Off Limits

A rare combination of elegance and punchiness is at the heart of the poetry in this collection. Louise Wakeling's world is one in which "turbulence gets around", "words disappear/like dwindling rain over parapets" and the complexities and vulnerabilities involved in being alive merge with the richness and occasional spikiness of the natural world. It may not be possible to hug a Saguaro, but then again, it might be... Off Limits offers us one fine poem after another.

- Ross Gillett



some give (cactus) a wide berth.

handle them gingerly? you better.

they're prickly and quirky as a room full of poets.



This is a brilliantly bristling & idiosyncratic collection of Sydney poetry (with an eye to the world). And as it shells through the detritus of place, a glinting midden is unearthed. This is a haunting ecopoetic: deferential fo First Nations, awake to social & ecological injustice, and brimful of lyrically imagist joy.

- Phillip Hall



Wakeling is the skeptic arsonist; sharp-eyed seer of the under things of places you thought you knew.

Here she burns the words to see their lights. Watch your step.

- Chris Mansell