AustLit
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AbstractHistoryArchive Description
'‘This is not a Warning, it is a Threat! Happy new year!’ So tweeted the American President before launching a missile strike in Iran that almost began World War Three. The American President (for separate reasons) was impeached, and then he was acquitted. Australia burned and did not stop burning and in the middle of that national crisis the Australian Prime Minister flew his family to Hawaii. He was an Australian being an Australian, and if we, like him, keep on being Australians, we will, as Australians, get through this. (This not being the national crisis of the past but the international crisis of the present.) Unprecedented rain flooded the North of England at the same time as new-normal rain emptied biblically into East Africa, quickly followed by a plague of hundreds of billions of locusts, forcing Somalia to declare its own national emergency. The Indian Prime Minister revoked the articles in the Indian Constitution that protected the safety and autonomy of the Muslim state of Kashmir, and, in Delhi, mobs burnt Muslim homes and lynched the people who lived in them, while the government and the police stood by and watched, and, in some cases, participated. The United Kingdom was paralysed by the extended death throes of Brexit, then Megxit – following one on the other like a fever dream of Empire’s end. And then came the collapse of our global health care system, a cataclysmic failure that held capitalism to the light like a soiled white cloth.' (Mindy Gill, Jeet Thayil, Editorial introduction)
Notes
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Only literary material within AustLit's scope individually indexed. Other material in this issue includes:
Five Gabriela Mistral Translations by Stuart Cooke
Three Lionel Ray Translations by Alex McKeownThree Romanian Poets in Translation: Ana Dragu, Angi Melania Cristea and Laura Cozma by Cristina Savin
CHROMA by Bella Li
A Discussion on Verity Spott with Six Poems
Contents
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Never Be Alone Again : Hip-Hop Sampling as a Technique in Contemporary Australian Poetry,
single work
essay
'Middle-aged 90s hip-hop fans like myself are clichéd enough to be parodied by The Betoota Advocate but if you’re not familiar with any of the songs, or the source material, I’ve put together a little Spotify playlist for you to check out as you read. No De La Soul though. Their masterpiece, 3 Feet High and Rising, isn’t on streaming services. While most of the 70 plus samples on the album were cleared, it was only for physical media, and, according to the band, their label Warner Brothers is completely disinterested in doing the work that would get the album online.' (Introduction)
- Unearthing the Greek in the Australian : An Account of Owl Publishing’s History and Foundation, single work essay
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Wrestling with Mode and Meaning : The Play of Poetry in Theatre,
single work
essay
'Sitting high in the John Golden Theatre on Broadway, the opening moments of Jeremy O Harris’s Slave Play leave me open-mouthed. A black woman, dressed simply and of another era – one might presume as a slave – enters the space with a broom. She is sweeping. After a moment, the song ‘Work’ by Rhianna starts to play. Loud and jaunty. The woman is aware of the music. She starts to enjoy it. She starts dancing, and twerking. We are in a mixed world. It is exciting and disorienting. She is interrupted by the arrival of a white man, scrawny, not a rich man, but holding power largely by the whip evident on his person.' (Introduction)
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Net Carries Water,
single work
prose
'What is this blur, whir of colour, this axe-grind-darkness? Nostalgia. Absence. This grief written along a curve, looping back and out, layered through time. Time is perhaps as Tomas Tranströmer offers not linear, but more a labyrinth, where you can press against the wall at the right spot to hear your past and future selves on the other side.' (Introduction)
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‘A Way of Breathing Together’ : Winnie Dunn Interviews Merlinda Bobis,
Winnie Siulolovao Dunn
(interviewer),
single work
interview
'Merlinda Bobis is a poet first and foremost but her extensive body of work has transpired across novels, plays, performances, essays, and works for radio. A single dialogue between us can in no way capture her incredible writing, which is able to transcend borders in all their myriad and sometimes devastating forms. Yet, what I have aimed for in this interview is to showcase the mind of one of Australia’s most brilliant writers to date writing through her Filipino-Australian heritage in a time where the Filipino-Australian community has been vastly ignored and undervalued. As we live, love, and strive to survive together in a time of a global pandemic, I hope this dialogue reminds us how poetry moves through us and can be used as a tool to keep us together.' (Introduction)
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‘Desire’s Temporality Is Going to Be Perverse’ : Elena Betros López Interviews Lisa Robertson,
Elena Betros López
(interviewer),
single work
interview
'Lisa Robertson and I were introduced through my dear friend Marnie Slater following an invitation by Autumn Royal to undertake an interview for Cordite Poetry Review. I felt the need to be completely transparent with Lisa in stating that I’m artist working in moving image, that I’m not a writer by trade, and neither an expert on Lisa’s work. In fact, it was Marnie who introduced me to Lisa’s poetry, inviting me to a reading Lisa gave in Brussels in 2017. After this I bought three of her books at once, yet somehow, I found myself reading them slowly, over long durations of time and with some loyalty in finishing one publication before starting another. I felt curious about my own time with these publications, how in my focused and durational readings began to inform my life and thinking.' (Introduction)
- Surveying What Adheresi"What was your status as of Monday?", single work poetry
- Vanishingi"For too long I have been a member of a vanishing tribe … We start using terms like; ‘going, going, gone …’ in", single work poetry
- Olympic Bingoi"God is always twenty-five", single work poetry
- My Father Was Not a Gardeneri"but he was a handsome widespreading form descended from a long-lived drought-resistant species.", single work poetry
- A King Sends a Delegation to Meet a Clan in the Southi"We’ve heard they make music", single work poetry
- Call Collecti"well, lately, i am the grim reaper.", single work poetry
- Anthropocenei"While there are other words I’d prefer", single work poetry
- High Straight Trunki"All morning she counts the beat of crickets until the", single work poetry
- Order of Birdsi"First are Kookaburras tipping sun into", single work poetry
- Halcyon Hurtsi"two girls swim in sunset bisque", single work poetry
- Loyal and Wanting to Have a Good Timei"Everyone in my family lives to about ninety-six.", single work poetry
- In Memoriami"One by one they all leave us behind", single work poetry
- Dandelionsi"now gone to seed,", single work poetry
- This Abstractioni"Up late this morning. ‘They’ are doing the", single work poetry