Geoff Page

Money was already tight for UK families living on a low income before the COVID-19 pandemic, but national lockdowns made life much harder. Telling the stories of these families, this book exposes the ways that pre-existing inequalities, insecurities and hardships were amplified during the pandemic for families who were already in poverty before COVID-19, as well as those pushed into poverty by the economic fallout it created. Drawing on the Covid Realities research programme, and developed in partnership with parents and carers, it explores experiences of home-schooling, social security receipt and government, community and charitable support. This book sets out all that is wrong with the status quo, while also offering a powerful agenda for change. Also see ‘COVID-19 Collaborations: Researching Poverty and Low-Income Family Life during the Pandemic’ (Open Access) to find out more about the challenges of carrying out research during COVID-19.

The short but remarkable career of American jazz guitarist, Emily Remler (1957-1990), ended with her death, amid still-disputed circumstances, in Sydney in 1990 while on tour. Emily played with virtually all the major jazz guitarists of the era and recorded six albums under her own name during the 1980s. Throughout this career, which was pioneering in terms of female jazz instrumentalists, Remler was widely interviewed in the musical press. It is mainly from these interviews, and other biographical material, that poet and jazz aficionado, Geoff Page, has written Elegy for Emily, a compressed and vivid account of her life and work, employing verse that both echoes and complements the rhythms and sonorities of her music. Geoff page has published twenty-three collections of poetry as well as two novels, five verse novels and several other works including anthologies, translations and a biography of the jazz musician, Bernie McGann. His awards include the Grace Leven Prize, the Christopher Brennan Award, and the 2001 Patrick White Literary Award. His book, 1953, was shortlisted in the 2014 Prime Minister's Literary Awards. He was also the editor of The Best Australian Poems 2014 and 2015 (Black Inc). Geoff has also presented monthly poetry readings and jazz concerts at successive venues around Canberra since 1994 and 2003 respectively.geoffpagepoet.com.au

Why have we no biography, three hundred pages, dense with footnotes, boasting your achievements? He was a Melbourne surgeon. He worked for the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War. He was the oldest man at Gallipoli, and took illegal photographs during a nine-hour truce. He repaired Ned Kelly after the Siege of Glenrowan. He cut quite a figure in "Marvellous Melbourne" of the 1880s and 90s. He did remarkable things. He wrote it all down. In this verse-portrait of Sir Charles Snodgrass 'Plevna' Ryan (1853 - 1926), Geoff Page weaves the writing of Ryan together with his own voice as biographer, setting down the life of a man forgotten by history at the same time as reflecting on his role as intermediary. Page's sensitive investigation into the lost life of Charles Ryan probes broader topics of mortality, posterity and collective memory. Written in second person and in verse, Page reflects both on the power and the unreliability of storied lives. Subject: Biography, Poetry, History]

Geoff Page's offers a tight but generous sample from more than forty years' work by this major Australian poet. It does full justice to the poet's extraordinary range of subject matter and poetic modes - from his pastoral origins to the city life he prefers, from Australian history and politics through to religion, from the quietly lyrical to the brutally satirical - while being never less than deeply enjoyable.