An Accident in the Evening

Phil Brown's new collection deals with a range of themes in a characteristically bemused and wry manner. At times these poems draw upon subversions of Zen at other times the poet is satirizing popular expectations including those associated with the Second Coming and the likely role of Jesus. There are also moving poems dealing with those for whom society has little sympathy: the elderly, the unemployed, old Diggers. As well, there are deft sketches of encounters with figures such as a timber-worker, a truckie and the socially smug. A number of sharply defined memories of Brown's Hong Kong childhood are also notable, especially the portrayal in Mr Lai. This is an engaging collection. - Bruce Dawe These finely-crafted, quirky poems range from evocations of a lost childhood in Hong Kong, through musings about Ernest Hemingway and the watching of contemporary TV, to reflections about waiting for a pizza and feeling sympathy for a solitary, suffering woman on the sidewalk in cosmopolitan, trendy New Farm in inner city Brisbane.Funny, bitter, cool and derelict, An Accident in The Evening is an idiosyncratic and engaging collection of poetry that is fresh and wonderfully liberating. - Ross Fitzgerald Littered with deftly evoked, 'real' people Phil Brown's unpretentious style offers a smorgasbord . from poems that are sensual evocations of Hong Kong to a poem about bodies buried in a suburban backyard. His self-effacing wit provokes an immediate response: at times I laughed aloud and you can't ask for more than that. - Carol Davidson