Cellnight: A verse novel

by John Kinsella

A unique experience. A novel in 'spindle' sonnets. A drama. An impassioned cry for a beautiful and stolen world under threat. A 'protester' who has been living in a shallow cave in the limestone cliff in front of Bathers Beach under the colonial Round House prison in Fremantle is arrested for demonstrating against the late 80's visit of the nuclear-armed 7th Fleet. In the cells the 'protester' witnesses police violence and threatens to tell what they have seen. An act of declaration becomes entangled with what is happening outside the cells. This haunting incantation looks back before and after these events, to the present day. The sea, the coast around Fremantle, the 'Scarp', all come into play in a work that attempts to decolonise the space, to contest nuclear, military and colonial power without claiming any rights over country.

'In this verse-paced novel Kinsella never quite uses Auden's phrase in The Fall of Rome - 'altogether elsewhere' - but we sense the priorities and judgement of the natural environment, and of an older world. Coastal birds and dolphins are among his observers, and we too feel the wind and ocean currents fall and rise so that, despite surveillance and silencing, we may also remember and join in bearing witness.' - Kim Scott

'A book against laughter and forgetting if ever there was one. Moving, incandescent, quietly devastating...Cellnight is contemplative, fiercely elegiac, and a panoramic ode to Whadjuk Noongar country and anti-ode to its settler colonial overlay. As Kendrick Lamar said: the judge make time. So does Kinsella.' - Declan Fry

'To open Cellnight is to encounter John Kinsella's cat's cradle of a verse novel - intersecting threads pulled tight and tense between prison bars, protest signs, booze bottles and warships. Feathered visitors also flit among the narrative fibres, bearing witness to the fists raised over prone and vulnerable bodies in the carceral corners of a swelling port city.' - Cass Lynch

Genres: Poetry

208 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 2023

About the author

John Kinsella is the author of more than twenty collections of poetry. The recipient of the Christopher Brennan Award, he has taught at Cambridge University and Kenyon College. He lives in Western Australia.

Reviews

[Tien · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't read much poetry so this isn't so much a review as my thoughts as a plebeian reader of this genre. I have read a couple of verse novels before (Sarah Crossan's, Ellen Hopkins' etc) which I actually found understandable (mostly). This one, I struggled somewhat... maybe because I'm unfamiliar with the topic; the historical event that took place in early 80s (I was a toddler then) and the marine references. What truly came off the page for me was the anger the protagonist felt and the indignity suffered (not just by the protagonist but by others around them and also by the environment). It was utterly palpable that even as confused as I felt about the actual incident, the feelings were real.

My thanks to Transit Lounge Publishing for gifting me a copy of this book. Thoughts are mine own.

[James Stanwix · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.2

Loved how it thought about Time - ‘photos distort time’. Loved how the poetics felt to read. Loved how the temporal arc was presented so loosely

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many people will read this verse novel for its passionate tribute to the natural environment; for the celebration of the spirit of sacred Noongar country in southern Western Australia; and for the truths it tells about colonisation.  But I read it for its denunciation of escalating militarism and taxes/ directed/ towards/ the military/ rather than health/ and learning,/ housing/ and environment. 

 Peace is a universal necessity (p.112)

Cellnight is an elegy for a time when there was passionate activism.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2023/03/12/s...

[ValTheBookEater]

We need more verse novels in the world. I loved how it was a singular narrative but at times it does feel like either a poem or fiction novel. Very interesting that this came out in 2023 and is about what happens when you protest and are faced with state repression, violence and institutionalised racism and colonialism. The timing that it was published and it is being read is not lost on me.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

Intriguing verse novel focusing on a 1980s protester against nuclear warships in Perth who witnesses an act of violence while imprisoned.

[Steph]

John Kinsella is an excellent poet but the cover is very misleading.

[Alyssa · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book wasn't for me.
I was interested in what "a verse novel" would be like, but it turned into another failed attempt of mine to 'get' poetry.
I had to stop to research many of the Australiannisms, which was an interesting learning experience but made this a slow read.