‘a poet of energy, a tremendous energy which spills over into some
marvellous monologues, as though the single speaking voice of other parts
of the book were not enough to contain it.’ — Martin Duwell
‘a substantial poet for whom more taxonomical reviews will have difficulty
in finding a category.’ — Geoff Page
‘these poems...sing and hum and thrill and trill. This collection
is a must for every Australian to read.’ — Peter Mitchell, Australian
Book Review
On Hemingway in Spain and Selected Poems:
‘Articulate and endlessly curious, David Reiter sets no bounds to
his taste for the world’s many places, people and happenings. He
creates a colourful simulacrum of Spain’s invincible, fecund life
and history.’ — Judith Rodriguez
Reiter's book bring[s] a panorama of
lost worlds to the reader — from the Kremlin, to Flinder's Breaksea
Island, from Norfolk Island markets... to Idaho. They stitch you into
a tapestry blending a rather fine weave, with loose threads left hanging
just to trip you up if you become complacent. 'Art does not insist. You
must let the fragments/find voice and not worry so much about the gaps.'
— Bev Braune, Australian Book Review
What Reiter has done is more imaginative
and more genuinely creative and ground-breaking because he has turned
Spain not into a land of monuments that the poet reacts to and makes poems
from but into a land of voices. Hemingway acts as a kind of guide but
the voice is as likely to be that of a character from one of his novels
as it is to be that of the writer. And Columbus, Charles the Fifth, Clint
Eastwood, Miro, Picasso and a host of others get to speak as well. All
of the themes of this 'voco-drama' interrelate because, as one poem says:
'the centuries / act in circles more often than straight lines'. —
Martin Duwell
Hemingway in Spain
is a substantial and accomplished piece of writing which, often in the
persona of Hemingway, retraces poetically amny of that man's preoccupations,
as part of David Reiter's aesthetic response to his experience of Spain
(photography is also included). History and its lessons, the blood shed
in its making, suffering and stoicism, religion and belief, the mystery
of beauty and sex, the nature of modern life and the primal 'truth' (as
Hemingway might put it) of ancient cultures and rituals. Pithy observations
which in the confidence of their assertion carry a ring of truth evoke
the big American style: Infidelity / was a squall for some, an anchor
for others / candles against the uncertainties of night...Some believe
it's science / others just good luck / that we fall in love / is a superstition;
that we stay together is default... ("Contrast at Cuenca").
— Nathan Hollier, Overland.152
Australia does have...a few who are
masters of the poetic art... they include the great Les Murray, the splendid
Phillip Salom and the challenging David P Reiter. Hemingway
in Spain is the best example yet of Reiter's
experiment with what he calls fusion poetry and the story he tells in
the many parts that comprise the whole offers as intriguing and insightful
a perspective as any on the great, but flawed American novelist...[he]
brings us that man in various forms, whether as the writer, as his greatest
character from his greatest novel — Robert Jordan from For Whom
The Bell Tolls — or as an observer looking back. And while taking
on Hemingway is a formidable challenge, remember that in the end even
Hemingway couldn't live up to being Hemingway. Reiter is more than equal
to the task. — Michael Jacobson, Gold
Coast Weekend Review
David Reiter's most recent book is
a fascinating expression of the problem of history and the emptiness of
the social sphere...[the] photos exemplify what I read as the central
thesis...the frustrating presence of a past that cannot be pinned down,
and that offers no secure place for human subjects...this is a book which
disturbs, rather than confirms, a narrative stability. Its uncertain politics,
its promiscuous juxtaposing of images, times and places, and its collapsing
of the fictional into the historical (and vice versa), leaves something
unsettled and unexpected, but something which deserves further attention.
— Jen Webb, Idiom 2
OnLetters We Never
Sent:
This is a book of quotes and epigrams,
speculation and anecdote, yearnings and palimpsests, and voices in profusion
as David Reiter puts his head down into historical but also fictive
intertexts of Tahiti. “I am tired of old planets” one of these
voices says, and we too travel through his richly interwoven monologues
to search out the nature of art, of civilisation.... These poems even
name the siren call of the Internet as the new exotic, the medium of
desire. But I was especially struck by the central idea of letters ‘never
sent’ as poetic speculation, at its most pointed in the wit and
banter between Gauguin and Van Gogh, climaxing in the wonderful Van
Gogh commentaries on the famous paintings. — Philip Salom
Gauguin in the South Seas, Van Gogh
in Arles, surfing the Internet, stumbling into chat rooms or a fish
and chip shop in the Cook Islands, explorations of past travellers and
the random confused explorations of the Information Highway… Such
is the exciting collage of images Reiter places skillfully before us.
Phrases, lines, stories that reflect back and forth touching always
on the dream of happiness, the longing to make sense of ourselves. —
Peter Boyle
When a title sells out, authors and publishers have
mixed feelings. The author is gratified to have a substantial readership
and the publisher has room for new books. David Reiter’s first
four poetry titles have sold out, so he must have a dedicated
following indeed!
To reprint or not to reprint? IP was David’s publisher only for
the most recent of the four, Hemingway
in Spain and Selected Poems. We could have easily reprinted
it, but then what about his award winning Penguin title, The Cave
After Saltwater Tide, and the very popular Changing House
and The Snow in Us?
The best solution seemed to be a Selected and New; hence our offering
of Kiss and Tell, which includes a generous sample of work from
David’s five books of poetry to date, including Letters
We Never Sent, plus 22 new poems drawn from his recent experiments
with “literary multimedia”.
Most of these new poems are so new that they haven’t been published
individually as yet. And because they are part of his multimedia projects,
this may be your only chance to see them in print form!
So what are you waiting for?
The challenge for readers of David P
Reiter’s work over the past 15 years has been trying to pin down
his art and influences. Not an easy task. His imagination resists cultural
razor wire by composing without a passport, accepting no subject as
off-limits. And this multi-award winning author more often sets the
trends these days rather than following them.
This is his sixth collection of poetry. His first, The Snow in Us,
is set in the Canadian Arctic, where David lived for a short time among
the Inuit. It was published in 1989 by Five Islands Press, as a part
of its first cooperative cycle. Changing House (1991) was published
by Jacaranda Press. It focuses on Mexico and North America, arriving
in Australia rather late in the piece. The Cave After Saltwater Tide
(Penguin, 1994) won the Queensland Premier’s Award, while Hemingway
in Spain and Selected Poems (IP, 1997) was short-listed for
the Adelaide Festival’s John Bray Award. His most recent poetry
book is Letters We Never Sent
(IP, 2000)
He stubbornly clings to the view that poetry does have a future, and
a bright one. Some of the new work here has been drawn from his forays
into artforms such as “literary multimedia” where poetry –
the most adaptable of literary forms – finds a new home. Whether
in print, on CD, or the Internet, David P Reiter will continue to demand
our close attention.
