The much-anticipated second collection from the 2007 winner of the Thomas Shapcott Prize.
Charged with fierce imagination and swift lyricism, Holland-Batt’s cosmopolitan poems reflect a predatory world rife with hazards both real and imagined. Opening with a vision of a leveret’s agonising death by myxomatosis and closing with a lover disappearing into dangerous waters, this collection careens through diverse geographical territory – from haunted post-colonial landscapes in Australia to brutal animal hierarchies in the cloud forests of Nicaragua.
Engaging everywhere with questions of violence and loss, erasure and extinction, The Hazards inhabits unsettling terrain, unafraid to veer straight into turbulence.
Winner, 2016 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards – Poetry
Shortlisted, 2016 Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards – Poetry
Shortlisted, 2016 New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards – Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
Shortlisted, 2016 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature – John Bray Poetry Award
Shortlisted, 2016 Queensland Literary Awards – Judith Wright Calanthe Award