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Released every Thursday, the ABR podcast features our finest reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary.
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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.
In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, Kia Groom reads 'Alice at Last' which feature in the 2016 WA anthology.
... (read more)In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, Kia Groom reads 'Catholic Education' which feature in the 2016 WA anthology.
... (read more)In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, Kia Groom reads 'Phantasmagoria' which feature in the 2016 WA anthology.
... (read more)In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, Kia Groom reads 'Tulpa' which feature in the 2016 WA anthology.
... (read more)In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, Kia Groom reads 'Inferno:I' which feature in the 2016 WA anthology.
... (read more)'Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly...'
– Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
I un-wake to damage.
Light-bulb stutters, frantic
once off, once on, illuminates
imagined city
skyline.
Inside my bedroom it rains
for days. The head
full of synaptic hauntings
shudders. Old-milk sky
dimming.
Itch in the vein, the road hot still
from sun, an asphalt stream
bisecting unlit houses. Slip of an alley
cat through a spittle of starlight.
Last cigarette, the way Em curls
her yellow fingers into small mouthed
sweater sleeves.
Clock tower bites light through the empty
parking lot. Gates we broke apart last summer, same
time I lost the laces ...
Invasion Day
My thighs are cold in the crevice
where the Coke can rested
as I drove. By the mailboxes
the ginger guy is staring ...
Dot by dot, the backs
of eyelids. Draw it slowly,
shape of sentimental spine.
You curve that way.
I breathe the countdown
& the world falls, air by air.
In the white room you cloud
over bedsheets,
unsettled weather, & no electric
light will dare illuminate.
Your skin tastes clean sky,
polished gray. That clarity,
sharp ...
from the Tibetan meaning 'to build' or 'to construct'
I.
In 1992, Alice made a Tulpa.
Carry an amulet. Kiss its three sharp corners. Shine.
It began subjective, but with practice could be seen: imagined ghost that flickered in the physical world, a sort of self-
induced hallucination.
Recall the chalk clouds. Recall the scent of ...