
Anything, even the whisper of dreams, is better than the screaming void and crippling hold of nothing. Reading this little pocket collection more than once makes that point ardently clear. It's as if through the song of words these young writers are shouting about the possibilities that sit just beyond the boundaries presented in their vignettes of life. Whether or not any of this is intentional will hopefully remain a mystery.
Bouncing around from prose to poetry, it's a nice mixture of pace, style and above all else, voices.
Soon Van
Published May 2005 at The Program - NSW Text reviews
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