myResearchSpace

Pillars of Salt (excerpt) We always look back,attracted by that feelingof having been there before – the roadssinking, the soil weeping (scab on scablifted), fences sunk to gulliescatching the garbage of paddocks,strainers blocked by stubbleand machinery and the rungsof collapsed rainwater tanks / and maybethe chimney and fireplaceof a corroded ...

FAREWELL TO THE EARTH Christopher James We buried him with a potato in each hand on New Year’s Day when the ground was hard as luck, wearing just cotton, his dancing shoes plus a half bottle of pear cider to stave off the thirst. In his *** pocket we left a taxi number and ...

I heard Les Murray read some of his poetry and speak at the end of March, in the wonderful venue that is the chapel at Christ Church Grammar School, looking out onto Freshwater Bay as the sun set. Like Arthur Boyd, Les Murray has a highly aware view of Australia's landscape, expressed in language rather than paint. He didn't read any of his ...

A recent serendipitous find: ''A single file of women and children was walking through the village, their faces drawn and tired. They had walked a very long way. In their hands they carried small satchels, filled with earth and manure, clasping the precious burden tightly, like a golden treasure. They had collected it in far-away villages, ...

Hiking the Summit by Simmons B. Buntin from Riverfall (Salmon Poetry, 2005) http://salmonpoetry.com/riverfall.html Reprinted in Salmon: A Journey in Poetry 1981 - 2007(http://www.salmonpoetry.com/anthology.html) _______________________________________________________________________ Hiking the Summit Thirteen miles have passed ...

Two quotes from Bruce Cockburn appropriate to the Christmas season (and the mood it gets me in): ''This bluegreen ball in black space Filled with beauty even now battered and abused and lovely'' from the song ''Planet of the Clowns'' on the album The Trouble With Normal (1983) This was written in the early 1980s, and there seems ...

1958 that spring, there was a terrible drought no one could stop the earth from cracking open and spilling its shrivelled guts mice jumped out of rice jars not a single grain was harvested but so as not to make the higher-ups lose hope our considerate village headman sent people out night after night first to paint the ground ...

I like to go to the lectures for units I'll be lecturing in, to make sure that what I say is at the right level and fits in with the rest of the unit. I also like the chance to get out of the box of my own PhD and see other parts of the world, literally and metaphorically. This semester I've been going Roderic Pitty's global governance lectures, ...