The Wild Reply

The Wild Reply
AuthorEmma Lew
LanguageEnglish
GenrePoetry collection
PublisherBlack Pepper
Publication date1997
Publication placeAustralia
Media typePrint
Pages56 pp
Awards1997 Dinny O'Hearn Poetry Prize, joint winner; 1998 Mary Gilmore Prize, winner
ISBN1876044136

The Wild Reply is the debut collection of poems by Australian poet Emma Lew, published by Black Pepper in 1997.

The collection contains 56 poems from a variety of sources.

The book was joint winner of the Dinny O'Hearn Poetry Prize in 1997, with Dragons in Their Pleasant Palaces by Peter Porter, and winner of the 1998 Mary Gilmore Prize for a First Book of Poetry.

Contents

  • "Of Quite Another Order"
  • "Afterlife"
  • "Procedure"
  • "In the Busy and Populous Belgium of Yesterday"
  • "Holes and Stars"
  • "Mythic Bird of Panic"
  • "Alliance IV"
  • "Berchtesgaden"
  • "Cheap Silhouette"
  • "The Baby's Diamonds"
  • "Chernobyl: Small Talk"
  • "They Flew Me in on the Concorde from Paris"
  • "Caught in the Act of Admiring Myself"
  • "Goodbye to Maybe"
  • "Message"
  • "The Power of Loose Change"
  • "I'm Being Blackmailed Again"
  • "Multiple Kronstadts"
  • "Latecomer"
  • "Trench Music"
  • "Broken Coast"
  • "The Way Out of Hungary"
  • "Before Heraldry"
  • "My Adventurer"
  • "Accountancy"
  • "Aubade"
  • "Facts About You"
  • "Remnant of Sunset"
  • "Pleiades"
  • "Sugar King"
  • "New Moon"
  • "Pond"
  • "The Last Colours"
  • "Words for Night"
  • "Lumber"
  • "Squall"
  • "Don't be Miserable"
  • "Little Sister"
  • "The Truth about Love Fearlessly Told"
  • "How Like You"
  • "In a Sense All His Voyages Were Failures"
  • "Small Stakes"
  • "Lace Trade"
  • "Infamous Poem"
  • "Evolution of Rogues"
  • "The Tides"
  • "Neptune Street"
  • "Earlier Cartographers of the Moon"
  • "Bungalows"
  • "Thebes"
  • "Coal"
  • "The Understudy"
  • "The Wild Reply"
  • "Cartouche"
  • "City of Light"
  • "The Recidivist"

Critical reception

In her review of the book for the Age Book of the Year Awards judge Gig Ryan noted that the book "has an astonishing originality in its vivacious imperatives". She concluded that the author's "brisk, puzzling intelligent narrators have not been heard before."

Awards

Notes

See also

References

  1. ↑ "The Wild Reply by Emma Lew". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 2 November 2026.
  2. ↑ "Austlit — The Wild Reply by Emma Lew". Austlit. Retrieved 2 November 2026.
  3. 1 2 ""Aboriginal author has the write stuff to win Age literary award"". The Age, 17 December 1997, p3. ProQuest 2521808636. Retrieved 2 November 2026.
  4. 1 2 "Austlit – Mary Gilmore Prize". Austlit. Retrieved 2 November 2026.
  5. ↑ "Leading literary line-up". The Age, 13 December 1997. ProQuest 2521839816. Retrieved 2 November 2026.
  6. ↑ "And the Finalists Are..." The Sydney Morning Herald, 23 August 1997. ProQuest 2527520448. Retrieved 2 November 2026.