Tag Archives: Poetry

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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My shortlisted poem, ‘Theory of flight for two voices’, appears in ‘Poetry of Flight: The Liquid Amber Prize Anthology’

25 Nov

Earlier this year I was excited and honoured to be short-listed for the 2025 Liquid Amber Poetry Prize and this coming Thursday the resulting anthology, Poetry of Flight, will be launched by Zoom.

“The 2025 Liquid Amber Poetry Prize invited poets to respond to the broad topic of ‘flight’ – and to take it in whatever direction they wished. Perhaps being in flight from something, or towards new places, experiences or elements. Perhaps knowing the ecstatic flight of emotions or the spirit, or an engagement with the feathered world of what inhabits air and branch…

The astounding stylistic and thematic range of poems in this Longlist do what powerful art always does – they offer the reader the insights, connection and joy which enable us to live our lives for the better.

This anthology has the 51 poems of the Longlist, including the winners.”

If you want to catch some of the contributors to the anthology read their poems on Thursday night you can book your Zoom place here: https://liquidamberpress. com.au/events/ where you can also purchase copies of the anthology.

 

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Mark Roberts – The poetry of place, history and memory – Guest editorial, Live Encounters

10 Sep

I was honoured to be asked to write the guest editorial for the September Issue of Live Encounters. In my editorial I talk about the importance of place in poetry, and in my recent work in particular. Beyond my editorial there is great work in the issue from a plethora of my favourite writers and poets, including: Linda Adair, Mark  Tredinnick, David Rigsbee, Jordan Smith, Brian Kirk, Jane Frank, Hugh McMillan, Terry McDonagh, Angela Costi, Richard W Halperin, Anton Floyd, Phil Lynch, Indran Amirthanayagam,
Lincoln Jaques, Edward Caruso, Justin Lowe, LaWanda Walters, Stephen House, Amy Barry, Ma Yongbo, Patricia Sykes, Daphne Wilson, Gita Chattopadhyay – translations by Paramita Banerjee & Carolyne Wright and Dr Salwa Gouda.

Many thanks to editor Mark Ulyseas for the opportunity to contribute my thoughts.

You can read my editorial on-line https://liveencounters.net/2025-le-pw/mark-roberts-the-poetry-of-place-history-and-memory-guest-editorial/. 

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Mark Roberts & Linda Adair to read at Poetry Plus, Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary

7 Sep

I’m excited to be reading work from my latest collection, The Office of Literary Endeavous (5 Islands Press 2025) and Concrete Flamingos (Island Press 2016) along with my wife and co-editor of Rochford Street Review, Linda Adair, in Ireland on Friday 12 September to kick-off a new of Poetry Plus at the Brewery Lane Theatre & Arts Centre, Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary. This will be a special reading for me as my great grandmother was born just up the road in Mullinahone.

If you are anywhere in the vicinity on Friday night it would be great to see you there. Seating is limited so you will need to book at https:// www.ticketsource.com/ booking/select/pqeayjldoxqn and admission is only €10.00.

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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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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
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“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
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“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
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“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
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“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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Redundancy

9 May

‘By Five o’clock’ by Kevin Higgins from The Boy With No Face, Salmon Poetry 2005

 

Yes. I have been made redundant and today is my last day at a company at which I have spent the last 17 years. They say one door closes and another door opens. As Kevin Higgins once wrote:

“A universe of time for nothing but writing!”

Leaving the office this afternoon I will think of Kevin’s poem ‘By Five o’clock’, from his 2005 collection The Boy With No Face (see above). While I suspect I will end up in a better place than Kevin’s character (note: Please contact me for paid writing gigs – reviews, articles commissions etc), Higgins poem is a reminder of the viciousness which lies at the heart of capitalism.

Anyway – I’m looking forward to reading Kevin’s final collection Life Itself available from Salmon Poetry

Tomorrow, perhaps, I will share my own redundancy poem…..

 

 

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Mark Roberts at the Sydney Poet Lounge – 21 May 2025

7 May

I’m excited to be one of the feature poets, along with JR Grogan, at the Sydney Poetry Lounge at the Glebe Hotel ( 63 Bay Street, Glebe, New South Wales) on Wednesday 21 May from 6.30pm. I will be reading from my new collection, The Office of Literary Endeavours (5 Islands Press 2025).

Details

Welcome back to the May 2025 chapter of the Sydney Poetry Lounge, featuring poetry from Mark Roberts, JR Grogan and our incredible open mic! Join us upstairs at The Glebe Hotel for a night filled with powerful spoken word performances and heartfelt poetry.$10 entry, $5 concession, tickets available on the door or via Humanitix. The May SPL Facebook Event 

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 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 his wife, Linda Adair, which has recently published its 41st issue; the Review is one of the leading (and long-lasting) independent cultural journals around. Mark’s work has been widely published in journal and magazines both in Australia and internationally. He has also published three collections – The Office of Literary Endeavours (5 Islands Press 2025) is Mark’s third book, after Stepping out of Line (Rochford Street Press 1986) and Concrete Flamingos, (Island Press 2016).
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JR Grogan
John Robert Grogan (aka: JR) is an Irish-Australian poet based in Sydney, Australia. His childhood in Ireland and wanderings since, spawned a love and curiosity for the connectivity of the natural world and the human condition. He has poems published in a number of anthologies and online at: The Madrigal, Blue Bottle Journal, Live Encounters Magazine and From Whispers to Roars literary magazine. He is one quarter of the SPL team & sometimes known as ‘the voice of reason’. Find on Instagram: @jr_grogan.

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