Endorsements for Asterion by Amy Crutchfield

Asterion by Amy Crutchfield (Giramondo, 2026) is the author’s first collection since winning the Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Poetry with The Cyprian in 2023. Read a selection of endorsements for the book below, quoted in full.

‘Asterion is one of the most thrilling volumes of Australian poetry I’ve read in many years. Taking the much-maligned figure of the minotaur as her guiding avatar, Crutchfield navigates the labyrinths of intimacy, violence, suffering, ageing and other transformations with rare intensity and control. In spare, minimalist lines that are deeply concerned with and driven by images, the poet overturns received perspectives, finding fresh lines of sight on both the mythic and the quotidian, moving fluently between diverse landscapes including a fig hollowed out by wasps, the perilously seductive Matterhorn, honeymooners meeting their maker as a dormant volcano erupts, and a deceased playwright’s estate gone wild, among other cosmopolitan locales. Tonally, the poems manage to be both aphoristic yet conversational; they risk much in their confessions, questions and positions, while interrogating whose suffering matters and how and when language reaches its limits. Asterion is a masterful and daring work, one of rare intellectual and emotional intensity; as the poet says, “Damage is part of it. / And we touch anyway”.’
– Sarah Holland-Batt

‘Slim to hold but impossible to mistake as slight, Asterion is the kind of book that expands in the mind long after reading. Shuttling seamlessly between antiquity and the present day, these poems range from compressed, epigrammatic gems to expansive, discursive swoops that catch life’s mysteries in sidelong visions. Crutchfield’s affinity with beings on the edge – whether in classical myth, corporate law, or palliative care – sees Asterion beautifully capture what it means to be a creature of desire, “indentured to appetite.” It takes a certain maturity to treat poetry as something “semi-precious,” whose treasures come qualified, but that is exactly what these poems do, and they are all the more striking for it. The collection is worth reading for “The Nature of Fire” alone, a searing testament to desire in midlife.’
– Jaya Savige