Beautiful Changelings

by Maxine Beneba Clarke

'Clarke proves the body may tire of holding up the sky, but it still sings. This is a book to read aloud, to recognise yourself in and to rest with when the sky feels too heavy.' — The Saturday Paper my heart was asking
at every turn, and
as sure as i

would i want this 
for my daughter,

and if not, 

why on earth
         should it be 
good enough

for me
  beautiful changelings  is an incantation, a song, a war cry, a testimonial, a lament, a reckoning and a welcoming. Wrecking-ball revisitings of the myths, mantras and fairy tales fed to girls. Poignant, unashamed tributes to ageing, womanhood, motherhood, and reclaiming your dreams, your boundaries and your time.

This explosive new collection celebrates women and girls as the enigmatic wonders they beautiful changelings.PRAISE FOR BEAUTIFUL ‘her voice remains Clarke spares no one.’ — Books + Publishing

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction

282 pages, Paperback

Published October 28, 2025

About the author

Maxine Beneba Clarke is an Australian writer and slam poetry champion of Afro-Caribbean descent. She is the author of the poetry collections Gil Scott Heron is on Parole (Picaro Press, 2009) and Nothing Here Needs Fixing (Picaro Press, 2013), the title poem of which won the 2013 Ada Cambridge Poetry Prize.

Her debut short story collection, Foreign Soil, won the 2013 Victorian Premier's Award for an Unpublished Manuscript and will be published by Hachette Australia in early 2014.

As a spoken word performer, Maxine's work has been delivered on stages and airways, and in festivals across the country, including at the Melbourne Writers Festival (2008, 2010, 2013), Melbourne International Arts Festival (2012), the Arts Centre (2009) and the Melbourne Jazz Fringe Festival (2013).

Maxine’s short fiction, essays and poetry have been published in numerous publications, including Overland, the Age, Big Issue, Cordite Poetry Review, Harvest, Voiceworks, Going Down Swinging, Mascara, Meanjin, Unusual Work and Peril.

She has been poetry editor of the academic journal Social Alternatives (2012), and spoken word editor for Overland literary journal (2011-12).

Maxine has conducted poetry classes and workshops for many organisations, including RMIT, The Victorian Association for the Teaching of English (VATE), Writers Victoria, Kensington Neighbourhood House and the Society of Women Writers (Vic).

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 5 out of 5]

there is no single self,
only the shedding of skins —
the child, the mother, the lover, the ghost —
all of them waiting their turn
to speak through me.

Some books find you at the right moment, Beautiful Changelings did that for me.

Maxine Beneba Clarke writes with a voice that feels both ancient and immediate, as if her words have been waiting quietly under your skin. Each poem hums with truth, about womanhood, labour, love, time, the body, and all the myths we’ve had to outgrow just to breathe freely.

Her language is sharp and luminous, full of strength and tenderness in equal measure. I kept pausing, rereading, whispering lines aloud because they demanded to be felt, not just understood.

As someone who lives and breathes poetry, this collection reminded me what the form can do when it’s fearless. How it can rage and soothe, dismantle and rebuild. Clarke’s poems are spells of reclamation, fierce, honest, and full of grace.

I closed this book changed, a little heavier with truth but lighter in spirit. Beautiful Changelings isn’t just poetry, it’s pulse, memory, and magic.

Thank you Ultimo Press for sending me an advance reading copy of this stunning collection.

My Highest Recommendation.

Available Now!

[Suz · Rating 5 out of 5]

A small book of poetry covering such vast ground. My first words from this author, and I am not sure how I missed it. I began to see uncanny similarities: useless high school careers advisers from the same era for vastly different reasons, an uncanny reference to a street I once lived near. Every word felt instrumental to the whole, with beautiful internal dialogue around female surgery, horrendous wrongs, and losing one’s voice.

Weirdly, I was reading one poem while waiting in my GP’s rooms, rehearsing my own pleas for HRT. I felt a strange oneness. The themes cannot be stated plainly: failure, war crimes, medical ineptness, every moment between conception and the last words uttered to female kin.

I took photos of many pages. Loved “Bibliography”, the catcalls, the names we are called, catalogued like a list of ownership. And the rules, made by judges, mostly men, while the women who make it try. Until the status quo reaches its gnarled fist and catches on yet again.

Highly recommend. Remarkable.

[Amy Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

.....📚 𝑩𝒐𝒐𝒌 𝑹𝒆𝒗𝒊𝒆𝒘 📚.....

Beautiful Changelings by award winning and fearless storyteller Maxine Beneba Clarke is a poetic reclamation of girlhood, womanhood, and the stories we were never meant to keep.

If you’ve ever felt let down by a nursery rhyme or boxed in by a fairy tale, Beautiful Changelings will feel like a revolution in verse. In true Maxine Beneba Clarke style, it's fierce, lyrical, and unapologetically feminist. This collection rewrites the myths we were raised on and hands the pen back to the women who lived them. Clarke doesn’t just reference folklore, she reclaims it. The changeling becomes a metaphor for the girl who never fit the mold, the woman who outgrew the script. It's story telling as resistance. This is poetry that speaks to the soul of womanhood: the ache of ageing, the power of boundaries, the quiet rage of reclaiming your voice, yet it is both sharp and tender.

Its easy to see why Maxine Beneba Clarke is an award-winning poet as this new collection celebrates women for the wonders they are, and have always been: beautiful changelings.
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Thank you to @ultimopress and @maxinebeneba for an advanced copy in exchange for my honest review.

[Claudia · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was incredible. I was also lucky enough to hear MBC read a number of these at the launch earlier today.

I was going to write my top 5 faves, but I actually don’t think I can choose. This is just so important for everyone to read. It was painfully raw at times, but so well written. I loved it.

[nina.reads.books · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have previously read Maxine Beneba Clarke’s memoir The Hate Race and thought it was fantastic. I hadn’t read any of her poetry though so I was keen to see how I would go with her new release Beautiful Changelings.

Wow what can I say it was a fierce and powerful ode to women in all their forms. Girls who are becoming women, women who are mothers, women who are ageing. It was incredibly inspiring while also honest and brutal.

Her work is poetry but with a narrative form that was often more storytelling than straight up poetic and honestly it worked brilliantly. I am definitely not a huge poetry reader but this was outstanding. I’d highly recommend picking it up.

I’d like to leave you with one short poem as a taster.

#IWD Lament

and though we all
would like
to thank you,
for humouring us,
on this special day,

we also need you
to stop killing us,
the dishes done,

and equal pay.


Brilliant work @maxinebeneba! Loved it.

[Deb Chapman · Rating 5 out of 5]

6/5!!! This book really moved me, and spoke to me! what an outstanding collection! I loved it. MBC just seems to be getting better and better. Profound, sassy, creative, strong and spot on collection of, mostly women’s, stories and experiences.
Every single poem gave me pause. Older women rejoice! See and be seen.

Eg

to have become

to have become
the woman
i’d have stood
in awe of,

if ever i’d known
that woman
could be

that, alone,
is enough

for me

[Hayley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding! I have only recently discovered this wonderful Australian poet. Her voice is powerful, wise, reflective, intelligent and current. Some of her poetry seems like an anthem, a voice calling to women and girls. At other times there is quietness and a storytelling.

I listened to this read by the author/poet herself and as a result it was read the way the author intended.

Highly recommend for those that like modern poetry and want to discover a new poet.

[brydee (beebookish) · Rating 4 out of 5]

beautiful and poignant poetry collection exploring womanhood, ageing and motherhood 🩵 loved every page ✨

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Maxine Beneba Clarke is a multi-award-winning author who writes across multiple genres. I've read and reviewed Growing Up African in Australia (2019), edited by Maxine Beneba Clarke, Ahmed Yussuf and Magan Magan, and you can find Tony Messenger's review of her 2016 poetry collection Carrying the World — which won the 2017 Victorian Premier's Prize for Poetry — via this link on my blog.  I've read more of her work than I've written about here. But this time, though I'm not confident at reviewing poetry, I'm going to share my thoughts about her latest collection, Beautiful Changelings.

But first, a word about the pitch perfect cover design by Allison Colpoys: a patchwork pair of butterfly wings and an enigmatic expression on the profile emerging from the body.  Trust me, this cover has even more resonance when you've read the collection and it's a powerful rejoinder to the AI-designed covers that made me despair in the bookshop I visited yesterday.

There are many stunning poems in this collection, but three in particular stand out for me.  The first was 'beautiful changeling', an homage to an older woman, who could be any of the older women in our lives.  It begins like this:

you beautiful changeling, you

golden, in the autumn
of your being

your hip-softness, you
white-wisped crown,
you tender-breast, you
gentle-step, you
other-worldly papering
of once-taut skin,
you fierce wisdom, you (p.7)

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2025/11/21/b...

[Eliatan · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I was a very little girl, I snuck out of bed in the middle of the night to steal my mothers scissors and snip Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater out of my Nursery Rhyme book. I didn’t know much but I knew I didn’t like the rude way Peter treated his wife.

Amongst the many beautiful poems in this collection, thanks to Maxine we now have this vastly improved version:

peter, peter, pumpkin eater,
had a wife, and would not keep her

from the career
she’d nurtured for many years
old mate pete stayed home,
and looked after the kids

peter, peter, pumpkin eater,
had a wife, and would not keep her
but peter, peter was not bothered
pete and his wife, they kept each other

[peculiarly_bookish]

Thank you Ultimo Press for the gifted copy of Beautiful Changelings by Maxine Beneba Clarke. This review can also be found on my bookstagram.

Sometimes a book of poetry is just what I need, and Maxine's poetry is the sort that I'll always recommend others to pick up. As she always has a fierce energy within her poetry and, this collection of poetry is no different.

With it's firecracker and empowerment vibes Maxine's voice shapes these not only as themes but in her word choices. While also been complemented and balanced with a gentleness that Maxine also wove into her poetry.

The imagery throughout creates vivid images for the reader, that for me as a reader highlighted the journey through different phases and changes of life. I especially enjoyed how this read personal and reflective, as it allowed for me as a reader to appreciate the poetic techniques used.

Overall if your already a fan of Maxine's poetry or your after a poetry collection that is fierce yet gentle, I'd recommend adding this collection to your TBR and or shelves.

[Jennifer (JC-S) · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Oxford Dictionary tells me that a changeling is a child believed to have been secretly substituted by fairies for the parents' real child in infancy. In the titular poem, Maxine Beneba Clarke reimagines women as changelings, not because they have been substituted at birth but because women’s bodies change over a lifetime. And what some of us have been educated to view as the negative changes of age can be re-envisioned as mysterious and intriguing. I love it.

This is a collection of poems full of urgency, of mystery and of reminders that women have agency, that each step of life can be celebrated. It is also a reminder, especially in ‘i would like a hysterectomy’ that sometimes women must roar to be heard.

I will revisit these poems.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

[Rania T · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredible poetry anthology by the one and only Maxine Beneba Clarke. For me, the stand out poem was "I would like a hysterectomy" for its rawness and critique of the marginalisation of minorities in the behemoth of the Australian Medical System. Navigating what it means to be a woman, a mother, is also explored. Maxine also veers into the experimental in her poetry with the hilarious, "hey mum, what's for dinner?" and "american mum." This collection is a must read, and adds a lot to the Australian Literary canon. We have a lot of amazing writers in this country especially from Naarm.

[Natasha (jouljet) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wow.

What a powerful book of poems of right now. Exactly what we need right now. Truths. Examination. Reflection. Acknowledgement. Love. Fierce love.

Mother love. Love for self. Love and awe and bemusement at body. Love love, and broken love with rebuilding.

But mostly, an ode to the power of women, for ourselves, each other, for strangers, for family. For future, past, and now.

Incredible, Maxine.

[Courtney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Maxine Beneba Clarke is probably my favourite poet. Always stunning. Eviscerating. Heartbreaking.

[Luisa Bedoya Taborda · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant curation of poems that provides a voice to the vulnerable, the sidelined and the forgotten.