The Alarming Conservatory

Acclaimed poet Corey Wakeling's secondcollection continues his inquiry into language and the spatial architectures ofhistory and culture. Set among 20th century ruins, the poems arecast as if hallucinations: colonial-style houses are 'guarded by palm trees', RoyalPark 'detains two immoveable statues' while the 'Wheel of Fortune dizzies'. Thepoems range throughout Melbourne and Western Australia, where the poet haslived, and further afield too. Strong in its deployment of baroque imagery andmodernist citation, The Alarming Conservatoryuniquely captures the fear and pace of our contemporary condition.

'Wakeling revels in the high gruesome ofsyntax the Edward Gorey sheen of camp creepiness. I applaud his book'senergy, social satire, its forays into kitsch and pop.' Kevin Killian

'One of Australia's most daring and baroquewriters, Corey Wakeling's ear for the nuances and transformative power oflanguage is truly remarkable. From the first poem in The Alarming Conservatory, Wakeling's work unsettles the way welive and how we dwell in the everyday.' Ann Vickery