{"id":562,"date":"2018-12-26T22:08:02","date_gmt":"2018-12-26T22:08:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magdalenaball.com\/?page_id=562"},"modified":"2022-01-04T22:38:43","modified_gmt":"2022-01-04T22:38:43","slug":"high-wire-step","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/magdalenaball.com\/?page_id=562","title":{"rendered":"High Wire Step"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/i>High Wire Step<\/strong>
\n<\/i>by Magdalena Ball<\/strong>
\nFlying Island Books
\nAustralian Pocket Poets Series
\nISBN: 978-99965-57-35-4<\/p>\n

There are limited hard copies available directly from\u00a0Flying Island Press<\/a><\/p>\n

High Wire Step<\/i>\u00a0is a collection of poems that engages deeply with political issues, from the impact of violence, oppression, and human arrogance to the power of empathy, collective consciousness, and humility. The varied voices in these poems are often playful and post-modern while keeping a fiercely scientific perspective, encompassing collective grief and responsibility, and drawing together the macro perspective of the universe with the micro perspective of heartbreak. These are poems about the impact of greed, bigotry, social change, genetic inheritance, homelessness, disability, and loss, but they are also poems with a slightly mystical slant, exploring transcendence and alternative forms of power and transformation \u00a0From the technological singularity to crypto-currency, edible crickets to Trump Tower, High Wire Step\u00a0<\/i>moves organically between time and space, between an urban and a wild landscape and between despair and hopefulness.<\/p>\n

“From the opening poem Ball weaves timeframes, precarity, vulnerability and the indifference of contemporary life, its subtle menace.” Brianna Bullen for Plumwood Mountain. Full review here: https:\/\/plumwoodmountain.com\/brianna-bullen-reviews-high-wire-step-by-magdalena-ball\/<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cthere are so many intersections and cross-references in these rich and magical poems as they explore personal grief and personal histories, and vast consuming grief at what capitalism has done and is doing to this beautiful planet \u2026and its inhabitant–all its inhabitants, human and critter, plant and bacteria \u2014 down to every inter-connecting intersecting level. In a sense this is a book about living in the Anthropocene, bringing together an experience of both sides of the planet \u2014 from New York to Newcastle \u2014 like a big circling hug that wants to embrace all of it, the pain and the beauty, the fragility and the extraordinary strength – every atom.\u201d Beth Spencer for Rochford Street Review. Full review here:\u00a0 https:\/\/rochfordstreetreview.com\/2019\/11\/29\/beyond-the-culturally-scripted-response-beth-spencer-reviews-high-wire-step-by-magdalena-ball\/<\/a><\/p>\n

“Magdalena Ball\u2019s…poetry collection is what anyone would call acutely political, both boldly and at different times subtly. And such a collection, these days, has become a \u2018sort of necessity\u2019” ~ Jayant Kashyap, Humane<\/a><\/p>\n

Precarious Inscruitable<\/strong><\/p>\n

When the sea rises to eye level
\ntears become redundant<\/p>\n

every day a baker\u2019s dozen
\nor more<\/p>\n

the red list has 20,000 names
\n20,000 is a random number
\nunbounded, like e or Pi
\nthough more finite<\/p>\n

0 is usually taken for granted
\nunderstandably
\nlike the sound of nomatic flocks
\npassenger pigeons aggregating
\nflapping, filling the sky in thickened clouds
\nwarbling, dropping, disappearing
\nleaving a silence so profound
\nit hurt the ears
\nuntil we got used to it<\/p>\n

our ear drums morphed
\nattuned to the sound of the engine
\nthe clack of a keypad<\/p>\n

we filled the gap with
\ngun shot, cash registers
\nthe slide of plastic, the squeal of
\npigs heading for slaughter
\nlathes, hammerings
\nefficient death is noisy business<\/p>\n

a noise we cling to
\nin order to hide the increasing
\nsilence of
\nbillions of missing
\nmammalsbirdsreptilesamphibians
\nthe cardinality \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 of the empty set<\/p>\n<\/form>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

High Wire Step by Magdalena Ball Flying Island Books Australian Pocket Poets Series ISBN: 978-99965-57-35-4 There are limited hard copies available directly from\u00a0Flying Island Press High Wire Step\u00a0is a collection of poems that engages deeply with political issues, from the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-562","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/magdalenaball.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/magdalenaball.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/magdalenaball.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magdalenaball.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/magdalenaball.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=562"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/magdalenaball.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/562\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":825,"href":"https:\/\/magdalenaball.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/562\/revisions\/825"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/magdalenaball.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}