The Winter Baby
AuthorJennifer Maiden
LanguageEnglish
GenrePoetry collection
PublisherAngus and Robertson
Publication date
1990
Publication placeAustralia
Media typePrint
Pages64 pp.
Awards1991 Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry, winner; 1991 NSW Premier's Prize for Poetry, winner
ISBN0207165831

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

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  • "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

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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

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  • Dedication: To my daughter Katharine Margot, my husband David, my mother and the memory of my father.

Awards

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See also

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References

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  1. ^ "The Winter Baby by Jennifer Maiden". National Library of Australia. Retrieved 18 November 2025.
  2. ^ "Austlit — The Winter Baby by Jennifer Maiden". Austlit. Retrieved 18 November 2025.
  3. ^ a b "Case of crime paying dividends". The Age, 12 September 1991, p15. ProQuest 2521549387. Retrieved 18 November 2025.
  4. ^ a b "Literary winner uncovers a purple patch in the mountains". Sydney Morning Herald, 10 September 1991, p3. ProQuest 2527555705. Retrieved 18 November 2025.
  5. ^ ""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.