Ian Templeman

This volume of Southerly, combining the first two issues for 2007, is a celebration of Elizabeth Webby’s contribution to Australian literature. Noel Rowe and Bernadette Brennan, the editors principally responsible for this issue, describe it as ‘a tribute to a brilliant career’. There are contributions from academic colleagues, generations of poets and writers of short fiction, and a number ... (read more)

‘But beside me I had a new laptop computer …’ The publisher’s promotional material which was included with the review copy of Philip Salom’s new poetry collection, The Rome Air Naked, indicated the book would be launched ‘with an innovative exhibition which will use computer technology to extend the written work into an aural, visual and multimedia presentation’. After reading the a ... (read more)

I am not overlyGregarious. I wait and I watch. I keep a decentSilence. But there are some skills where I have power.At times I have spun a silk web strong as wire. These are the final lines of a poem entitled ‘Endings 111’ in Tom Shapcott’s recently published collection of poetry, The City of Empty Rooms. The poem is included in the final two sections of the book devoted to memories of ... (read more)

Paper Gardener   Friends knew he lived alone in an old fashioned block of apartments with large windows facing the sea and a lift like a lion’s cage that gave a tired roar and a belch as it trundled to the fifth floor. His habitat was a cocoon high above the city’s motor zoo and lollipop trimmed trees sewn in neat rows across the green parks that had no knowledge of drought as summer ... (read more)