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States of Poetry 2016
The ABR Podcast
Released every Thursday, the ABR podcast features our finest reviews, poetry, fiction, interviews, and commentary.
Subscribe via iTunes, Stitcher, Google, or Spotify, or search for ‘The ABR Podcast’ on your favourite podcast app.
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:
'He Had a Dream of Times' by Lionel Fogarty | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
They swing on real dreams of freedom.
Peace is like things of the past.
Justice is like ice on the lands never seen.
The dream he had was his own.
For he got pay for his speech.
People now can't dream in positive.
For money to dream became working to scream.
Years went by things same lay at the beds and rooms.
Pain anger injustices seem to be their lifelo ...
'Jealousy of the Undertow/Tombstone' by Lionel Fogarty | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
The need to recall the journey
Is her gift to her children?
They are the perfect journalists
To inscribe her tombstone
Outside my bedroom window
I see them walking the path to my door
Who understands the logic?
That they look so much like me
Meanwhile what a lousy deal
They will also in heart my life
This heat reminds me of a cert ...
'Koala Trees Turn Her Borobi' by Lionel Fogarty | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
She was pretty young Borobi being put in the tree by her human father for four hours.
As he walk back to the other Jarjum, they ask where Borobi was. He say, Oh she jump
into a tree wanting to eat leaves and looked like happy, so I let her be what she wanted
to be, a Borobi.
Many Bilin Bilin flirted around flying high and low seems like listen to old Kargaru sing
'Love and Tradition' by Ellen van Neerven | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
for Aunty Nancy Bamaga
rising sea
takes and
breaks into backyards
to trouble families
we cannot live
with the seas in our bellies
we cannot rest
with the sea at our legs
the tide
is coming
to stroke
our dead
we want to know
who unplugged
our island
of childhood
island
of love and tr ...
Can I say
white people really bore me sometimes
to be exact
I grow tired with what's unmentioned
idling in surf club bathrooms
nothing wrong with the chips
but they're talking about Tasmania
my thoughts haunted by islands
maybe I'm dying
I've too many chips
teeth like stones
take me to be flossed
and cleaned
I need new soles
...
'Buffalo Milk' by Ellen van Neerven | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
Suck until you burn the room
and the heat numbs
reduced to a sound
wet
like the come and go
of the ocean
water enters
my hand in your hair
my hand
if you leave me childless
this will be yours alone
these marks you make
openings, persuasions
of the woman I will become
Ellen van Neerven
'Bricks and Lightning' by Ellen van Neerven | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
It seems I'm always walking
into the scene of a crime
moustached copper
and fuck-off tape
don't look too closely
you won't be able to sleep
I'm new to this building
I live now by the river where
the ducks look like shoes
in the water
I go to the department store
we used to frequent
I look at grocery receipts
to see how I'm saving< ...
The ground felt like it did when it's about to storm. My feet were brown and my big toe blistered. My grandmother was talking to my grandfather. A wet patch on my grandmother's back. Her hands roping those tails along the fence.
She turned to me and I saw her. Grey. A little heavy. Everything I came here for. A magpie flew lower.
Ellen van Neer ...
'the notebooks of Mr & Mrs Emeritus' by Nathan Shepherdson | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
ironing the crease into her lung with your breath
the six words in end steam over blue charcoal in her eye
your hands arrive in separate envelopes on different days
and they are addressed to each other
even the earth in its eyedropper is not medicine to our mouths
it's the milk dispensed through holes in a flute that keeps us alive
Mr & Mrs Emeritus ...
'statements to forget when remembered' by Nathan Shepherdson | States of Poetry Queensland - Series One
no one ha
s ever written
there is no gr
eater poem
than this one
no one ha
s ever written
there is no gr
eater poem
then this one
this poe ...