Kevin Brophy

Kevin Brophy reviews 'Ghostspeaking' by Peter Boyle

January–February 2017, no. 388 • 20 December 2016

If Peter Boyle’s new and selected, Towns in the Great Desert (which I reviewed in ABR, March 2014), was a tour de force of the imagination, and a book of stunningly strange and brilliant poetry, this next book, Ghostspeaking, surpasses it in ambition and virtuosity. Across nearly 400 pages, Boyle introduces us to eleven Spanish-speaking poets from Argentina, France, Spain, Cuba, Canada, and Puer ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | 'What we have been told' by Kevin Brophy

States of Poetry Victoria - Series One • 22 February 2016

 we know that the sun comes up when we pray,that it's here to bless us every day, we know that communists boil childrento fertilise their socialist fields, we know that Italy has the most beautifulsecretaries in the world, we know that there are giant rats swimmingin the Tiber, we know that the heads of Royal personagesrattle when they fall, we know that drugs are merely chemicals,and ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | 'Siren' by Kevin Brophy

States of Poetry Victoria - Series One • 22 February 2016

For Marianne J Boruch and David Dunlap   We walk past the ruined pastpasted to the Academy’s cloister walls,past broken Latin stones’ fractured inscriptions,one fragment reading ‘OVE IS’,and I know that though the sea is comingand volcanoes are not finished with us,crossing this garden in this courtyard in the eveningwith a sentry in a box by the iron gatewatching black-masked fun ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | 'Magically' by Kevin Brophy

States of Poetry Victoria - Series One • 22 February 2016

You woke with a headacheand opened the bedroom window blind.You bent forward as morning light came in.It fell on your belly and breastsand your sleep maddened hair.I could hear the sickness in your voiceas you accepted a salad bowl to throw up inand two pills with breakfast. The new sun tipped itself up over distant mountainsoutside the kitchen window and slapped colour on the housesacross the sl ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | 'Before I speak' by Kevin Brophy

States of Poetry Victoria - Series One • 22 February 2016

This poem has not yet been writtenand before it is I want to say I respectthe President of the United States,the man himself and his office and I respect what the peoplemean when they say Democracythough I do not know what thismight have to do with being armed and having put these points like thisas plainly as possibleon the table here between usI can warn you I might be saying tomorrow or perh ... (read more)

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | 'A brief report' by Kevin Brophy

States of Poetry Victoria - Series One • 22 February 2016

for Wolfgang and Birgit I failed to sleep last night, I failed to have the dreamsthat would take me safe from one day into the next. I failed to be brave, afraid of the train, its snout of steelpushing out of the dark into the station at San Pietro, its sides towering over us blue and white and filthy with night.It hissed, cracked open, impatient, warm as a belly inside, I was shaken as it too ... (read more)

2009 Calibre Prize (Winner): ‘What’re yer lookin’ at yer fuckin’ dog?’

April 2009, no. 310 • 01 April 2009

I have never been good at violence. Not even at mild arguments. So when the brick came smashing through our bedroom window in the middle of the night,I leapt from our bed and screamed. Our children came running in, more worried and frightened by the noise I had made than by the brick or by the glass scattered on our floor. This is all history now. Well, not quite. As with all history, even when th ... (read more)

'The Philosophy Exam', a new poem by Kevin Brophy

May 2014, no. 361 • 29 April 2014

Now you have seen the elephant and heardfrom an ex-student who blogs an elegyto his lost left leg (his transfemoral amputation),and a friend (you visit him in emergency)has misplaced his memory, his lost confirmation –and doctors talk of a Global Psychogenic Fugue:write down what this means in 250 words or less ... (read more)

Kevin Brophy reviews 'Towns in the Great Desert' by Peter Boyle

March 2014, no. 359 • 28 February 2014

Towns in the Great Desert, a New and Selected, may be the collection that defines Peter Boyle. Among Australian poets, Peter Boyle is an exotic, one who is likely to be read far into the future. ... (read more)

'The Sublime', a new poem by Kevin Brophy

June 2011, no. 332 • 23 May 2011

The Sublime at 86 and 91 they are still together more or less and greet me at the door as if I am the punchline to a joke they were just recalling my mother staggers sideways in the drive my father reaches out for a wall, a rail, an arm with the urgency telephones demand they know what it is now and do their best to hide this knowledge from us agreeing to be forgetful and ever more fr ... (read more)