The Night Parrot

by Dorothy Porter

Genres: Poetry

79 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.

Eminent Australian poet. A rare proponent of the verse novel. Winner of The Age Book of the Year for poetry, and the National Book Council Award, for her verse novel The Monkey's Mask. She was awarded the Christopher Brennan Award for lifetime achievement in poetry in 2001. Died of breast cancer, 2008.

Reviews

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Porter’s poetry, and especially her novels in verse, are not to be missed. I am hoping for a way to reissue several of the novels. I would have given this book five stars for the night parrot poems, which offer grand meditation s on love and death, on infatuation and disillusionment, but twelve pages of a poetic sequence about Antarctic exploration gets tagged on at book’s end. While that sequence is good, it breaks the mood and mystique of the night parrot poems. Still, my opening statement holds: if you’ve not read Dorothy Porter, do so. I recommend the novels The Monkey’s Mask (a mystery) or What a Piece of Work, a trek through an insane asylum. You’ll be hooked.

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting and beautiful in parts but for most of the book I wanted something a bit more solid to hold on to, to understand the overarching narrative, if it was intended. It’s like it was almost there (the development and breakdown of a relationship?) but I couldn’t quite grab it to tether myself to something meaningful. I enjoyed the final poem about the Antarctic expedition specifically because it was more clearly grounded in a specific context.