Pure and Applied

Pure and Applied
AuthorGig Ryan
LanguageEnglish
GenrePoetry collection
PublisherPaper Bark Press
Publication date1998
Publication placeAustralia
Media typePrint
Pages91 pp
Awards1999 Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry, winner
ISBN0958648263

Pure and Applied is a collection of poems by Australian poet Gig Ryan, published by Paper Bark Press in 1998.

The collection contains 65 poems, many previously published in various Australian literary magazines, and some published here for the first time.

It was the winner of the 1999 Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry.

Contents

  • "Pure and Applied"
  • "White Night"
  • "Autumn"
  • "And Let This Conglomeration Go"
  • "One Hundred Flowers"
  • "At the Laundromat"
  • "London Saver"
  • "Tresspass"
  • "Two Winters"
  • "Still Life"
  • "Voyage"
  • "Forfeit"
  • "Fog (One)"
  • "Impressario"
  • "Memoir"
  • "Compass and Map"
  • "Transfer Fee"
  • "New Corral (August 1992)"
  • "Last Class"
  • "His Desert Bequest"
  • "3-Track"
  • "Annals of the Field"
  • "On Flight"
  • "Alba"
  • "Trade"
  • "Rostra"
  • "Forum"
  • "Sunset"
  • "Travellers from the New World"
  • "Venerdi Santo"
  • "Amaro E Dolce"
  • "Present Mist"
  • "The Birth of Rome"
  • "Traffic"
  • "Ruin Among the Lovers"
  • "Sickness and Health"
  • "Interest Rates"
  • "Hay Fever"
  • "Marriages"
  • "Eating Vietnamese"
  • "The Hands that Burned"
  • "Strategies"
  • "Achilleus to Odysseus"
  • "Petronius Arbiter in '97"
  • "After Sappho"
  • "Night and Day"
  • "He Extrapolates"
  • "Green Target"
  • "Electra to Orestes"
  • "Who Praise You"
  • "Poem"
  • "Not Ecstasy, but Anxiety"
  • "Advent"
  • "Fog (2)"
  • "Winter"
  • "Real Estates"
  • "His Previous Life"
  • "Winged Victory"
  • "Like the Book of the Statue"
  • "In Perpetuity"
  • "Summer"
  • "Laboratory (Five Scenes)"
  • "When I Consider"
  • "Research"
  • "Exchange Rates"

Critical reception

In a review of the collection in The Sydney Morning Herald Don Anderson noted that the poems are "sited in the urban antipodes" while still being "concerned with the Old World, with the burden of Culture and History, with Tourism."

David McCooey in The Age concluded that "Ryan is immensely sensitive to the background radiation of personal and cultural lives; their decay and energy. When not clouded over, these poems occupy you, even if you don't always want to occupy them."

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Pure and Applied by Gig Ryan". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 6 August 2026.
  2. ↑ "Austlit — Pure and Applied by Gig Ryan". Austlit. Retrieved 6 August 2026.
  3. ↑ ""Literary prizes sail under the bridge"". The Age, 16 October 1999, p7. ProQuest 363426003. Retrieved 6 August 2026.
  4. ↑ "Millennial Mandate". The Sydney Morning Herald, 24 October 1998. ProQuest 363451832. Retrieved 6 August 2026.
  5. ↑ "Pared back poems people with unpeopled pronouns". The Age, 16 January 1999. ProQuest 2521554775. Retrieved 6 August 2026.