This invaluable issue offers a stimulating reconsideration of the work of two of the most important figures in Australian poetry, and an absorbing array of present and future directions in Australian literary criticism. Essays by leading Australian scholars and commentators are presented side-by-side with papers from scholars from France, England and the US. It contains the by-now notorious exchange of papers between John Kinsella and Henry Weinfield concerning the reading of AD Hope's The Death of the Bird, and important new papers by Kevin Hart, GA Wilkes, Katherine Barnes, Didier Coste, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Santosh Sareen, Wallace Kirsop and many others. It also contains the winning entry from the 2008 Harold Tribe poetry award, Brian Castro's recent Blaiklock lecture on mourning, and much more.