Elizabeth Bachinsky’s ‘Real Grownup’: A Poetic Exploration of Adulthood

Description

Nightwood Editions, paperback

Publication Date: September 15, 2026

Publisher Marketing: 

In her first new poetry collection in over a decade, Elizabeth Bachinsky returns with her characteristic cheekiness and sincerity.

If Lorna Crozier, Susan Musgrave, Bronwen Wallace, Evelyn Lau or Joanne Arnott had been in the mosh pit at fifteen when Nirvana performed at the PNE Forum, this is what their poems might have looked like. In Real Grownup, Elizabeth Bachinsky plain-talks her way through the same gritty landscape that illuminated the poetry of her youth, but shows it from the perspective of a person at a waypoint in life, taking stock of the journey: birth, childhood, sex, loss, joy and death. This book is for those who have lived through everyday madness and want to look upon it with acceptance, humour and love.

Explore more from our collection.