AustLit

'False Nostalgia is rare among poetry collections, a work which is both lyrical and philosophical. It explores the way memory works, and the role memory plays in our sense of identity, and what we take to be the significant moments in our lives – the relationship between what we remember and the stories we tell about ourselves. Through stand-alone poems, exploratory poetic sequences, and essays which read like extended prose poems, Rolfe considers the complex connections between experience and recollection, the drive to document the moment, the fear of forgetting, the power of nostalgia, and the creative unreliability of memory itself. He approaches his subjects from oblique angles, evoking feelings of connection and disconnection, the experience of never quite grasping your own understanding of things. The poems place the reader in half-remembered places – on beaches walked during holidays, in festival gatherings and forests, film screenings and auction houses – asking not only what it means to look back fondly on a second-rate experience, but what it means to look forward to looking back on a moment while you’re still living through it.' (Source: Publisher's website)

'THE MYSTERY In 1872, the crew of the Mary Celeste goes missing at sea, never to be heard from again. The ship doesn’t sink, the cargo is found intact and there’s no sign of foul play. So what happened to them?

'This is just what our characters intend to find out. Enter Sophie and Marc Marshall, descendants of the captain of the Celeste. They’ve been invited aboard the Mary Celeste II, a replica of her namesake, to recreate their ancestors’ fateful voyage. Once they set sail, however, it’s clear that something’s afoot. Or afloat.

'Will they discover what happened to the Mary Celeste before they succumb to the same fate? What’s the captain hiding in the hold? And what about that stowaway?' (Production summary)

'Are crows smarter than chimpanzees? Can they solve riddles? And why exactly is a raven like a writing desk? This dark comedy profiles Bella Radcliffe, a curator assembling an exhibition entitled ‘True Crow’, alongside Charles and Grace Brenner, a young couple whose house is being overrun by a flock of crows. Their stories are linked not just by the presence of these birds, but by that of Derek Castenada, Bella’s keynote speaker. A self-styled crow-chaser, Derek offers to augur a solution to the Brenners’ problem, but he’s soon gone missing, on the trail of the mythical crow-child, Reagan Ayres. The drama culminates in the opening night of ‘True Crow’, as we await Derek’s triumphal – or tragic – return.'

Source: ABC website (http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/radiotonic/like-a-writing-desk/5481664). (Sighted: 14/9/2015)