Sutherland Shire Libraries Staff News

Not sure if it's been mentioned previously, but there is a new website (yes, I know, another one) that showcases the "top ten books published this month that librarians across the country (ie. USA) love". The only reason I mention it here is because the inaugural 'Top 10' includes the Australian author Hannah Kent's book "Burial Rites". I think you'd have to have been hiding under a rock not to have heard about this title and the library currently has 45 holds on this. If you want to find out more about this site you can find it here.

The Australian Poetry Library contains over 42,000 poems, representing the work of more than 200 Australian poets. The poems on the site are fully searchable by poem text and title, poet, theme and form. Each poet is introduced with a biographical article and a complete list of their published books.

Visitors to the site can read poems online for free. However, readers wishing to download and print poems may do so for a small fee, part of which is returned to the poets via CAL, the Copyright Agency Limited. You can also compile a personalised anthology and, again for a fee, print copies.

Australian Poetry Library is a joint initiative of the University of Sydney and CAL, making this site not only a reliable source of poetry, but one which endeavours to give a fair return to working poets. If you notice a well-known poet is missing, it may be because they have not given permission for their poems to be put on the site, as explained on the site's FAQ.

Most of my favourite poems are here, including A. D. Hope's Death of a Bird and Les Murrays' An Absolutely Ordinary Rainbow. What's your favourite?

This site has been added to our delicious links under Literature.