Jill Jones is a poet and writer living in Sydney, Australia.
In 1993 she won the Mary Gilmore Prize for her first book of poetry, The Mask and the Jagged Star (Hazard Press). Her third book, The Book of Possibilities (Hale & Iremonger), was published in 1997. It was shortlisted for the National Book Council 'Banjo' Awards and the Adelaide Festival Awards. Her fourth book, Screens, Jets, Heaven: New and Selected Poems, was published by Salt Publishing in 2002. It won the 2003 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry (NSW Premier's Literary Awards). Her fifth full-length book, Broken/Open was published by Salt Publishing in 2005. It was shortlisted for The Age Poetry Book of the Year 2005 and the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize 2006. She served as a judge for the 1995 NSW Premier's Literary Awards and for the inaugural Broadway Poetry Prize in 2001.
She's learning about the desert
where things are not as flat as they seem.
She needs the plain, the wind, scrub,
no longer believes mirages
...
Without roots and prefiguring
the shaping of ferns
bronze bright in the sun cleft
along a wet fault line
...
I have put my hand out to the word.
It’s been there for days. Hovering
between the newspaper and the television.
...
You’ve heard this story before –
becoming unravelled in Europe
or assaulted in some roadhouse
but bold as nipples and booted.
...
Fifteen minutes at the autobank, waiting for money,
and the nations stroll by with their children
and the new languages.
So many words for Saturday and shopping,
...