Postcards from the Asylum
210 x 148 mm 96 pp colour cover, paperback, perfect bound
Price $AU 23.95
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About the book
Karen Knight’s poetry is deceptive, disarming: from somewhere behind the muted music of a line, the delicate web of imagery, when you least expect it, comes the blare of a wake-up call. This is dark material, held up to the light and examined with skill, sensitivity and a life-affirming humour. - Dilys Rose, Scotland
Postcards from the Asylum, Karen Knight’s fifth poetry collection, won the Arts ACT 2007 Alec Bolton Award for an unpublished manuscript. These poems arise from her experiences as an inmate at the Royal Derwent Psychiatric Hospital in 1969.
WINNER – UNIVERSITY OF TASMANIA PRIZE 2011
for Best Book by a Tasmanian Publisher
Reviews
Karen Knight’s writing is insistent, vivid and brutal in its objective description of a devastating experience. Most striking in this compelling collection is Knight's unique gift for imagery that feels both surreal and intensely actual. This is poetry that stares down the reader, that refuses the easy gesture, that never approaches self-indulgence or self-pity. It invites favourable comparison with Robert Lowell's cold, confronting reflections on the experience of being institutionalised. Knight's Postcards from the Asylum is not merely a welcome addition to Australian poetry, it feels like a necessary one. - John Foulcher
These are poems which will make you gasp – with wonder, delight, laughter, amazement, and shock (yes, shock). Their power to do all this resides in more than their subject matter. Every word, line, verse and stanza here has been weighted against the highest measure of truth and lucidity. Karen's work is distinguished by its linguistic virtuosity, the impressive control of both language and feeling. Everything her poetic gift touches is imbued with a unique combination of intelligence and compassion. - Deb Westbury
Author profiles
Read Karen Knight's profile here.