Vegan, Vegas by Coral Hull (Rattapallax Press, e-book, $4.50)

Reading this collection of one hundred poems is like riding an express train. None of the pieces is written in stanza form, leaving little room to catch one's breath. The only respite is the turning of the page. This lack of traditional form gives the work a sense of breathlessness and urgency unlike any work I've read. Happily, this style, or lack of it, makes comparison to other writers irrelevant. Coral Hull is one of a kind.

Ms. Hull writes obsessively and passionately about her subjects, and most refreshingly, appears to write without a sieve. The result is work that is pure, gritty and whole. At times, this "filterlessness" provides a sense that one is reading journal entries - - but what striking entries they are. She writes with passion, courage and a scorching directness on a vast number of subjects: child abuse and neglect; rape; unfaithful and often cruel lovers; mental illness; sexuality; nature; landscapes and seascapes; family; and, love and hate. Occasionally one finds the trite phrase or cliché, but this is of little consequence as the deluge of fresh imagery more than makes up for it.

The pieces regarding the writer's unapologetic animal-rights activism and veganism are without doubt the most fiery and affecting of the collection. These poems are disturbing, harrowing and heart-wrenching.

From "for the sheep, that were brought to the melbourne high risers"

"& the people that live in those inner city highrisers, were trying to load the big fleecy families of sheep, who had traveled hundreds of kilometers, up into those narrow piss smelling lifts, were trying to take them up into those hundreds of units, to be used for their own devices in the shabby loungerooms…I thought of those sheep up there, being fucked up the arse & being tortured with knives, their white screams muffled behind those sound proof walls, in those hundreds of tiny rooms, I thought of their legs being broken & of their eyes being taken out…I joined the tug-o-war, for the sheep, that were brought to the melbourne highrisers, we did our best"

In the poem, "lettuce doesn't prefer classical music over heavy metal, a vegan is not from the planet vega & a tomato is not an animal," Hull intersperses small doses of humor with her observations on the unblinking ignorance of the non-vegan: "oh look, there's a social outcasts section, how good of the restaurant to provide for strange ones like you…I eat leaves, sediments and small twigs that float down from the upper tracts of mountain streams…"

Hull also writes convincingly about mental illness. "there is no romance in the nervous breakdown, no creativity" is an unflinching and surprisingly sober description of what mental illness is not.

There is genuine, substantial beauty in Hull's nature poetry and its images. In "rain in blackheath, the blue mountains, new south wales," she writes "winter rain come, to darken the wood, to wet the pollen of late flowering gums, to soak the king parrots & rainbow lorikeets, mountain generated, thick, layered rain, from clouds that churn like blankets…windows light up like ground fires & shine out over the edges of flat water, thin smoke spirals twist into the icy air, see way out over there, where the uneven hills & rocky crags pull in & out of this mist, this is the mountain country, that is where the cold rain is"

Some of the pieces are decidedly weaker than the majority and have the air of padding, detracting from what is, overall, a solid collection of very good writing. Never having read any of Coral Hull's previous 35 books, it's safe to say I came to Vegan,Vegas minus expectations -- and came away determined to have a good look at her earlier work.

- - reviewed by Frances LeMoine