We’re delighted to announce that Professor David Herd’s collection of poetry, Walk Song, has been named a Book of the Year in the Australian Book Review (ABR). In making his selection, the writer John Kinsella praised
‘the inviting and inclusive act of walk-speaking that is Walk Song …with its “local action” and “act of welcome”: the political lyric that walks the page’.
The ABR accolade follows a series of excellent reviews of Walk Song. Litter Magazine described the book as ‘a humane and vitally important collection’, while Blackbox Manifold magazine, commented that, ‘This is a fine fine collection …passionately engaged, moving towards real change, charged with the vivid strength of a collective commons’.
Written between 2015 and 2020, Walk Song weaves in and out of the Refugee Tales project, of which Professor Herd is a co-organiser. Addressing the environments contemporary politics has made, including the border and its hostilities, the poems set out the need for a language of welcome. Through its exploration of landscape and politics, friendship and movement, the book builds, across a series of poetic sequences, towards action and hope.
You can listen to an excerpt from Walk Song below: