Bookrate

A stunning mix of memoir, reportage, fiction, satire, and critique composed by a powerful new voice in poetry. Alison Whittaker’s BLAKWORK is an original and unapologetic collection from which two things emerge; an incomprehensible loss, and the poet’s fearless examination of the present. Whittaker is unsparing in the interrogation of familiar ideas – identifying and dissolving them with idiosyncratic imagery, layering them to form new connections, and reinterpreting what we know.'Alison Whittaker’s second book, BLAKWORK is a bold mix of poetry, micro-fiction, memoir and critique, and a follow-up to her award-wining debut poetry collection,Lemons in the Chicken Wire...Whittaker has drawn on the strength of past generations to become a strongblakwoman in contemporary Australia, and readers are gifted her insights into growing upblak.With a unique style of writing, she bravely unpacks themes such as colonisation and Aboriginal rights in Australia.'—KarenWyld, Books+Publishing'The way Gomeroi words are always bursting through the English in BLAKWORK feels more like the future than the past. It’s surely one of the key books in our current Aboriginal literary and linguistic renaissance.' — Gregory Day, Australian Book Review — Books of the Year 2018