Second Thoughts

B N Oakman finds poetry in the ordinary, the exotic, the political and the aesthetic. No head of State or classical film is safe from his exacting eye, which yields refreshing insights about subjects we thought we already understood.


Oakman writes poems for those annoyed by poets. Resisting the florid and the abstract, Oakman drives directly at the point, with here and there a verse like Incan stonework, so carefully composed you barely see the joins.

– Geoff Lemon, Editor, Going Down Swinging


His poems are filled with surprises, sometimes making us smile, but the unexpected distilled truths he uncovers about ourselves and the world in which we live, can leave us weak and trembling, but always wanting more.

– Peter Cundall, Peter Cundall Reads War Poetry


He goes to the centre of things, drawing on both past and present as he creates landscapes of feeling in poems in which history, politics, people and places are refracted through a deeply felt understanding of the human condition.

– Valerie Krips, Editor, Arena Magazine


A collection of not just second but infinitely reconsidered thoughts on all the major themes of life and literature; a succession of brief encounters  with a rich, and enriching, array of people, places, passions.

– Ian Britain, former editor Meanjin


Moments of frolic are shot through with wisdom, as elsewhere a purposeful ruggedness leads on to refinement. So many poems are distinguished by their final line: demonstrations of organic closure – conceptually retroactive, forceful yet elegant.

– John Flaus, actor and critic