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'When the indomitable Mark Ulyseas invited me to pen this editorial, I was honoured of course, but also uncharacteristically flummoxed.
'All around me the world was coming off the rails. My studio was flooded after once-in-a-century rains that were a repeat of last year and the year before. There were not one, not two, but three great big elephants in the room that I felt obliged to gloss over if I ever I had a hope of keeping within the word limit. I’m chatty, people. To point them all out, one by one, would glaze too many otherwise bright eyes, so I will defer to Reuters. As someone recently observed in a Sydney editorial, we in the West have grown somewhat inured of big H history in our thirty years of gaudy triumphalism, the Fukuyama conviction that there would be no more vast pestilences, no more vast wars. Well those days are gone, it would seem, heralded in from an Antipodean perspective when most of the east coast of my country caught fire. There has been almost no good news since. Thus, my quandary. Art, afterall, thrives on the conviction that life will prevail.' (Justin Lowe, An Emporium of Letters, Editorial introduction)
Contents
- An Open Booki"oh, where haven’t I done it?", single work poetry
- Madame Curiei"the long train ride made both Pierre and I groggy", single work poetry
- The Daily Walki"at five minutes––– the suburb is stewing", single work poetry
- At The Clinici"in dispersed chairs", single work poetry
- After A Virus Ransacked A Hearti"It’s not a plastic bag caught in the wind’s", single work poetry
- Proper Privatei"Private climate. Proper change. When did some we of us decide to own an", single work poetry
- As If Angels Were in Alliancei"Two classmates smirk as I kneel", single work poetry
- Tree-Ring Datingi"I STUDY THE CROSS SECTION of your severed limb—", single work poetry
- Walking It Backi"We had just been talking about thin slicing—", single work poetry
- Of Love, a Letteri"Dear reader, allow me some indulgence,", single work poetry
- Wollongong Harbouri"The thin, long crush of the sea floods the break", single work poetry
- The Centrifugei"Gripping an invisible rope, I hear", single work poetry
-
On Turning Sixty and After Shinglesi"If the builder placed a bird in my chest it would be like the bewildered",
single work
poetry
Epigraph: ‘If your builder could place a small red bird in your chest to beat as your heart’ — Natalie Diaz, from The First Water Is The Body
- Movingi"I wake in the morning", single work poetry
- Spider Nighti"This morning warm and dry for once", single work poetry
- A Mouse-Hole in Poet’s Corneri"December 1946, and there’s", single work poetry
- The Gripi"A glossy black cockatoo", single work poetry
- Watching Snowi"Two days ago twenty degrees", single work poetry
- Word of the Yeari"There’s an argument going on whether", single work poetry
- True Northi"Escape joyful strains, a walk-up flat", single work poetry