Recent decades have seen ceaseless catastrophes created by governments’ failure to engage with the environmental-political reality of climate change.

In her third poetry collection, journalist and film critic Roberta Lowing, author of the Asher Award-winning Iraq war sequence Ruin, and the Prime Minister’s Award and Commonwealth Book Prize-nominated Notorious, responds to the domino effect of human-made environmental damage.

This Attic of Fire is a political work that strives to demonstrate how relevant—and revelatory—poetry can be to a modern society.

This is poetry as an act of protest and a place of sanctuary.

About the author:

Roberta Lowing’s poems have been published in Meanjin, Blue Dog, Overland, Southerly, Five Bells, The Newcastle Poetry Prize Anthology and Best Australian Poems. Her first collection of poetry, Ruin (a 55-poem sequence on the Iraq War told in four voices, published by Interactive Press, 2010) was co-winner of the 2011 Asher Literary Award.

Roberta’s first novel Notorious (Allen & Unwin) was shortlisted for the 2011 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards and the 2011 Commonwealth Writer’s Prize Best Book (South East Asia and Pacific Region). Previously a full-time film critic for Fairfax Media, her other works include The Sun-Herald and Sunday Age Family DVD Guide (Fairfax Books).

Roberta published her second poetry collection, The Searchers, in 2014 (Island Press). Her 2014 children’s book, My Pet Octopus Is A Top Darts Player, was published through Wuthering Ink: The Authors Portal.

Roberta also compiles and publishes the poetry events guide ‘The Poetry News’ as a free weekly e-newsletter, to readers in Australia, America, England, India and more, as well as a monthly 48 page e-booklet version and monthly in-store (printed) booklet.