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Poetry post-1900
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Broken/ Open
“Yearning Asides”, Gig Ryan, Australian Book Review, no.274 Sept 2005
“acutely aware of the slipperiness of language, of the impossibility of denoting meaning, of putting into words ... sketching a broken world through sometimes cryptic, sometimes jubilant annotations.”
“Songs of Two Cultures”, Barry Hill, The Australian, 24-25 Sept 2005
“The result is poetry of unsettling mystery and beauty. ... the art of this book lies in the precision with which it renders the glassiness of things, the shatterings, without having to say so ... passionate and parodic at once, as cool as all get out.”
Struggle and Radiance: Ten Commentaries
Peter Minter, Jacket 27, 2005
“The book is, dare I say it, redemptive in an entirely secular way, offering moments of existential clarity in unsentimental material observation. Jones’ work is also darkly humorous, cleaving advanced anti-romanticism to poetry’s struggle with boundaries between language, self and the world. This makes her work both precisely personal and sharply social.”
Maria Christoforatos, Cordite Poetry Review no.19 2004
“The striking consistency in these poems is the subtle authority of the narrator. ... Still, there was something curious about this book, deceptively hidden beyond the fingernail-thin spine. Each time I opened the book, it was as though I was reading the poems for the first time.”
Screens Jets Heaven: New and Selected Poems
“Salty Pleasures”, David McCooey, Australian Book Review no.244 Sept 2002
“her best work has a surrealist, transformative energy ... and her work as a whole is marked by a kind of hopeful melancholy.”
“Screens, Fires, Irises”, Judith Beveridge, Southerly vol.64 no.1 2004
“Jones’ poems are energised by an engagement with the thresholds where the public and the private, the social and domestic, the political and the personal meet. ... certainly one of our best practitioners of the meditative urban lyric, playing the range of both the soft and hard pedals.”
“Tripped into Landscape”, Les Wicks, Famous Reporter no.26 Dec 2002
“a rich, essentially celebratory snapshot of urban life, truly lived.”
The Book of Possibilities
Lynette Kirby, Australian Book Review no.190 May 1997
“Jones’ work is intellectually sharp, extending itself, but always accessible. It’s tough, lyrical, fibrous and delicate.”
Lyn Jacobs, Heat no.6 1997
“her vision is impeccable. Like other contemporary poets liberated from bardic pronouncement, Jones invites the reader to share in the speculative processes of discovery.”
“Sydney or the Bush’, Jennifer Strauss, Island, no, 74, 1998.
“The urban is her natural environment and she navigates its traffic ... with energy and streetwise flair, even when describing its hazards. ... She is certainly not unaware of or unresponsive to nature, but her awareness tends to result in the giving of a sensual charge to a symbolic or psychic landscape ...”
MTC Cronin, Cordite : Poetry and Poetics Review no.2 1997
“Jones pursues the border between action and observation, the flux between contact and meaning ... maps the possibilities for interaction and contact that space may hold. ... There are many ways to live, even if it is only in dream, and no matter what happens the risks are still taken.”
“Dovetails and Other W/ Edges”, Bev Braune, Australian Women’s Book Review vol.9 no.2-3 1997
“Jones’ work is so easy on the eye and senses, you wonder what tricks she has just slipped through your inattentive gaps, because you know she has disturbed you in the most devious sort of way. Her style is one of the waiting thunderstorm amidst the tight stasis of before-rain.”
Flagging Down Time
“Old Assumptions, New Directions”, Martin Langford, Southerly vol.54 no.4 1994-1995
“With Flagging Down Time, Jill Jones strengthens her reputation as one of those poets who is beginning to move Australian poetry into new directions — towards a greater trust than ever in the poet’s own responses, a quietening of judgemental implications, and a desire to be able to articulate positive emotion, to find ways of exploring the rhapsodic.”
Rose Lucas, Australian Women’s Book Review
“one of the most exciting voices in contemporary Australian poetry ... a rich layering of image and idea, an archaeology of fiercely intellectual, and poignantly vulnerable insight and juxtaposition.”
Mark Roberts, Scarp 23, 1993
“Flagging Down Time should confirm Jones’ reputation as a major new voice in Australian poetry.”
The Mask and the Jagged Star
James Norcliffe, Christchurch Star, 2 Jan 1993 (NZ)
“a singular voice, able to transform and give significance to the minute details of daily life. ... It is something of a surprise that this is the first collection from a poet of this calibre.”
“Provocations of Modern Life”, Margaret Bradstock, Australian Book Review no.149 April 1993
“accessible, wry and witty with a momentum that repays a second reading.”
Bernadette Hall, Dominion/ Sunday Times, 14 Feb 1993 (NZ)
“Her best poems have humour, compassion and a physicality which is not beautiful and glitzy but fleshy and very real.”
“Chronicles of Loss, Celebrations of City”, Catherine Bateson, Australian Women’s Book Review vol.5 no.1 March 1993
“an acutely observing eye and attention to form ... a formidable new voice.”
http://april.edu.au/jones-jill/reviewers.shtml