This was an ambitious project and more than worth a shot to try and increase our exposure to some of the important work that spoken word can do and is doing, but unfortunately, the poems felt like they lost so much of their power when confined to paper.

Full disclosure: I'm friends with a few people involved with this collection (and wish I was friends with many others). In any case, my partially biased review is that this collection is vibrant, vital and necessary. It showcases a breathtakingly broad selection of styles, themes, and genres. If you wanted to explain to someone what spoken word looks like in the modern era the best thing to do would probably be to throw this book directly at their heads and proclaim: "FEAST YER EYES ON THIS, YE KNOWLEDGE-THIRSTY SCOUNDREL!"

They'll thank you later. Probably.

If this book was an animal it would be a pansexual gryphon with cybernetic enhancements that crochets festive covers for molotov cocktails.

Did I mention I like this book? Because I quite liked it.

I can think of no higher praise for a book than to call it Andrew Bolt's worst nightmare - and Solid Air is just that.

It pushes the bounds of what we think of as a "poetry collection", challenging the erasure of performance poetry, slam, and hip-hop from the publishing world. It is a comprehensive view of the spoken word landscape of the past decade, with poets and performers coming together in chorus to amplify and echo a diverse community voice. This book will - literally, at times - force you to look at poetry from a kaleidoscope of angles.

A must-read for poets and non-poets alike. The next time someone says they "don't read" poetry, force it into their hands.