Time Taken – New & Selected

(Puncher & Wattmann, 2022) $30 + $2.20 p&h (AUD)

via email to order through this site. Osko, PayPal, cheque or direct credit.

…the best collection of portraits of Australians who are struggling in contemporary verse. Martin Langford Rochford Review

Les Wicks has been a major influence on me. Not just because of his own wonderful and sustained poetry practise but because of the way he quietly goes about supporting other poets and building up the poetry community. We need more like him! Michele Seminara UWAP

…clarity, strong imagery and a refusal to fall into the strident didacticism of some of his contemporaries. He remains politically engaged, but still equivocal… Micah Horton Hallett

Belief

(Flying Islands, 2019) $10 + $2.20 p&h (AUD)

via email to order through this site, all remaining stock held with author.

Osko, PayPal, cheque or direct credit.

…because his eye is withering and direct, Wicks gives his subjects a dignity and specificity that many a contemporary Australian novelist would envy. Adam Aitken. Communion

Iconoclastic, irreverent, but always vigorous and compelling Margaret Bradstock

an elaborate mosaic where the tiles are words; paradoxes, satire and the vernacular adorn the pages of this beautifully crafted book. Beatriz Copello

clever and brutal – an unflinching examination of human belief, in all of its horror and beauty. Judith Nangala Crispin

…Belief displays an accomplished elder statesman of Australian poetry laying out with disarming agreeableness some of the fundamental questions of the near future. Often playful, sometimes circular, always self-aware in an optimistic rather than despairing way…Lucas Smith Plumwood Mountain

Getting By Not Fitting In

(Island Press, 2016) $20.00 (AUD)

self-aware, debonair, generous, weary, even despondent, yet never despairing. Dominique Hecq

An undercurrent of darkness without giving up, or giving in Myra King

possesses the same Wickensian kaleidoscopic concision, wit and dexterity Carol Jenkins

http://islandpress.tripod.com/ISLAND.htm

or via email to order through this site. Osko/PayPal, cheque or direct credit.

El Asombrado

(Rochford St, 2015) $4.99 AUD

A selection of work from the preceding 15 years in Spanish & English

https://rochfordpress.com/digital-bookshop/el-asombrado-poems-by-les-wicks/?fbclid=IwAR1DX8B0Enj3RU8QBi8Eowe39hR2HpJonhhgalJQwcvXMczy3HwaA_pdYmU

Sea of Heartbeak

(Unexpected Resilience)

(Puncher & Wattmann, 2013) $24 (Aust)

...the mixture of prawn-on-the-barbie, stale beer and thongs suburban, with a sophisticated lyricism and openness to nature... harvesting poetic truffles;

line after line seems to have arrived entire. John Watson, Southerly

…is determined to take the reader on a dive beneath. It took me on a voyage which I found bracing and stimulating at the same time as it did

not turn away from the discomforting reality of the costs our lives inflict on our futures. Rae Desmond Jones

Les Wicks has a capacity to invest ordinary truisms with moral and metaphysical nuances…these are tip-of-the-iceberg poems –

a surface you can see and admire, but with hidden depths that are both wonderful and disturbing. David Gilbey, ABC Radio

... an odyssey buoyed by hope and reckless humour. Rebecca Kylie Law, Rochford St Review

Wicks works his ideas through images rather than argument. The poems are visceral;

each shaped towards an emotional experience. John Upton, Mascara

email to order through this site. Osko/PayPal, cheque or direct credit.

Barking Wings

(PressPress, 2012) $9.90 (Aust)

...image piled up on image, words and sounds crashing to together and, even when we can see ‘blue sky’ for a few lines,

we are always aware that another surprise is only a line break away. Mark Roberts Rochford St Review

...cheeky, wry, slightly errant and wayward, sometimes perverse or wicked... Paul Cliff

Books available directly from the publisher. PO Box 94 Berry, NSW 2535 Australia

See: http://www.presspress.com.au/

Email: info@presspress.com.au

or email to order through this site. Osko/PayPal.

Shadows of the Read

(Krok, 2011) Ukraine $10.00 (Aust)

in Ukrainian & English - only available through

http://krokbooks.com

Australian stock sold out.

The Ambrosiacs

(Island Press, 2009) $22.00 (Aust)

…intense, quite relentless, often dark and pessimistic. But this of course is not the whole story, for within these pages

are striking moments of grace, awareness, acceptance, restitution… joanne burns

...the poetry is firmly anchored in the recognisably here and now of the material world, craftily exploiting tensions

between the natural world and the depredations of short-sighted materialism and consumerism. Cliff Forshaw

http://islandpress.tripod.com/ISLAND.htm

or via Osko/Paypal email to order through this site. PayPal, cheque or direct credit.

Stories of the Feet

(Five Islands Press, 2004) $18.95 (Aust)

In Australia, dramatic narratives, in a variety of styles, still have a vitality that at least matches, perhaps outshines what other English poetries can show…[“Two Ghosts…” featured herein] with its oral manner, builds up an eerie tension… Christopher Pollnitz , Ulitarra

We need a book like this once in a while to remind ourselves that poets document contemporary society in a way that social scientists never will. With Stories of the Feet, Les Wicks focuses his rearview mirror on us. Rob Walker, Cordite

Les is your tour guide to the real Australia, a land of Emus and Kangaroos indeed,

also a land of dead bodies covered in sheets, or cold nights thumbing rides along deserted highways…

Another fabulous book, from a great poet. Paul Gilbert, Above Ground Testing

No stock remaining with publisher. Author has some copies via email.

Appetites of Light

(PressPress, 2002) $7.70 (Aust)

Wicks lights the desires, ideas, acceptance & epiphanies of his everyday Australian protagonists in a

… rich, impressionistic, resonant way. Christine Ferrari

…a fresh, strong, humanistic voice… Patricia Prime, Stylus

Books available directly from the publisher. PO Box 94 Berry, NSW 2535 Australia

See: http://www.presspress.com.au/

Email: info@presspress.com.au

The Ways of Waves

(SideWaLK [Poets], 2000) $10.00 (Aust)

...summer through a sharply focused lens, a sudden wit and quick shifts of tone and mood. ...he is chameleon, restless, full of questions, refusing to be pinned down. Happily moving here & there, amused, bemused, shaking his head in disbelief, belief… in love with it all. Brook Emery

encapsulates Australian beach culture….poems so bright you need Ray Bans. Smell the briny & the blockout; feel the salt in your hair, the sand in your socks… Mark O’Flynn, Famous Reporter

Out of print.

Nitty Gritty

(Five Islands, 1997) $13.00 (Aust)

...assembles an amazing cast of people in recognisable often dark places. With fine detail, their domestic & working lives are brilliantly portrayed. Anthony Lawrence

varied, nimble, humane, wry & well timed Jennifer Maiden

Out of print.