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Modi Operandi
With the whole world lurching towards populism, nationalism, and, in some cases, outright authoritarianism, it can tempting to sit around drawing parallels between various deplorables. Marine Le Pen is to Matteo Salvini as Putin is to Erdoğan. Chan-o-cha is Thailand’s Bolsonaro, who is Brazil’s Orbán, who is Hungary’s whomever. Last week, as the results of the Indian election came in, and as it became clear that Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party were going to be returned to power with a larger majority than anyone predicted, some pundits were quick to warn against such comparisons, which […]
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Balloons
So, the critic says to his child, tell me about this new show. Well, says the child, when I began the work, about a year ago now, it felt like a clean break. A poor commercial decision but a necessary artistic one. That was the intention, at least. I’d grown exhausted with painting and wanted to see what shape my expression could take in some other medium. And I’ve always been drawn to sculpture but had never felt comfortable working in it. The additional dimension seemed to introduce too many variables, generate too much uncertainty. I didn’t like the idea […]
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‘I wrote this one and I know it ain’t great’: The Disruptive Poetry of Songwriting
When Bob Dylan won the Nobel Prize for Literature, a poet friend, whose opinions I value, told me she was disappointed John Ashbery had been overlooked. It wasn’t a question of whether a songwriter should be eligible for a literature prize, but instead, in the context of public discussion swirling around the idea of Dylan’s lyrics as poetry, that he was filling a precious slot in a prize that honours novelists far more regularly. Dylan’s slot, the poet’s slot, she argued, should have been Ashes’. He was a poet, almost without peer, who towered over the last seventy years of […]
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Questions and Answers
As the old saying asserts, ‘If you’re going through hell, keep going.’ And so, the ALP turned to Anthony Albanese this week. Politics will not wait. The next election starts now. Not everyone thinks Albanese is the one. But he’s the last man standing. The competition slunk away, driven down by factional force. Albo says he’s a bit rough around the edges, but a straight shooter. Tick. He’s the man who can talk to the workers and those miners and farmers in the regions. Tick. He’s a rugby man, like Morrison . He likes a beer, the Albo Corn Ale […]
Essays
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‘There is No Axe’: Identity, Story and a Sombrero
In a 2016 Meanjin essay one of this country’s most celebrated writers, Alexis Wright, asked us a fundamental question in relation to storytelling and the role of the writer. ‘What happens when you tell somebody else’s story?’ she asked, in a thoughtful piece of writing that did not demand that white Australia not engage with the story of Aboriginal people (as some have concluded). In addressing the question, Wright asked of each of us, Aboriginal and ‘settler’ both, that we give deeper consideration to the act of telling stories and take greater responsibility for the decisions we make as writers. […]
Fiction
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Something like Revolution
After your world ended for the third time, you walked. The gold ring on your right hand heavy and the blue band around your left wrist even heavier. ‘Rip-off fitbits’ was how Intisar had described them three years ago, as the two of you sat on the couch in the living room of your then new apartment, staring down at your clasped black hands.
Memoir
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Of the Name
From a young age, names preoccupied me. As a child I didn’t like my name and I would often daydream about changing it. Na’ama (in Hebrew, נעמה) was too heavy for me.
Poetry
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Rites, with Sorghum Amplum
We sat on the porch that winter and
talked of murder, imagined bodies trapped
beneath the breaking crust of the field.