The Otherness of Words

The Otherness of Words is a collection of poetry written over a period of forty years. Selected from twelve separate collections as well as more recent poems, they offer an insight into the development of a poet whose voice is strikingly different from that of most other Australian writers. What is the nature of human love? Burt enters his office one day to find a large handwritten folder marked “CONFIDENTIAL”. The unexpected package has come from an old university mate: a charming, successful, and well-loved Australian man named Ted Harris. Twenty-five years post-university, Ted seems to have it all: a partnership in a successful law firm, respect, wealth, and the perfect wife. Manfred Jurgensen’s poetry reflects on a variety of personal journeys holding no promise of arrival, fulfilment or redemption. Yet it retains a stubborn willingness to suffer the brutal confrontations of alienation, guilt and grief, “as if the dark were able to set itself alight”