POSTPONED Ali Whitelock - The Lactic Acid in the Calves of Your Despair

Join us for the launch of Ali Whitelock's new poetry collection, The Lactic Acid in the Calves of Your Despair. 

Intimate, witty, profound, mischievous, profane, sharp - just some of the words to describe this wonderful new work. 

Fellow poet Tricia Dearborn will launch the book, and Ali will read from it too! 

This is a FREE event. Drinks and nibbles provided.  

About the Book

love is not to tiptoe around the crust of your soul, rather it is to descend into the fire of your molten core without a harness, asbestos suit, or dry ice; it is to suffer third-degree burns; it is to gasp for breath; it is to watch canaries die. 

Political, profound, profane. These poems of defiant disobedience crash through the barriers erected to keep us contained. Writing with humour and tenderness, Ali Whitelock takes us through the parched landscape of life, death, love, fear, regret and the unbearable sadness of losing a dog. 

And particularly topical in the aftermath of the destructive Australia-wide fires, the powerful ‘this is coal don’t be afraid’ is a found poem made up of statements by Prime Minister Scott Morrison, the Rural Fire Service, as well as relevant tweets and quotes, collated to create an extraordinary piece to make us shiver. 

Advanced Praise for The Lactic Acid in the Calves of Your Despair

‘These intimate poems in Whitelock’s second collection pulse with ear-popping language, wit, mischief, heartbreak, and hilarity.’ – Rochelle Jewel Shapiro, novelist, poet, reviewer 

‘Fans of Ali Whitelock’s distinctive blend of sharp, insightful, prosaic, no BS humour blended with the intimacy of confession won’t be disappointed.’ – Magdalena Ball, Compulsive Reader 

‘This collection is glorious in the true meaning of the word. It is a celebration of the darkness in life, the epiphanies of bereavement and the banality of existence and how important it all is. What a poet. What a voice.’ – Jenny Lindsay, Flint & Pitch. 

Praise for Ali Whitelock

‘Remarkably life affirming’ – Sydney Morning Herald 

‘Candid and rhythmic … humour is her safeguard against the terrible things she tells us’ – Sunday Herald (Glasgow) 

‘Charmingly cynical’ – Scottish Review of Books 

‘Whitelock’s gifts to poetry are many.’ – Saturday Paper 

About the Author

Ali Whitelock is a Scottish poet and writer living on the south coast of Sydney with her French chain-smoking husband. This is her second poetry collection. Her debut collection And My Heart Crumples Like a Coke Can was published in 2018 by Wakefield Press; a UK edition will be published by Polygon in 2020. Her memoir Poking Seaweed with a Stick and Running Away from the Smell was launched to critical acclaim in Australia (2008) and the UK (2009). 

Ali has read at festivals and events in Edinburgh, Ireland and Australia. Her poetry has appeared in The Moth, American Journal of Poetry, Glasgow Review of Books, Bareknuckle Poet, Pittsburgh Quarterly, Tahoma Literary Review and all sorts of other rather fabulous places. 

About the Launcher

Tricia Dearborn’s critically acclaimed third collection of poetry Autobiochemistry was released in 2019 by UWAP, followed by She Reconsiders Life on the Run, an International Poetry Studies Institute Chapbook. Tricia was a Poet in Residence at the 2019 Poetry on the Move Festival, and a judge of the 2019 University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize.