Thom Sullivan, Carte Blanche
Winner of the Mary Gilmore Award 2020.
Thom Sullivan’s debut collection of poems, Carte Blanche, traverses the exactitudes of place and time – from a distinctively Australian suburbia, to farming landscapes in South Australia’s Mount Lofty Ranges, to Australia’s renowned Great Ocean Road, and the interior terrains of consciousness and perception. The poems are memorable, succinct in their expression, precise in their effect, and notable for their innovative use of syntax and punctuation. Carte Blanche is a collection of poems that’s finely realised and keenly felt.
'Sullivan presents a sharp collection of quietly spoken poems dealing with the complexities of human relationships in a vanishing world. The manuscript has considerable formal variety from spoken interior monologues and reflections to a series of imagistic notations. It also demonstrates a thoughtful and exciting use of punctuation and syntax.' (From the NRPA Judges' report)
‘Carte Blanche is an arresting calling-card, and – for me – it is one of this year’s most exciting poetic débuts.’ David McCooey in ABR.
Thom Sullivan was born in 1982. He grew up on a farm in Wistow/Bugle Ranges in the Adelaide Hills in South Australia and studied Arts and Law at the University of Adelaide, and Social Science at Swinburne University, Melbourne. He had a short collection of poems, Airborne, published in New Poets 14 (Wakefield, 2009). Since then he has edited or co-edited seven published books of poetry. His poems have appeared in a range of books and journals, including The Best Australian Poems (Black Inc, 2014 & 2015), Australian Love Poems (Inkerman & Blunt), Cordite, Transnational Literature, Otoliths, Tincture, The Independent Weekly, Eureka Street and Australian Book Review (the 2016 South Australian 'States of Poetry' anthology). He lives in Adelaide, where he works in public policy.
Thom Sullivan, Carte Blanche
2019. 148mm x 210mm. 70pp.
ISBN 978-1-925735-03-1
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
