Maggie Shapley
Fruits of Exile
Recent Work Press, 2025
Maggie Shapley’s new collection Fruits of Exile explores the theme of exile through a fictional book group brought together to discuss the works of Australian poets Gwen Harwood and Margaret Scott–‘literary exiles’ in the male-dominated spaces of Australian poetry in the latter half of the twentieth century.
Through this lens, Shapley weaves a poignant tapestry of women’s lives shaped by migration, memory, and resilience. Through the voices of seven women in a Canberra book club, these poems trace journeys of emigration, marriage, motherhood, and self-discovery. Each poem is a window into moments of loss, longing, and quiet triumph—whether in the ache of distance, the rituals of domesticity, or the search for belonging. With lyrical clarity and deep empathy, Shapley’s collection invites readers to reflect on what it means to leave, to stay, and to find home in unexpected places.
Proof
Recent Work Press, 2017
From the opening poem of Maggie Shapley’s first collection Proof, we know we are in the company of a thoughtful, sometimes restless, poet. Here, in explorations of childhood and family, memory and loss, belonging and dislocation, we find every word conveying a powerful sense of lived encounters and experience. This is poetry characterised by close observation, a restrained wit and a fine precision of language.
About the Author
Dr Maggie Shapley is a Canberra poet whose poems have been published in literary journals and anthologies including The Best Australian Poetry 2004(UQP) and the Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry (MUP 2020). Her first collection, Proof, was published by Recent Work Press in 2017. She retired as University Archivist at the Australian National University in 2018. The first draft of her new work Fruits of Exile was part of her PhD thesis on the publication of Australian female poets, focusing on Gwen Harwood and Margaret Scott.
