Having just published his second collection, Walking the Boundary, Brisbane poet Damen O’Brien is probably best known at this stage for the extraordinary number of prizes he has already won or been the runner-up in. Most poets of substance score a number of prizes over a career, but to have won so many so early is unusual. Prize juries (and their shared aesthetics) vary considerably over place and time. To have pleased so many of them raises interesting questions and to some extent may even impede a proper appreciation of a poet’s overall work. There are some sixty poems in…