By Tracy Ryan Andrew Burke (left) in 2008, with Tracy & John Nineteen-ninety in memory of Andrew Burke     Frank: you were always that.   I’ll even admit things treasured but never shared: the way my late ex- husband nicknamed you Balzac and it stuck till I almost said it to your face, not because you were prolific, though you were, but for the half-walrus moustache you had back then, & the nineteenth- century boho longhair look, though it was poetry, not prose, for you.   Now: t ..read more

 Forest (a flash fiction of 200 words)               John Kinsella     Stepping through the forest door, Kris and Los forgot to close it behind them. Admittedly, it was a permeable door that allowed forest creatures to pass back and forth relatively unhindered, and even for seeds and shoots and rhizomes to find a way through or under or around. But the door was to prevent people stealing the forest. This did not mean that people couldn’t live with and interact with the forest — to the contrary, and there were ..read more

  Graphology Paraph 27: in memory of John Tranter               Sydney... not the bush!     Away from the country town towards the city, away from the Jindyworobaks towards the New York School of Poetry.   Sheen in a skyscraper’s window till we look closely and see the reflection of another window, then another —   a cascading advertisement for real estate we might occupy in the lexicons of a pop-cult industry always   threatening to consume, a drip-fed Babel ingraining images extracted from movie to ..read more

Prologue They play with eras and oceans with orcas and strategies of death as unreal as the pandemic was to them when it started its run silent run deep expedition around the planet.     from Cellnight Australia's arms race purchase of nuclear submarines from the US and UK is an endgame. The promise of thousands of jobs in an industry of death, and participation in the nuclear threat to the biosphere (accidents, leaks, and consequences of war), show that the obsession with a 'cradle to grave' nuclear industry is being made real in all its eschatological manifestations. All other ..read more

  Silence   Don’t mistake silence for silence. Because I have been sweating and shaking and my heart beating too fast, don’t for a moment think that I’ve   forgotten Julimar forest and all that dwells in its ambit. Don’t for a moment think that my silence is a silence that absorbs the gouge   of drill bits, that falls into the ‘future’ as if a forest was never there. This mining colonialism relies on silence from those it feels ultimately   are within its grasp; that after a ‘song and a dance’ they’ll lapse back into silence, be happy to see on ..read more

We are very sorry to have to note the passing of poet, editor and writer, Wendy Jenkins. Wendy was a friend with whom we both went way back — she edited our early Fremantle Press books, and was deeply loved and respected by many poets and writers. Wendy was also a remarkable poet of great poise and imagistic intensity. She spent much time perfecting the balance of her poems, and shaped lines down to the very morphemes and phonemes of words. She was an immensely generous and committed editor. There is so much to say about her, but for now, here is an elegy I have written for her: Equilibrium ..read more

I write in support of the climate activist who has been jailed in New South Wales for blocking a lane of traffic on Sydney Harbour Bridge. Such sentencing is the sign of an authoritarian regime using all the tools of oppression it has to hand to enforce its will.  The very fact that the legal system is being used to target those who 'incite' or cause 'economic disruption' says it all — this is purely and utterly a protection racket for industry, mining, exploiters of the environment, and the wealthy. To jail a non-violent activist because they 'disrupt' is another deeply disturbing sign t ..read more

 Racism in Western Australia   The murder of a Noongar teenager by an assailant said to have been uttering racial abuse as he attacked is horrifically and sadly part of a broader issue of racism in Western Australia that needs addressing on every level until it stops. This is an overt example of hate and its consequences, but for many Aboriginal people, and a significant number of non-white Western Australians, the spectre of racism is evident in many said and unsaid ways.   My entire life has been witness to racism perpetrated by smug, self-satisfied bigots who declare they are ..read more

 Launch Speech for Scott-Patrick Mitchell’s Clean               by John Kinsella   I first met Scott-Patrick during a workshop I was giving in 2006. Well, that’s true and not true. I had read their work as part of the pre-entry submissions and had been astounded at the freshness and verve of the work — that its language seemed so alive and yet had something haunting about it as well. But I had encountered their work prior to this as part of the ‘world-building’ Interactive Geographies project for Poe ..read more

I am appalled at this effort to bring attention to the horror of the oil industry, a truly worthy focus of activism. But violating the artwork of Van Gogh who suffered to much in his life and received little financial 'benefit' from his visionary art is a contradiction in terms.  That capitalism's art marketeering has made a mockery of his vision(s) is a terrible fact, but a work on public display that brings the hope of consideration and contemplation is worth more than a can of soup thrown over it. To say that the 'activists' and their campaign choose 'life over art' is fatuous — art is ..read more