Accessibility Tools

  • Content scaling 100%
  • Font size 100%
  • Line height 100%
  • Letter spacing 100%

States of Poetry SA

after Paul Muldoon's 'Why Brownlee Left'

Where Brownlee went, and why he went,
is no mystery – Brady's bar.
And if a man should have fixed intent
it was him; two shots of whiskey,
one of Bushmills, one of Redbreast,
a cheer and a slab for the house.
He was then seen going out to piss
in the March morning, sure and surly.

I wonder what happens
in Seb's kitchen, I see
him round the corner
into the room, sun shining, cat
ready for food, a grin
that is mixed of resignation
& amusement eyes alight
for the opportunity
each day brings. I always
liked the way he understood
things – things I've
never understood –
as an open secret, knowledge
with w ...

Thoughtful –and yet forgetful, easily distracted, hardly there sometimes Ken Bolton's is a lyrical figure limned against the harsh outlines, the stark colours, of the Adelaide art world

... (read more)

Aidan Coleman

Aidan Coleman is a poet, critic and speechwriter. He has published two collections of poetry: Avenues & Runways and Asymmetry, shortlisted for awards including the NSW Premier's Kenneth Slessor Prize, the ...

Kate Llewellyn - Poet Page

Kate Llewellyn is the author of twenty-four books comprising eight of poetry, five of travel, journals, memoirs, letters and essays. She is the co-editor of The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets and ...

Jelena Dinic - poet page

Jelena Dinic arrived in Australia in 1993 during the collapse of Yugoslavia. She writes in Serbian and in English. In 2014 she was a resident at the Eleanor Dark Foundation, Varuna Writers' Retreat in the Blue Mounta ...

Jill JOnes - poet pageJill Jones (photograph by Annette Willis)

Jill Jones has published nine books of ...

Thom Sullivan - poet page

Thom Sullivan is a poet and editor from Wistow/Bugle Ranges in the Adelaide Hills. A short collection of his poems, 'Airborne', was published in New Poets 14 in 2009. Since then he has edited or co-edited ...

I sometimes think that poetry sits in relation to the great empire of the Novel as precariously as early Christianity in the Roman Empire: small groups of devotees gathering in catacombs to perform their sacred rites. OK, the stakes are not as high (the odd literary lion notwithstanding) and things have changed a little in recent years (new media platforms, performa ...