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
Commended for the 2017 FAW Anne Elder Poetry Award
Shortlisted for the 2018 Mary Gilmore Award
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praise for the agonist
‘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
‘Grounded in the body and its pain, Deo’s stunning poems move beyond the merely philosophical. The agonists of this book – bodies damaged by conflict or ideology, love or loss – are viscerally and exquisitely real.’ Maria Takolander ‘Precise, incisive and surreal, Shastra Deo’s poems govern the space between beauty and terror. Without doubt, a remarkable new voice has arrived.’ Bronwyn Lea ‘Full of the beautiful music of fracture and repair ... Exhilarating in its risk and energy, surprising in its evocations and work with form, this is a distinctive collection.’ Judges’ comments, 2016 Thomas Shapcott Prize ‘Intense, clinical, epiphanic – the language registers of Deo’s poetry seize the reader’s imagination both affectively and intellectually. ... These are startling, impressive poems – The Agonist is confronting, haunting, memorable: a worthy recipient of the ALS Gold Medal.’ Judges’ citation, 2018 ALS Gold Medal |
reviews of the agonist‘The Agonist commands attention and demands a second and third reading, proving that its worth is much greater than schlock-and-shock value. Deo’s poetry is a weapon that is precise and arcane.’ Alison Clifton, StylusLit
‘Deo’s voyages under the skin are replete with all the precise technical language one could imagine.’ Martin Duwell, Australian Poetry Review ‘Intertwining ideas and images from literary and popular culture, The Agonist is a strikingly unusual, pleasingly fresh volume of poetry that challenges us to embrace the messy biology of our humanity.’ Suzie Gibson, Queensland 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.’ Paul Hetherington, Cordite Poetry Review ‘Reading The Agonist is the experience of listening to such notes of unease or loss, expertly plucked from a well-tensioned wire, and with an awareness that a particular mythology, composed of several interlocking parts, and in which the medical and the magical do not oppose but bleed into each other, is being methodically, precisely and elegantly constructed.’ Bella Li, Overland ‘[Deo's] poetry seems to emanate from a raw wound as she dissects the human form with her words, cutting into the flesh, flaying open the skin, peering into the organs and investigating the body’s systems.’ Cass Moriarty ‘Like a sucker punch to the gut. But in the best way possible.’ Joseph Schreiber ‘[A] visceral and (at times) ominous read, and a memorable and accomplished debut.’ Thom Sullivan |
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