The Rot
Title: The Rot
Author: Evelyn Araluen
Publisher: University of Queensland Press
Shortlist: Poetry
The Rot is a recalcitrant study of the decaying romances, expired hopes and abject injustices of the world. A liturgy for girlhood in the dying days of late-stage capitalism, these poems expose fraying nerves and tendons of a speaker refusing to avert their gaze from the death of Country, death on Country and the bloody violence of settler colonies here and afar. Across sleepless nights, fractured alliances and self-destructive coping strategies, The Rot is what happens when poetry swallows more rage than it can console, quiet or ironise – this book demands you ready yourself for a better world.
Judges’ Report
From the rot in the cogs of late-stage capitalism to bed rot to mould growing on rented bedrooms and forgotten emails, The Rot reckons with girlhood in a fractured, decaying world. Wielding together elegy, theory and bathtub poems, Araluen burns the structures that facilitate precarity, complicity and injustice in the present day. Form itself is in a state of decomposition as the poems fray, disperse and decay throughout the collection. Araluen’s poetics are vulnerable, taut and uncompromising, comparable to the likes of Claudia Rankine and Bhanu Kapil, proving she is undoubtedly one of the most important voices in poetry today. The Rot is the spirit of our times and a call to action.
Extract
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About the Author
Evelyn Araluen
VPLA book photography by Shannyn Higgins
The Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards are proudly supported by the Victorian Government.
