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Sam Ryan

Last month, in more confessional mode than usual (needs must!), we wrote about ABR’s funding predicament in 2024: without federal funds and with only one state arts grant. Readers seemed shocked by the stark comparison between 2019 (when ABR received a total of $245,000 from six governments around the country) and 2024 (a total of $12,000, all from Arts South Australia).

Since then the response from supporters – regular donors and a pleasing number of new ABR Patrons (all listed on page 4) – has been extraordinary. Pace sceptics who always said that Australians will never support literature in the same way they support other sectors and related charities, ABR continues to receive sterling support from those who believe that Australia deserves a sophisticated literary magazine culture of its own, not just an imported one.

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The Blue Cocktail by Audrey Molloy & Ekhō by Roslyn Orlando

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June 2024, no. 465

Identity is a hard thing to define. What makes us who we are? We have social identities, shaped by our affinities and proximities to social groups, cultural identities informed by values, languages, rituals, traditions, and a whole multitude of different phenomena that combine to make us who we are.

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Icaros by Tamryn Bennett & Moon Wrasse by Willo Drummond

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November 2023, no. 459

Tamryn Bennett’s Icaros and Willo Drummond’s Moon Wrasse both use the natural as their central motif. Nature has of course always been a font of inspiration for poets. These two poets draw from that font in vastly different ways. Bennett’s title refers to a form of South American song that is chanted during rituals of cleansing and healing that involve plants. Drummond’s refers to a hermaphroditic fish, the moon wrasse, which acts as a symbol of transformation.

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101 Poems by Ron Pretty

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May 2023, no. 453

Ron Pretty has published eight collections of poetry and five chapbooks over his long career. His latest and perhaps last book, 101 Poems, from Pitt Street Poetry’s Collected Works series, includes pieces from his previous collections, as well as some new work. We start with The Habitat of Balance (1988) and go all the way through to his most recent collection, The Left Hand Mirror (2017), before encountering a selection of new poems.  

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