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States of Poetry Poems
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.
Recent episodes:
Claude Monet, 1908
Monsieur Monet has a new lover.
She calls at two every afternoon
and invites him to stay a few hours.
Worshipped by Whistler, Boudin and Signac
Santa Maria della Salute is not like the others.
From the steps of the Palazzo Barbaro
wrapped in a bestowed fur coat
he impregnates the domes of his mistress
with a nacreou ...
Claude Monet Circa 1865–70
It is my life. I must recognise
the future is called the past.
I turn around to contemplate my youth.
My destiny resembles you
and your shadow follows my body.
You are walking in the garden of my eyes.
I owe you everything.
I am no more than your dust
a fine particle of your step.
This dark intim ...
Christiane Conésa-Bostock was born in Lyon, France and has lived in Hobart since the 1970s. Christiane, along with The Grove Road Poets (Karen Knight, Liz Mc Quilkin, Liz Winfield, and Megan Schaffner), won First Prize in the Fellowship of Australian Writers competition in 2010 with their book Of Things being ...
'After, there are the birds' by Gina Mercer | States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two
He sends me photos
of the singular crimson rosella
who observes him through the kitchen window
as he cooks dinner for one.
He sends me boxes of her best clothes:
designer jackets, silk shirts, tailored trousers.
Asks me to share them among family
even though she was the size of a wren
and we’re all currawongs.
He sends me photo after poignant ...
Forget
all you know about Canute,
the king who believed the waves under his dominion,
he could stop the tides by command.
Remember
to bet all you have
on the dead cert
that global warming is real
& ...
Me alongside that world-famous celebrity
The Atlantic Ocean ‒
complaining
I haven’t caught its best side.
...
La rivière Bow, Banff, Spring 2016
The light gets tired, he writes, and I wonder if water, too, can get weary with all that
flowing & sliding & washing away. In the hotel swimming pool the water looks
weary, constantly banging its soft body against concrete, making the effort to dimple
upwards when disturbed, entered, by our alien soft bodies. Unable ...
'Extracts from "The Dictionary Aquatic"' by Gina Mercer | States of Poetry Tasmania - Series Two
Extracts from The Dictionary Aquatic
Burble
Distinctive mating call of wild creeks. Rarely heard in cities where this species has been driven underground, incarcerated in lightless, concrete tunnels. Such conditions have proved unconducive to reproduction or generation.
Gina Mercer enjoys a three-stranded career as writer, teacher, and editor. She has taught creative writing and literature in universities and communities for thirty years. She was Managing Editor of Island magazine, 2006–10. She has published a novel, Parachute Silk (Spinifex Press, 2001) and two academic books (UQP, 1994 ...
... (read more)2016
Okay, I’m from the outside
You know this place that I’m at
The whitefella’s think-society
This outside place that got lost
A think-society claiming it made us
With their blood, their bible and law
So I think it’s just like the inside
To make us like them is the core
Some rules are okay for everyone
Other rules are ‘just-if- ...