Holly Friedlander Liddicoat, DOGHOUSE

Forthcoming September 2025

‘... a brilliant chronicler of the local and the everyday.’ Emily Stewart

DOGHOUSE is a map of 20-something millennial Sydney, drawn with sharp lines and a rough hand. Against the backdrop of climate disaster, lockdowns, Black Summer, and floods, these poems punch down backstreets, trying to keep alive. Frenetic and strung out, they parry a sense of finiteness, of collapse—but grapple with it, and somehow find a way to cope. Here, things bend if not break: leaves and branches, hips, panic, hearts, tension storms, pulleys, relationships, beats. Inspired by the likes of Eileen Myles and Chris Kraus, these poems etch out the awe-eating emotions that light up our little flesh-sacks with feeling. They act as both witness to our times, our ways of coping—and through their creation, are acts of coping. Even in the mess, there’s a joy—something untidy, a little fucked, endorphin riddled—to live for.

‘Timely and urgent, DOGHOUSE explores the anxieties of our age—from climate change to the overwhelming noise of modern life—unravelling these pressures through a unique combination of dark humour, wit and vulnerability.’  Jake Goetz

‘… sharp, ambitious, and littered with dark humour. Calling to mind the Australian grunge-lit of the late 90’s, these visceral poems are successful in conjuring Sydney as a living, breathing, slightly grubby, but nonetheless endearing thing. DOGHOUSE is a bold exciting collection of poetry that revels in the mundanities of urban life.’ 
Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest Award 2023 Judges’ Report (Shortlisted)

Holly Friedlander Liddicoat is a poet and performer. Her first collection, CRAVE, published by Rabbit Poetry, was shortlisted for the 2019 Mary Gilmore Award. DOGHOUSE was shortlisted for the 2023 Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest. She has presented at Sydney Fringe Festival, Emerging Writers’ Festival and National Young Writers’ Festival. Her poems have been published in Australian Poetry Anthology, Cordite, Overland, Rabbit, Southerly, The Lifted Brow and Voiceworks, among others. She’s edited poetry for Voiceworks and the UTS Writers’ Anthology.

Holly Friedlander Liddicoat, DOGHOUSE
September 2025. 148mm x 210mm. 80pp.
ISBN 978-1-925735-75-8

This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.