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Karen Knight
The ABR Podcast
Released every Thursday, the ABR podcast features our finest reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary.
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The red thread: Xi Jinping’s ideology of power
by Neil Thomas
This week on The ABR Podcast, Neil Thomas reviews On Xi Jinping: How Xi’s Marxist Nationalism is shaping China and the world by Kevin Rudd. Thomas explains that even China watchers find it hard to be clear on the thoughts and plans of the leader of the Chinese Communist Party. They disagree, he tells us, on basic, critical questions, such as for how long Xi will rule. ‘Enter Kevin Rudd’, Thomas writes. ‘In his latest book, former prime minister Kevin Rudd adds a worthy new chapter to his life of public service, digesting thousands of pages of “Xi Jinping Thought” so that you do not have to’. Neil Thomas is a Fellow on Chinese Politics at Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis in Washington DC. Here is Neil Thomas with 'The red thread: Xi Jinping's ideology of power' by Neil Thomas, published in the December issue of ABR.
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In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, Karen Knight reads her poem 'Atonement' which features in the
Casualties
(Willow Court Asylum, 1827-2000, New Norfolk, Tasmania)
Squatting in the bitumen
by the old mortuary
suckering weeds
of blackberry.
Around the hem
of the exercise yard
runtish holly.
Under the scum and stench
of the Frescati pond
rotting water ribbons
and frogs.
An ash sapling
tunnel ...
Atonement
I
This clutch of buildings
has long died
but the ghosts are still here
trying to find heartbeats.
We need to lie
the mirrors down
and take a hammer
to them.
Make a mandala
out of all this
scratched
and crazed glass.
This place needs
to be blessed
before the ghosts reach
Where am I?
I am desperate for connection.
I must have hit a black spot.
The sun is glaring at me and blinding
my display screen.
All I can see is my own face.
Coarse sand has crept between my toes.
I have wandered too far.
I need to google a map, text someone
who will reconnect me.
This shell, this sand, the smell of rotting ...