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Rose van Son on ‘The Office of Literary Endeavours’

26 Nov

It’s always nice when you realise that someone has actually read your book – and enjoyed it! So it was lovely to find Perth based writer and poet. Ros van Son, mentioning The Office of Literary Endeavours (5 Islands Press, 2025) recently on social media. More than happy to go with “Memorable language and crafted lines by a master poet”!

The Office of Literary Endeavours is available from https://www.5islandspress.com/product-page/the-office-of-literary-endeavours-by-mark-roberts.

It is also available from Gleebooks in Sydney, Readings in Melbourne, and The Little Lost Bookshop in Katoomba .

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5 Islands Press Reading at Gleebooks: Mark Roberts & Kai Jensen

5 Aug

I am excited to be reading and discussing poetry with Kai Jensen at Gleebooks this coming Sunday afternoon!

5 Islands Press is excited to collaborate with Gleebooks in this event featuring Mark Roberts and Kai Jensen, the authors, respectively, of two of our most recent publications, The Office of Literary Endeavours and The Zebra Path of Tree Light. Readings from both of these books will be complemented and enlivened by conversation between the poets about, among other things, where the poems came from and how they came to find their final shape. The event will be introduced by 5 Islands Press Managing Editor, Mark Tredinnick. Why not join us for a drink, nibbles and an entertaining and instructive afternoon?

This is a free event but registration via Gleebooks events page is essential. Click here to register.

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Tina Giannoukos talks to Mark Roberts about his latest collection ‘The Office of Literary Endeavours’ on 3CR Spoken Word

30 Jul

Tina Giannoukos recently interviewed me on the Spoken Word program on Community Radio 3CR about my latest collection The Office of Literary Endeavours. You can listen to the interview on the Spoken Word website https://www.3cr.org.au/spoken-word/episode/mark-roberts-office-literary-endeavours or you can listen below:

 

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You can buy The Office of Literary Endeavours from 5 Islands Press

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The violence of erasure: Les Wicks launches ‘The Office of Literary Endeavours’ by Mark Roberts

10 Jul

Les Wick’s launch speech for my latest collection, The Office of Literary Endeavours (5 Island Press), is now live on Rochford Street Review. If you couldn’t make it to the launch you can see what he had to say at https://rochfordstreetreview.com/2025/07/09/les-wicks-launches-the-office-of-literary-endeavours-by-mark-roberts/

“For me, I was struck by the constant violence explored in this collection. What is remarkable is the way Mark with a deft and gentle voice recreates that violence on the page. The way he presents it makes that violence even more tangible. Impossible to disregard. It is physical in the poems shadow birds, how many more are coming and the conscription vote 1916. Economic violence is explored throughout alongside extensively the violence of erasure”.

The Office of Literary Eneavours by Mark Roberts is available from:

 

 

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Mark Roberts to read at the first Katoomba Winter Poetry Reading this coming Thursday at the Little Lost Bookshop

18 Jun

I‘m excited to be involved in setting up a new poetry reading in Katoomba at The Little Lost Bookshop (Hapenny Lane, 181 Katoomba St, Katoomba NSW 2780). I will be kicking off by reading, along with fellow Blue Mountains poet Justin Lowe, at the first Katoomba Winter Poetry Reading at 6.30pm on Thursday 19th June. There will also be an open reading.

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Both Justin and Mark will be reading from their recently published collections, San Luis, Puncher & Wattmann (Justin) and The Office of Literary Endeavours, Five Islands Press (Mark). Both books will be available to buy on the night.

Justin Lowe

Justin Lowe has been writing and publishing poetry for more than thirty years. This, his ninth collection and first with Puncher & Wattmann, is in part inspired by his formative years spent on the Spanish island of Menorca with his artist mother and younger sister. Justin was until recently editor of international poetry blog Bluepepper.

“Justin Lowe’s San Luis is a collection of veils, partly lifted or shifting in the breeze, providing glimpses of things perhaps not fully apprehended, of questions not answered. In poems that are wistful, nostalgic, remembrances, heartaches, Lowe probes a lifetime of the uncertainties of ‘this crooked little boy / with his warped view of time, / of belonging, / that never got truly mended.” – David Ades

“Such wide-ranging, strange narratives told with an ear for varied subject matter and formal structures. Tightly controlled, evocative and nuanced. An original and distinctive voice. Powerful and moving. In a word – brilliant.” – Mark O’Flynn

“Enter Justin Lowe’s San Luis, a lyric psychogeography embodying philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s observation that “inhabited space transcends geometrical space”. From a childhood spent in Spain to a life lived within the vast Australian landscape, Lowe’s poems inhabit temporal, spatial and imaginative realms with a keen, compassionate, finely crafted consciousness. These deeply human poems will find their home in you.” – Michele Seminara

Mark Roberts

For much of the last four decades, Mark Roberts has been involved in writing, criticism and publishing. In 1982, he established P76 magazine in with Adam Aitken and has been involved in small press publishing ever since. In 2011 he set up the on-line journal Rochford Street Review with Linda Adair, which has recently published its 41st issue.

The Office of Literary Endeavours is Mark’s third book, after Stepping out of Line (Rochford Street Press 1986) and Concrete Flamingos, (Island Press 2016).

“This is a book evidencing a life spent in appreciation of poetry, deep observation and participation in ecologies of many kinds. Discomfort is constant but there is succour and reprieve in kin and creative expression. The Office of Literary Endeavours is a wise and reverential book by a gentle and accomplished poet at a high point of their writing life”. –AMANDA JOY

“The poetry is carefully crafted and elegant. The subject matter wide ranging and richly brought to life within the forms Roberts has chosen. Reading through this collection has been a privilege and a delight”. –LES WICKS

“The Office of Literary Endeavours is a witty and insightful collection characterised by its lucidity. The strength of these poems lies in their interrogation of migration and colonisation through poignant familial memories that are never sentimental but always elegiac, with their critique of colonisation and account of Irish dispossession.  A feature  of the collection is  the way  it deftly navigates different moods, so that alongside the poems of migration and colonisation there are also poems about the landscape, the passion of lovers, old friendships, and favourite films. A sharply observant eye unites these poems into a cohesive manuscript of layered emotions and experiences.” –TINA GIANNOUKOS

“Roberts lends his deft touch to subjects and places both new and old, and specifically to what must always resonate as essential to the human condition–continuously, from pram to old age. In his shared memories, real and invented, ancient and modern, a jam jar or two might be shot for target practice, deadly snakes slung over wire fences, trains might be caught or missed.  Here is subject matter to engage seasoned poetry readers, as well as keen students of Australian literature and cultural history: a lively content able to both re-trace and advance, often simultaneously”. –JOHN JENKINS

“The Office of Literary Endeavours is an excellent collection of poetry that demonstrates the poet’s range, skill, talent, experience and wisdom, along with his willingness to experiment with form (including lines, stanza structures and the shape of the poem) and to engage with crucial contemporary issues (such as Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationships to country) as well as European culture and history (as demonstrated through the sequence of poems inspired by films). The book is engaging, accessible, insightful, entertaining, witty and, at times, playful”. –NATHANAEL O’REILLY

If you can’t make it to the reading you can order both books directly from The Little Lost Bookshop.

There will also be an open mic section at the reading. Spaces will be limited so if you want to read please pre-register by completing the on-line form

Reading at AVANT GAGA #74: Poetry Night at Sappho Tuesday 10 June

6 Jun

I’m looking forward to reading from The Office of Literary Endeavours this coming Tuesday night from 7pm at Sappho Books Cafe & Wine Bar, 51 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe NSW.

I’ll be reading along with Cornflake Sunset (Luke Beesley), Suneeta Peres da Costa, and Moya Costello, along with the usual open mike. Books will be on sale, but if you can’t make it and want to by a copy of The Office of Literary Endeavours you can order it directly from Rochford Cottage Bookshop by clicking here.

Further details, along with bios of all the readers, can be found Facebook event page.

The Office of Literary Endeavours – Sydney Book Launch

16 May

5 Island Press invites you to the launch of this stunning new poetry collection from Mark Roberts, co-editor of Rochford Street Review and the occasional poetry journal P76.

The Office of Literary Endeavours with be launched by Les Wicks; Angela Stretch will be your MC.
Time & Location: 25 May 2025, 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm. Benledi House, 186 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe NSW 2037, Australia.
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This is a free event but please register to assist with planning and catering  https://www. 5islandspress .com/…/ book-launch-the…/form
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If you can’t make the launch you can buy the book from https://www.5islandspress.com/…/the-office-of-literary…
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About The Office of Literary Endeavours
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“This is a book evidencing a life spent in appreciation of poetry, deep observation and participation in ecologies of many kinds. Discomfort is constant but there is succour and reprieve in kin and creative expression. The Office of Literary Endeavours is a wise and reverential book by a gentle and accomplished poet at a high point of their writing life”.
………………………………………………………………–AMANDA JOY
.
“The poetry is carefully crafted and elegant. The subject matter wide ranging and richly brought to life within the forms Roberts has chosen. Reading through this collection has been a privilege and a delight”.
………………………………………………………………–LES WICKS
.
“The Office of Literary Endeavours is a witty and insightful collection characterised by its lucidity. The strength of these poems lies in their interrogation of migration and colonisation through poignant familial memories that are never sentimental but always elegiac, with their critique of colonisation and account of Irish dispossession. A feature of the collection is the way it deftly navigates different moods, so that alongside the poems of migration and colonisation there are also poems about the landscape, the passion of lovers, old friendships, and favourite films. A sharply observant eye unites these poems into a cohesive manuscript of layered emotions and experiences”.
………………………………………………………………–TINA GIANNOUKOS
.
“Roberts lends his deft touch to subjects and places both new and old, and specifically to what must always resonate as essential to the human condition–continuously, from pram to old age. In his shared memories, real and invented, ancient and modern, a jam jar or two might be shot for target practice, deadly snakes slung over wire fences, trains might be caught or missed. Here is subject matter to engage seasoned poetry readers, as well as keen students of Australian literature and cultural history: a lively content able to both re-trace and advance, often simultaneously”.
…………………………………………………………………..–JOHN JENKINS
.
“The Office of Literary Endeavours is an excellent collection of poetry that demonstrates the poet’s range, skill, talent, experience and wisdom, along with his willingness to experiment with form (including lines, stanza structures and the shape of the poem) and to engage with crucial contemporary issues (such as Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationships to country) as well as European culture and history (as demonstrated through the sequence of poems inspired by films). The book is engaging, accessible, insightful, entertaining, witty and, at times, playful”.
………………………………………………………………–NATHANAEL O’REILLY

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Dublin GPO – Easter Poem from ‘The Office of Literary Endeavours’

18 Apr

Easter means different things to different people. For many it a time for deep religious and spiritual contemplation, for others it represents a holiday and lots of chocolate. For the Irish Catholics on my mother’s side of my family it was a time of great solemnity, not just because of the Christian celebration of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, but because it was the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Uprising in Ireland.

In my poem ‘Returns’, which appears in my new collection The Office of Literary Endeavours (5 Islands Press), I write of my return to Ireland, over 150 years after my great grandmother was forced to flee with her family. In the final part of the poem ‘Dublin GPO’ I remember my grandfather. While he never saw Ireland, he grew up with the stories of Irish resistance and the memory of hearing about the Easter Uprising and it’s aftermath stayed with him all his life. Before I read the history of Easter 1916 in books I had already heard his version of events numerous times.

 

The  Office of Literary Endeavours is available from https://www.5islandspress.com/product-page/the-office-of-literary-endeavours-by-mark-roberts

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‘The Office of Literary Endeavours’ cover reveal

21 Mar

I’m excited to reveal the cover of my new collection, The Office of Literary Endeavours, which is in the process of being published by 5 Islands Press. Many thanks to Judith Nangala Crispen for the use of her Lumachrome glass print, Blue Wren and for 5 Islands Press for the overall design. Thanks also to Amanda Joy, John Jenkins, Robbie Coburn and Tina Giannoukos who provided endorsements for the cover.

Stay tuned for presales, publication dates and launch details.