Sarah Holland-Batt Readings
‘The Jaguar is a tour de force. It will leave you dazzled and devastated. The wisdom, kindness and musical rigour of these poems is everywhere apparent. Their emotional range is considerable: intimate, sorrowing, celebratory and philosophical by turn. Holland-Batt possesses a mighty and singular talent, showcased here in all its glory.’ – Michelle de Kretser, on The Jaguar (2022)
Australian poet Sarah Holland-Batt published The Jaguar: Selected Poems with Bloodaxe in September 2024. Sarah launched the book with a month-long UK reading tour in October and November 2024. Scroll down to watch videos of her joint online reading and discussion event with Bloodaxe and films of her reading from The Jaguar: Selected Poems.
With its rich selection from her three books of poetry, up to and including her her Stella Prize-winning collection The Jaguar (2022), this volume introduces one of Australia’s best-known and widely read poets to many readers for the first time.
The poem 'The Gift' is featured in The New Yorker here, where you can also listen to her read it. 'The Gift' is included in The Jaguar: Selected Poems.
Sarah Holland-Batt's piece in The Guardian of 21 September 2024 about the establishment of an Australian Poet Laureate can be read here. The article was extracted from a keynote address delivered at the University of Technology Sydney on 20 September 2024.
UK TOUR: OCTOBER-NOVEMBER 2024
Sarah gave readings at Berwick and Ilkley Literature Festivals, plus at venues and universities in Leeds, Bath, St Andrews, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Newcastle and Oxford.
A review of The Jaguar: Selected Poems and Sarah's joint reading with Dzifa Benson at NCLA in Newcastle is on Write Out Loud here.
Eleanor Livingstone in conversation with Sarah Holland-Batt
Eleanor Livingstone, poet and former director of Stanza, International Poetry Festival at St Andrews, in conversation with the Australian poet, Sarah Holland-Batt, on how poetry festivals help poets, on language and metaphor, on the necessity of looking outwards as well as inwards in writing. Holland-Batt also introduces her new Bloodaxe retrospective, The Jaguar: Selected Poems, and the personal dimensions of the poetry collected within.
This fascinating conversation was recorded via Zoom while Sarah was still on tour in the UK. She read three poems from The Jaguar: Selected Poems.
PAST EVENTS
Tuesday 24 September 2024, 7pm BST
Online launch reading by Nia Broomhall, Niall Campbell, Sarah Holland-Batt and Laura Wittner, with translator Juana Adcock
Sarah Holland-Batt joined the authors of our other September titles to celebrate the publication of their books with readings and discussion. This free Bloodaxe launch event was streamed on YouTube Live and is now available on this YouTube page: https://youtube.com/live/GIeiEhAvavQ
Sarah joined the event live from Australia. The breaking dawn could be seen in the window behind her during the discussion part of this wonderful event.
Sarah Holland-Batt reads from The Jaguar: Selected Poems
Sarah Holland-Batt reads and introduces her poems from The Jaguar: Selected Poems. Neil Astley filmed Sarah in November 2024 at Eastburn in Hexham, where Bloodaxe’s offices are located.
In video 1 she reads six poems from her first Australian collection, Aria (2008): ‘Pocket Mirror’, ‘Cavendish Road’, ‘Letter to Robert Lowell’, ‘Shore Acres’, ‘The Idea of Mountain’ and ‘The Art of Disappearing’. In video 2 she reads these poems from The Hazards (2015): ‘Medusa’, ‘This Landscape Before Me’, ‘Essay on the Toucan’, ‘The Atlantic’, ‘No End to Images’ and ‘The Hazards’. In video 3 she reads these poems from The Jaguar (2022): ‘My Father Is a Giant Koi’, ‘Empires of Mind’, ‘The Jaguar’, ‘Time Remaining’ and ‘The Outing’.
[31 July 2024]
