Sleeping from trees, mouths of graveyards wait Low lying fruit idly by, Pray for heaven’s door Pale light, last sight The hangman quivers And the Medes build gallows, Snares And gilded cages Barons and conquerors, conquistadors salute Bloody Marys hail Missionary fervours gale Pied Pipers wisp and drown The children are framed […]
Arts & Letters
In the interests of proper disclosure it must be said that I am a big fan of Dr Anne Aly and I have been a friend of hers for the better part of 20+ years. And I was also grateful for the receipt of Anne’s book, Finding My Place, just prior to the time that […]
In the windows of time much can be seen, peace is possible, love can be above all, hate is intense, that hate can decimate all hope, windows of harmony, civil strife, meaningfulness, warring, redemption, barbarities. The mind’s eye translates what the eyes see and what our ears hear but for many much is lost […]
– by Janet Galbraith with Behrouz Boochani “I don’t want to be written as a broken man”, says Behrouz Boochani, Kurdish journalist and writer incarcerated in Australia’s immigration prison camp in Papua New Guinea, after reading Roger Cohen’s ‘Broken Men in Paradise’ published December 9, 2016 in The New York Times. “I have punched the […]
I have to make a disclosure right at the very start of this review. I am an unabashed Randa Abdel Fattah fan. I have been ever since I read her book “Does my head look big in this?” That assessment of Randa was then confirmed when I read her “Ten things I hate about me” […]
The world we live in is at a dangerous point right now. We are in the grip of a dangerous project of austerity driven by ideas that we call neo-liberalism that have brought us to near catastrophe. It has led to billions of people in serious hardship and many millions struggling from Greece in the […]
For a long time I have wondered about Stan Grant and his recent profile in respect of Indigenous issues and matters of race. My feeling was (and it appears that of a number of friends of mine) that this was somehow a recent phenomenon that we were witnessing. How wrong we were. I have just […]
“I wish she (Lange) hadn’t taken my picture. I can’t get a penny out of it. She didn’t ask my name. She said she wouldn’t sell the pictures. She said she’d send me a copy. She never did.” Florence Thompson How could it be that someone could take a photograph of someone else, which photograph […]
If the sun drowns in a sea of clouds And extends a wave of darkness onto the world And vision dies in the eyes of the vigilant And the road is lost in lines and circles O shrewd traveler in straight lines and in circles, You have no guide but the eyes of speech Ahmed […]
“Small Deaths” by Carol Tarlen I tear my hair like the mad queen of hearts. “What? you used a whole cube of butter to fry one eggs?” Leah’s eyes drop; I refuse to see the lashes cast shadow on her cheeks, too busy thinking, I must wipe dust from under the coffee table, and I’m […]
Join us on