(2025) by Lili Ward
2025, paperback
80 pages, 126 x 208 mm
first edition, edition of 100, signed
hand stamped, editions vary.
EASILY ENLIGHTENED is the 27th title from no more poetry and debut collection from artist & writer Lili Ward.
Ward’s poetry wields a generously humorous, disarmingly critical, self-reflexive existentialism that seeks not to uncover meaning or purpose, but rather to collect, survey, and catalogue it. the poems are interested in life and our myriad appraisals of it. they manoeuvre between spiritual criticisms, candid confessions, and post-millennial ponderings. the reader is quickly dealt questions on sobriety, family, wellness, fear, connection, desire, loneliness, and dissociation. the poems harness a sharp irony and direct it towards the conundrum of modern disillusionment and spiritual hunger. ward asks readers what presence might be, and what might be worth being present for. the poems are as self-conscious as they are wise. they seek only temporary answers, with a deep consideration of time’s evolving sincerity. ward writes in a distinctively contemporary style: vignettes of inner-city meandering and online evocations. Lili Ward’s poems sit you down in a scene and throw questions at you. these are poems that pose philosophies as much as they mock them. stories of uber drivers, lovers, sisters, mothers, friends, tradies, singers, co-workers, and locals. a bold and witty debut collection.
Lili Ward is a writer and artist practising and living in naarm (melbourne). she is also the creator of a poetry organisation called roundtable readings, which holds events and publishes zines showcasing the work of other local emerging writers.