Not Fox Nor Axe
Not Fox Nor Axe is Chloe Wilson's second collection of poetry, published in 2015 by Hunter Publishers.
From Reviews of Not Fox Nor Axe:
‘On a first reading, Not Fox Nor Axe is likely to leave you a little breathless, not only as a result of the brio of the poems – as there is plenty of that in them – but from their relentless variety...Not Fox Nor Axe remains an exhilarating, valuable and completely engaging book.’
– Martin Duwell, Cordite
“Wilson is a poet in love with language and what it can do. She’s drawn to the exotic and grotesque... (her) poems tend to be intricately woven and build steadily towards a memorable, often alarming, cumulative effect...Her disrespect is often healthy.”
– Geoff Page, The Australian
'The voice in this collection is strong and often sharp; in general, these are poems which seek out a difficult or disturbing edge...Wilson ranges widely to find such material, drawing on the visual arts of painting and photography, characters and stories from the past, details from writers such as Shakespeare and Chekhov, the vistas of travel and even personal reflection. As a result, the collection is full of vivid vignettes, strongly drawn experiences and colorful characters, from Tchaikovsky to Trotsky, the French guillotine to the plague doctor, from travel in Central America to images of the mass death of blackbirds – all of which are refracted through the ability of the poet to peer underneath or behind what is immediately apparent.'
– Rose Lucas, TEXT
Other Praise for Not Fox Nor Axe:
'Wilson’s poems brilliantly accomplish, from within a contemporary tradition of lyric verse, a fusion of seductive imagery with an insight into the sinister aspects of character and history. From the minatory domesticity of ‘Tricoteuses’, where the domestic character of knitting women encounters the guillotines of Revolutionary Terror, to the title poem which captures the mutations of colonial invasion in Mexico, each poem glitters with concentrated affect.'
– Judges, 2016 Wesley Michel Wright Prize
'In these miniature historiographic experiments, fired by an indefatigable curiosity and voyeuristic intimacy, the macabre rubs shoulders with the exuberant as history and its subjects are inhabited searchingly and sometimes irreverently...Deft inflections of rhyme and immaculate phrasing show an assuredness of craft which make this an impressive first collection and Chloe Wilson a writer to watch.'
– Judges, 2016 Kenneth Slessor Prize
'Chloe Wilson’s words come across at the speed of thought. Her work unfolds as surreal embroidery built around her observations and interpretations that are a welcome addition to contemporary sensibility. This is a book that demands that you ‘think’ for your own survival; it reminds us time and again that thought is what informs all questions in order that they can form themselves in readiness for an answer. If a work can be said to take nothing for granted, this one is it.'
– Judges, 2016 Judith Wright Calanthe Award