“Exploring the languages of anatomy, etymology and incantation, these poems spark conversations about fracture and repair, energy, love and danger.” UQP
I discovered Shastra Deo this month as I’ve been diving into Australian poetry. The UQP description is short but there are many reviews of the book online that can be accessed on Shastra Deo’s website on The Agonist page. I read this yesterday in one sitting and I was transported. It’s a visceral read that gets under the skin, literally and metaphorical.
‘The Agonist exists somewhere between a haunted forest and a dissecting bench, demonstrating that the realities of the physical body are just as strange (and terrifying) as anything in fable or myth. At once tender and forensic, Shastra Deo’s poems ask what it means to inhabit a body which collects its own souvenirs of experience, and from which it is impossible to gain reprieve. This is a poetry of blood, smoke and communion – where one is as likely to encounter a boxer’s knuckles as the velvet of antlers; where tiny fish swimming in the lungs of the drowned are as present as a lover’s hands. A striking and memorable debut.’ Chloe Wilson, author of Not Fox Nor Axe
Review Short: Shastra Deo’s The Agonist by Paul Hetherington in Cordite Poetry Review. “The Agonist is a book that risks considerably more than many contemporary volumes of poetry, and when these risks succeed Deo creates startling and inimitable poetry.”
Winner of the 2018 ALS Gold Medal and the 2016 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize
Commended for the 2017 FAW Anne Elder Poetry Award
Shortlisted for the 2018 Mary Gilmore Award
Bio: Shastra Deo was born in Fiji, raised in Melbourne, and lives in Brisbane, Australia. Her first book, The Agonist (UQP 2017), won the 2016 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize and the 2018 Australian Literature Society Gold Medal. Her poem, ‘Fishing at Caer a’Muirehen’, was commended for The Moth Poetry Prize 2020. Shastra holds a Bachelor of Creative Arts in Writing and English Literature, First Class Honours and a University Medal in Creative Writing, a Master of Arts in Writing, Editing and Publishing, and is currently undertaking her PhD in Creative Writing at The University of Queensland.
Sowing Seeds of Love 