| Author | Jennifer Maiden |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Poetry collection |
| Publisher | Angus and Robertson |
Publication date | 1990 |
| Publication place | Australia |
| Media type | |
| Pages | 64 pp. |
| Awards | 1991 Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry, winner; 1991 NSW Premier's Prize for Poetry, winner |
| ISBN | 0207165831 |
The Winter Baby is a collection of poems by Australian poet Jennifer Maiden, published by Angus and Robertson in 1990.[1]
The collection contains 41 poems.[2]
The collection won the 1991 Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry,[3] and the 1991 NSW Premier's Prize for Poetry.[4]
Contents
[edit]- "Overproof"
- "Safe"
- "Sherlock Holmes"
- "For Schools"
- "The Nun as Director"
- "The Lady at the Party"
- "The Window as an Epigram"
- "Poem on an AIDS Commercial"
- "Respiration"
- "Off the Cuff"
- "The Membrane"
- "Gladiolus"
- "Need"
- "Contemporary References"
- "A Summer Emotion"
- "The Ballroom"
- Psalms sequence
- "Psalm"
- "Second Psalm"
- "Third Psalm"
- "Fourth Psalm"
- "Fifth Psalm"
- "Sixth Psalm"
- "The Midwife"
- "The Winter Baby"
- "This Purring Room"
- "The Rocker"
- "Doing Beautifully"
- "Vulnerability"
- "Nature Program"
- "Nursery Rhymes"
- "Edges"
- "Food"
- "In the Caesura"
- "The Process"
- "First Birthday"
- "Observation"
- "Memo"
- "Nose"
- "First Tea Set"
- "Christmas Poem, 1987"
- "'Bye'"
Critical reception
[edit]In the Australian Book Review Simon Patton noted Maiden's ability to give mundane subjects a degree of depth and complexity: "Most poems in this collection are extremely tentative in the sense that, for Maiden, poetry is not the polished expression of thought-out meanings but a process of discovery. She often begins with the mundane, breaking up familiar phrases and bringing in chance ideas, building up a magnetic momentum in which insights accumulate until something sparks and the poem flares with a significance that is both irresistibly powerful and beautifully complex."[5]
Notes
[edit]- Dedication: To my daughter Katharine Margot, my husband David, my mother and the memory of my father.
Awards
[edit]See also
[edit]References
[edit]- ^ "The Winter Baby by Jennifer Maiden". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 18 November 2025.
- ^ "Austlit — The Winter Baby by Jennifer Maiden". Austlit. Retrieved 18 November 2025.
- ^ a b "Case of crime paying dividends". The Age, 12 September 1991, p15. ProQuest 2521549387. Retrieved 18 November 2025.
- ^ a b "Literary winner uncovers a purple patch in the mountains". Sydney Morning Herald, 10 September 1991, p3. ProQuest 2527555705. Retrieved 18 November 2025.
- ^ ""Simon Patton reviews 'The Earthquake Lands' by Hal Colebatch, 'The Winter Baby' by Jennifer Maiden, and 'To the Ocean & Scheherazade' by Richard Allen"". Australian Book Review. Retrieved 18 November 2025.