Brendan Ryan
Brendan Ryan grew up on a dairy farm at Panmure in Victoria. His poetry, reviews, and essays have been published in literary journals and newspapers. He has had poems published in The Best Australian Poems series (Black Inc). His second collection of poetry, A Paddock in his Head, was shortlisted for the 2008 ACT Poetry Prize. His most recent collection of poetry, Travelling Through the Family (Hunter Publishers), was published in 2012 and was shortlisted for the 2014 Victorian Premier’s Awards. He lives in Geelong, where he teaches English at a secondary college.
It is two fathers punching each other in the footy shedsshadows extending over the river flats,
over the bachelor nursing a long neck on his porchover the epileptic twisting on the mechanic’s floor.
... (read more)
Past the final service stationinto the green beyond of paddockssoon to be carved up, quartered,then watched over by streetlights.In the post-work haze, nostalgia reigns:lonely crossroads, abandoned weatherboards,paddocks stretching down to the sea.The involved stares of other drivers –resolute, familiar, alone.The busyness of the day explaining itselfyet like a student in an afternoon classI’m ... (read more)
Were you with a girl at the footy?my father asks while weighing downon a milker. His large, freckled handlike a stone on the claw of the machinesdraining a back quarter of an old Jerseyreluctant to give. I lean against a postdarkened and polished by our shoulders.No, I was just going for a walk. He looksat me, adds, I saw you behind the trees.My mouth begins to dry and my heartpicks up its beat. N ... (read more)
‘The things they carried were largely determined by necessity.’ Tim O’Brien
The beeping of horns, the relentless waves of scooters – a whine that spirals to a high-pitched roarscooting down alleys and footpathsflowing like oil around taxis, through roundaboutsacross bridges. Nobody has time for burnouts.
The sound of the streets is the growl of purposethe 6 am momentum of fathers and son ... (read more)
Cracks in the clay, locusts flittering over bleached stalksold couches in the herringbone, ribbons of bird shit down the walls.
She married into the district, thin as a whispera woman who was summoned to the front rows at Mass.
Each day the wind passes, paddocks of rye grass sway.She smiled through luncheons, gatherings
made the small talk that fertilised a district.This year’s heifers watchi ... (read more)
In memory of Max Richards
Somehow you found the articles and poemsI needed to read.Your key word searches driven by connection,of passing it on.Whether it be through the nodes of ADSL2or the poetry of Heaney, Murray, or MacFarlane’snature writing,whether you be in Doncaster or Seattleor your shelves of books and manilla foldersat La Trobe,you were always passing it on. Whateveryou found for me ... (read more)
Lights over the rail yards are sparklersthat never die down. Every day is a drug test day. All that’s left at Fordis the security lights, shadows on the pedestrian overpass.George Pell is refusing to leave Romawhere girls were once named after their fatherswho could, if so desired, sell them at fourteeninto slavery. George is cantankerousas the music I listen to is old, out of date,timeless. Geo ... (read more)
I take a straw broom to the damp leaves on the side path.The concrete pavers are stained and dirty as they have beenfor much of the year. Stooping allows me to see
... (read more)
Mark Tredinnick’s much-anticipated first collection of poetry, Fire Diary, is an examination of place and how to respond to it. The title provides a clue to the form of the book; many poems chart the daily exigencies of living within nature. More importantly, the collection explores the moods and aspirations of the self, of a person grappling with meaning in life, and with language itself. In th ... (read more)