JENNIFER COMPTON
Reviews
Julia's Song - one act play performed Downstairs at Belvoir St 1991 - by Bob Evans in the Sydney Morning Herald.
"Julia's Song achieves a luminous dramatic poetry without apparent effort."
The Big Picture - stage play performed at the Griffin Theatre 1997 - reviewed by James Waites in the Sydney Morning Herald.
"Jennifer Compton is a special name in Australian writing. Not necessarily well known, but with her innate humanity combined with superior technical skill, her poetry and occasional playwriting set her apart from the general rat bag mob... I really loved this play. It's got a huge heart."
From "Between The Lines" by Don Anderson in the Sydney Morning Herald 1998.
"I was gobsmacked. I felt as if I had been punched in the heart by Demi Moore wearing Bruce Willis's Pulp Fiction gloves, as if I had been scolded by Pauline Hanson, seduced by Jana Wendt. I knew how Yeat's Leda felt when the swan ravished her, how Proust's Swann felt when Odette smiled at him. I knew how Ted Hughes felt when Sylvia Plath bit that gobbet out of his cheek. What provoked this? A poem. As visceral a poem as the mind might conceive. If A.E. ("Shropshire Lad") Housman was speaking the truth when he said that poetry is what "makes your hair stand up on the back of your neck and cut yourself while shaving," then Jennifer Compton's In The Worst Way is the real McCoy."
Parker & Quink - book of poetry published by Ginninderra Press 2005 - by Philip Harvey in the Australian Book Review.
"Compton turns trauma and disturbance into startling narratives and bravura art."