Poem

Mulberries and the Death of the Literary Novel

by Alan Gould •

May 2005, no. 271

Poem

Mulberries and the Death of the Literary Novel

by Alan Gould •

May 2005, no. 271

Torrid noon, I’m high in my mulberry harvest.

So, what is it with this tree? Lower branches, I click

quickly left or right – fingers safebreaker light

on the gorged capsules, and they detach,

drop, thuk and whole into my plastic bucket.

Yet from the tree-peak where the fattest fruit

clusters against the sun, O I must pinch

and wrest until the berries burst like bloodspray.

Alan Gould

Alan Gould has published nine novels, thirteen volumes of poetry, and two collections of essays. Born in 1949 of English/Icelandic parentage, he came to Canberra in 1966, where he has practiced as an author for over forty years. Among his many awards for both fiction and poetry are the NSW Premier’s Literary Award (1981), the NBC Banjo Award (1992), Philip Hodgins Memorial Award for Literature (1999), the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry (2006), and he has been shortlisted for both the Miles Franklin and the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.