The Metronome is the third in Giramondo’s series of annual poetry collections by award-winning poet Jennifer Maiden, addressing political and social issues of the moment, particularly here the tension caused by the election of the US president.
Building on the two previous collections Drones and Phantoms and The Fox Petition, The Metronome features intimate conversations about power and policy between contemporary figures and their historical counterparts, the patriots Jeremy Corbyn and Constance Markievicz on a walk in the Scottish Highlands, Governor Bligh and his namesake Wiliam Bligh Turnbull discussing the difference between temper and temperament, Eleanor Roosevelt counselling Hillary Clinton on the use of violence, Jane Austen and Tanya Plibersek talking about sense and sensibility in Sydney’s Botanical Gardens. Throughout, we admire Maiden’s ability to read the faces and gestures of public figures, the strength of her women, her magical settings, and the rhythmical beat of the poetic metronome, offering reassurance and continuity in a period of austerity and fear.
Jennifer Maiden’s collections have won the NSW and Victorian Premier's Poetry Prizes, the Age Poetry Book of the Year, and the Victorian Premier's Award for Literature, the richest literary prize in Australia.
