Janet Jiahui Wu, Black Earth, New Grass
'The poems continually surprise in their play between speculation and implication, their wry and playful tones and also their sense of sincerity. War and sex erupt next to cats and gardens, axes close to requiems and polo shirts. The world is both normal and also weird or estranged in this captivating book and its title, as incorporated into a short poem, reflects succinctly this urgent, and at times poignant, oscillation between poetic tonalities: "black earth / new grass / my divided heart."' JILL JONES
Black Earth, New Grass, the debut collection from Janet Jiahui Wu, arises from a meditative space of fragile presences. In a world where interruption is constant, and the pull from the real is evermore powerful, these poems stand as testimony to what is simple, true, and often fleeting. Emotions that arrest us, natural wonders that delight and scare us, loves that heal and break us, places made of memories that elude us, these are the things the poems speak of. Wanting to do away with the superfluous, the poems emerged from what is raw, plain, and unadorned, words which are put together like firewood in a pile, or soldiers on the battlefield, that is—ordered in their scattering, bruised, torn, broken, but somehow whole in their imperfection. Each poem comes with a past, a story, beliefs, desires, a will to love and a will to live.
Deeply informed by her Chinese heritage, LGBTQIA+ lived experience, and neurodivergence, Wu’s creative practices engage with questions of belonging, identity, and the real in a rapidly shifting world. Their debut poetry collection, Black Earth, New Grass, reflects a commitment to simplicity, presence, and the restorative act of noticing. Wu’s poems remind us that even in the midst of disorder, there is the possibility of presence and authentic being. The language in this collection is spare but resonant, making way for silence which is as significant as speech. This is a collection that returns the reader to the ground beneath their feet and the quiet truths that endure, proffering not escape from the world, but a way to dwell more deeply within it.
Janet Jiahui Wu is a Chinese-Australian queer poet and visual artist whose work traverses language, image, and material. Her art practice centres on mark making, drawing, and poetics, often realised in steel and ceramic sculpture, exploring the intersections between the internal world and the external, the visual form and the written word. Wu’s poetry has appeared widely in Australian and international journals, including Voiceworks, Cordite Poetry Review, Mascara Literary Review, Rabbit Poetry, Plumwood Mountain Poetry, foam:e, Tipton Poetry Journal, Eunoia Review, South Florida Poetry Journal, Meniscus, Otoliths, Overland, and The Suburban Review, among many others. Her work has also featured in anthologies such as MEDIA: Next Great Weather. Wu currently lives and works in Sydney on unceded Gadigal land, where she continues to create work that bridges cultures, disciplines, and ways of seeing.
Janet Jiahui Wu, Black Earth, New Grass
Forthcoming April 2026. 148mm x 210mm. 96pp.
ISBN 978-1-925735-82-6
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.
