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States of Poetry ACT
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:
Have you noticed
how the purl and plain of
women’s talk is tangled
and snarled
when a man enters the room?
Suddenly stitches are dropped
irretrievably
in the middle of a pattern
worked on for hours
and the cosy blend of colours
dark and light is
snagged and knotted
beyond repair.
The ropy t ...
For John and Bini Malcolm
Just when you think it’s all coming together
And you could take a bit more of this partnership,
Time coughs and observes, it’s been forty years now, more than average,
And maybe it’s time to sum up.
In the road to the planets and stars
The step from the croft to the town was the harshest
Then – for a Scot ...
Road Closed
was emphatic,
but the rusty sign
hung on an open gate,
allowing him to kid himself
and drive on through –
up the narrow sandy track
in an erratic
sequence
of hairpin bends
towards the summit,
and as he continued,
with ever less option
to reverse, he began t ...
With daily practice
his stiff fingers found
a music of their own,
the muscle memory of his arm
a rhythm akin
to the unique routine
of a bird of paradise,
waiting for her to come
to his patch of ground
and allow him to impress.
Paul Munden
...What he overhears
is the tumble of dried fruit – cherries, currants, raisins, sultanas – and the rest is imagined: cinnamon, the grated rind of an orange, sifted flour … then there’s a crack – ‘never mind, let’s try another!’ – and he pictures the smashed yolk wiped from the floor before the comic repeat, but he forges on with his own task, and later ...
(after William Shakespeare, Richard III Act 1, Scene 1)
this winter of our discontent
dead leaves scutter on roads
sad! no one is sadder than me
the sun reports winter as
summer – fake news!
winds carry chill of snow
I won some victories
made crowns of branches
bruised arms stripped bare
fool trees ask the sky for care
I set out one morning to return a book and five years later I have not returned; face
pressed into the dirty skin of the Earth. In the bushes I stare from scrubby branches skin
angry with red rashes trace paths travelled. I remember two of the things I left behind –
a copy of The Brothers Karamazov and a poem I wrote in Mexico. Tears catch in my eyes
at sunset ...
(for Satendra)
What happened to me
What did I do to deserve that?
I don’t want to be old person.
I’m buggered now, poor fulla me, done, old, like dust.
I should go to doctor, and ask him a question.
He said, ‘Only thing worse than getting old, is not.’
Wise man, Doctor. He’s like light. His eyes know. They see into me ...
Isi Unikowski reads his poems ‘Grammar Lesson’, ‘You never said it’s a race, dad!’, and ‘Still Life’ for ABR's ACT States of Poetry anthology.