Autoethnographic

Michael Brennan's third collection of poetry tunes into the feedback loops of consciousness in these fluid modern times. It develops the surrealism of his earlier poetry with an anarchic openness to experience underwritten by anxiety, dysfunction, and the endless hunger for community.

Set in a radically changed but recognisable Australia—one that has evolved through the collapse of the West and the rise of Asia—Autoethnographic jaunts into late capitalism, following six characters who struggle to imagine their place in this brave new world. Around them swirls a carnival of bonobo cultists, scheming hoodlums, free market geneticists, economic terrorists, grieving families, loners and malingerers, lovers and survivors in a fascinating and disorienting mix of elegy, antipoetry, and posthuman punk.

Autoethnographic has won the Grace Leven Poetry Prize.