Miroslav Sandev, Echolalia
Winner of the Noel Rowe Poetry Award 2025
‘Sandev’s is a sharp, original manuscript, in which the poetic protagonist is often a jaunty urban raconteur, sifting through the foibles of twenty-first-century daily life. With wit and irony, the collection offers astute observations of media, technology, politics and pop culture.’ NOEL ROWE POETRY AWARD Judges’ report
Miroslav Sandev’s debut collection Echolalia is filled with moments of wonder, passion and lament. The urban landscapes of Sydney crack open to reveal dalliances, illicit encounters, brutal oppression and moments of reverie. Local histories provide the backdrop to many of these. Drawing on traditions of psychogeography, places are memorialised, often with a minimum of sentiment. Many of the poems have a social realist moment to them, seeking to poeticise the seemingly banal realities of the workplace, the household, the neighbourhood. They have emerged from an attempt to live and love in a politically committed way.
‘Sandev’s voice rings with truth; it meets the world with honesty, with social critique, with hopes for love, with the softness of loss. Echolalia is an immensely readable collection that I can imagine enjoying a wider readership. Yet there is nothing simplistic about the work. Each poem demands its own time and space. Each offers the reader a unique perspective on the world and a carefully wrought consideration of language and form.’ EMILIE COLLYER
Miroslav Sandev is a poet working on unceded Wangal land, in Sydney. He migrated from Bulgaria to Australia in 1992. His poems have been published in a range of literary journals and anthologies including: Meanjin, Overland, Cordite Poetry Review, Westerly, Rabbit Poetry Journal, Snorkel, Otoliths, Australian Poetry Anthology, Seizure, The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry Anthology, Regime Magazine of New Writing, Meniscus, Hypallage, Tincture and The Red Room. This debut full-length collection won the Noel Rowe Poetry Award 2025.
Miroslav Sandev, Echolalia
Forthcoming April 2026. 148mm x 210mm. 70pp.
ISBN 978-1-925735-85-7
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.
