Alan Gould
Charlie Twirl
From the intrigue of his earlier poetry in fatalism and the mysteries of character, Alan Gould’s interest has moved to music. In many of the poems in this book, the folk songs or the homages to Vaughan Williams, his enquiry is one of synaesthesia: What is it we see when we hear? In meditating this the poet prefers the crisp, accessible, narrative voice to the philosophical.
UWA Publishing, 2017
Here are ballads and celebrations, homages to past authors who have been his spiritual companions – Graves, Yeats, Shakespeare, and tributes to the Finnish resistance to Soviet aggression in 1939. There are some ‘equivalents’ to popular folk songs, and the volume’s title poem, a commemoration of the extraordinary George Street dancer of VJ Day 1945.
“Alan Gould’s career has been balanced evenly between prose fiction and poetry. Concerns such as character, morale, metaphysics and the Age of Sail as a metaphor have been common to his work in both forms. In the more recent of his dozen poetry collections, Gould has been showing his lighter side, indulging in the comic, the erotic, the ludic, the satirical and the explicitly domestic. Some might see this is a retreat from the “seriousness” and “ambition” of his earlier work; others, as a late-career demonstration of range. The change began with Dalliance & Scorn (1999) and would seem almost to culminate in this latest collection, Charlie Twirl, which, though serious enough at times (“For the Finns of 1939” and the title poem), is mainly playful.”
About the Author
Described by Peter Pierce as “one of the most intelligent, versatile and elegant Australian writers of his generation”, Alan Gould is the author of twenty-five titles, novels, poetry and essay collections.
Of English-Icelandic background, he lived on garrisons in various parts of the world until coming to Australia in 1966. Since 1972 he has been an author as full-time as resources have allowed, He has served on The Literature Board Of The Australia Council, and represented Australian poetry at events in Manila, Struga and Lincoln (UK).
His literary prizes include the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry in 2006, the NBC Banjo Award For Fiction in 1992, Foundation of Australian Literature Book Of the Year (1985), Philip Hodgins Memorial Award for literature (1999), and co-winner in both The Courier-Mail Book Of The Year and ACT Book Of The Year in 2001. His 2009 novel, The Lakewoman, a love story arising out of the 1944 D-Day landings, was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Fiction Award. His most recent novel was a picaresque, The Poets’ Stairwell, (2015).
