The Other Side of Daylight: An Interview with David Brooks

From the Lighthouse

Join Michelle as she discusses The Other Side of Daylight, a new and collected poetry collection by prize-winning poet, novelist and essayist David Brooks.

Bio

David Brooks has written numerous works of fiction, poetry, philosophy and criticism. His The Cold Front won the 1983 Anne Elder Award for the best first collection of poetry, the Sydney Morning Herald described his The Book of Sei (1985) as ‘the most exciting debut in Australian short fiction since Peter Carey’ and his collection The Balcony (2008) as ‘an electrical performance’, and he has recently been termed ‘one of Australia’s most important writers’, ‘one of the quiet masters of Australian poetry’, ‘a master of the short lyric poem’, and ‘a great contemporary poet’. From 2000-2018 he was co-editor of Southerly, and from 2000-2013 ran the graduate writing program at the University of Sydney. A long-standing vegan and animal rights activist, he lives in the Blue Mountains with rescued sheep. His latest works are The Other Side of Daylight: New and Selected Poems (UQP, 2024), Animal Dreams (essays; Sydney Univ. Press, 2021) and Turin: Approaching Animals (meditations; Brandl & Schlesinger, 2021). Three books, Ice Storm: A Slovenian Suite (Sanje [Ljubljana]), A.D. Hope: remembering a relationship (Brandl & Schlesinger), and Essay on Rights of Non-human Animals (Sanje [Ljubljana]), are forthcoming in 2025.