Book excerpt: ‘Above all, poetry – for both its readers and its writers – is a form that demands attentiveness and active intelligence. It treats language as a volatile and charged commodity, and one whose subtleties and nuances are worth puzzling over.’ —Sarah Holland-Batt Award-winning poet, critic, editor and academic Sarah Holland-Batt takes the helm as editor of this year’s Best Australian Poems. Demonstrating the diversity, inventive brilliance and dynamism of our country’s finest poets, this collection features work from both rising stars and well-known figures, and presents a dazzling array of themes and styles. Whether addressing biotechnology or domestic violence, migrant experience or the natural world, the poems in this anthology are sure to inspire, provoke and move. Poets include Martin Harrison, Judith Beveridge, Clive James, Keven Brophy, Joanne Burns, Les Murray, Pam Brown, Eileen Chong, Luke Davies, Laurie Duggan, Geoff Page, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Toby Fitch, Robert Gray, Lisa Gorton, Natalie Harkin, John Kinsella, Felicity Plunkett, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Billy Marshall Stoneking, Cate Kennedy, David Malouf, Julie Chevalier, Lionel G. Fogarty and many more…