David Brooks
There are no lions to whelp in the street any more,
and conversely
the Council by-laws forbid
the keeping of the pigs and chickens, goats and cattle
whose prodigious multiplications
could serve as an adequate metaphor
and there are only so many burgeoning plants
you can squeeze into a one-by-three-metre courtyard
but the possums have come back,
and the daylight moon
... (read more)Antipodes, vol. 21, no. 1, 2007 edited by Nicholas Birns & Southerly, vol. 67, no. 1-2, 2007 edited by David Brooks and Noel Rowe
The Shorter Poems of Gaius Valerius Catullus by Gaius Valerius Catullus, translated by A.D. Hope
Southerly edited by David Brooks and Noel Rowe & Griffith Review 13 edited by Julianne Schultz (with Marni Cordell)
Australian Literary Studies edited by Leigh Dale & Meanjin edited by Ian Britain
I would now like to begin with a plea for small literary magazines. I now have a vested interest in their survival (well, one, in particular), but then, I always thought I did. Little magazines are essential to the vitality of Australian literary and political culture. They play an important role in nurturing new poets, critics, storytellers, and reviewers. In the current book-publishing climate, there are few other opportunities for publishing short stories, experimental fiction, or poetry. Small magazines instigate and foster cultural debate and present a diverse range of opinions. Many of the most important issues in Australian public life today were first raised and discussed in literary magazines, including the stolen generations and racial ‘genocide’, the perils of economic rationalism and globalisation, the politics of One Nation, and the implications of new media technologies.
... (read more)‘Those who can, do; those who can’t, teach.’
Can I begin like that? It’s risky, and contentious, and will probably come back at me. But it’s no less a stupid comment for all that. In my experience it is usually the ones who say it who are the ones who can’t.
... (read more)