The Jaguar

With electrifying boldness, Holland-Batt confronts what it means to be mortal in an astonishing and deeply humane portrait of a father’s Parkinson’s Disease, and a daughter forged by grief. Opening and closing with startling elegies set in the charged moments before and after a death, and fearlessly probing the body’s animal endurance, appetites and metamorphoses, The Jaguar is marked by Holland-Batt’s lyric intensity and linguistic mastery, along with a stark new clarity of voice. Here, Holland-Batt is at her most exacting and uncompromising: these ferociously intelligent, insistent poems refuse to look away, and challenge us to view ruthless witness as a form of love. The Jaguar is an indelible collection by a poet at the height of her powers.

Sarah Holland-Batt is an award-winning poet, editor and critic, and Professor of Creative Writing and Literary Studies at QUT. Her first book, Aria, was the recipient of a number of national literary awards, including the Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize, the Judith Wright Poetry Prize and the Anne Elder Award. Her second book, The Hazards, won the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry, and was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize. She is presently the Judy Harris Writer in Residence at the Charles Perkins Centre at The University of Sydney. 

I My Father as a Giant Koi 3 The Gift 4 The Parachute 6 Brazil 7 Empires of Mind 8 The Gurney 10 Time Remaining 12 Lime Jelly 14 The Kindest Thing 16 Terminal Lucidity 17 Nessun Dorma 18 The Outing 20 The Clearing 22 At Springbrook 24 II Thalassography 29 Light Years 31 Pikes Peak 33 Substantia Nigra 35 The Midpoint 36 Tijuana 38 Kneeling Figure 40 The Jaguar 42 The Odds 44 The Grip 45 Neurostimulator 48 The Night Shift 50 Maidenhair 52 Vital Signs 54 III Instructions for a Lover 59 Epithalamium 60 Classical Allegory 62 Affidavit 63 Parable of the Clubhouse 64 Cipriani 65 On Tiepolo’ s Cleopatra 67 Ode to Cartier 68 Alaska 70 The Proposal 72 Night Flight 74 The Worst of It 76 Mansions 77 Blue Quandong 78 Serious Moonlight 80 IV Driving Through Drystone Country 85 Gin & Tonic at the Rock Hotel 87 Lago Nicaraguense 88 Quetzalcoatl 89 Sketches from the Nile 91 Meditation on Risk in New Hampshire 93 Upon Viewing a Still Life by Chardin and Thinking of the Marathon Bombing in Boston 95 Monopoli 98 On Worthing Beach 99 A Handful of Oranges 102 Great North Road 104 Mediterranean Steps 108 In My Father’ s Country 110 I. The Burr 110 II. Your Dying 111 III. The Hex 113 IV. Long Division 114 V. Antipodes 115 VI. Anti-Gravity 116 VII. A Brief History of the British Raj 117 VIII. Brain Surgery 119 IX. The Tremor 120 X. Indirect Address 121 XI. Winter, Worthing 122 Notes to the Poems 125 Acknowledgements 127