AustLit
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'Art and fiction is our focus this season: let’s lift our gaze, feed our spirits and gather our strengths.
'Because this year has tested us. It has opened our eyes, it has broken our hearts and it has exhausted us. Truth and lie, courage and cowardice, pride and shame. And the new lows we have seen this year, so far beneath shame that we shudder to comprehend... Systematically lying for deliberately cruel impact, and then crowing with impunity. The horrors of wars with genocidal intent. The violence of unrelenting colonisation.' (Editorial introduction)
Notes
-
Only literary material within AustLit's scope individually indexed. Other material in this issue includes:
Yulendj Boonwurrung by Carolyn Briggs
Defying racism with love and care by Thomas Mayo
The thylacine icon by K.M. Kruimink
Lowering the cost of courage by Kieran Pender
The giving and taking away of voice: What art can do /what it can't by Heather Taylor Johnson
Cryptic, quick, anagrammatic by David Astle
Review of: The Racial Politics of Australian Multiculturalism by Daniel Nour
Review of: A Horse at Night: On Writing by Amina Cain
Review of: The Fifth Wound, by Aurora Mattia, Nightboat Books; Never Angeline North Rainbear!!!!!!!!!, Apocalypse Party by Mira Schlosberg
Contents
- The Goodness of Their Hearts Authors, single work short story (p. 34-38)
- Clocking Starsi"Why does it stand", single work poetry (p. 39)
-
Australia in Three Books : I, Memoir,
single work
review
— Review of Blueberries 2020 selected work prose ; My Place 1987 single work autobiography ;(p. 40-43)'I have a story. It will tell you something about me. You may already know me from That Thing or That Event, which I'm now using as a return to writing. That thing about me? It's sad. I will try to connect it to a broader social statement, perhaps something trite that can be laid over a nice pastel sunset for your grid, but mainly the only thing new about it is the chance to squint into another person's life before you find the next hit.' (Publication abstract) -
On Criticism,
single work
essay
(p. 44-50)‘ The great weakness of criticism in Australia is that it is not in itself a profession. Journalism is a profession. But to be a critic is to write a column in one’s spare time.’
- Window Birdsi"The house where birds fly into windows", single work poetry (p. 51)
- Quiet, single work prose (p. 52-54)
- Iso, single work short story (p. 55-60)
- A Short Tale of an Empire with No Clothesi"Screen: a partition, possibly from the Germanic", single work poetry (p. 61)
- Thank You for Screaming, single work autobiography (p. 63-69)
-
How Do We Kin? : A Manifesto for These Unprecedented Climes,
single work
prose
(p. 70-71)
'We live in precarious times.
'We inherit the legacy and deep knowing of kinship in the context of First Nations survival; we learn to listen to the ancestors of this land and the cultural practices that demonstrate so elegantly how everything is connected in a constant state of becoming.' (Introduction)
- When Love Trots Towards Us as a Truffle Pigi"she will not wait for us to be ready.", single work poetry (p. 82-83)
-
John Kinsella,
single work
interview
(p. 85-90)'Hello, John, and thanks so much for taking part in this interview. As a long-time contributor to Meanjin across many forms—from poetry to essays and fiction—it’s wonderful to be able to delve into your work more deeply. I’d like to begin by asking how you see the role of literature in activism. You’ve described yourself as an anarchist, a pacifist, and an environmentalist. From your perspective, is the poem an inherently political object?'
(Introduction)
- Native Bear, single work poetry (p. 91)
- Twelve-step Alphabet, single work short story (p. 92-96)
- Homecomingi"My ba stands in our kitchen. The thwack of", single work poetry (p. 97)
- A Woman of Nineveh, single work short story (p. 98-103)
-
Lelda Sunday Reed,
single work
biography
(p. 105-112)'As the inaugural director of Heide Park and Art Gallery, I knew Sunday and John Reed along with many of the artists who are now collectively called the Heide Circle. Sunday and John had lived at Heide for almost fifty years when we started the task of turning Heide II, the property and house they had sold to the State of Victoria, into a public museum.'
(Introduction)
- Firesi"We don’t have any bears in Australia", single work poetry (p. 113-115)
- The Station, single work short story (p. 116-129)
-
911 Lonely : Call Me Call Me Call Me,
single work
essay
(p. 132-142)'Writing about Paul B Preciado in 'General Intellects' (2017), McKenzie Wark once provided a kind of intellectual summa of her preferred mode of thinking and living: a public toilet, a man who hands her a pirate translation (made by a 'nasty street queen') of Foucault's works, promising it will change her life.' (Publication abstract)
