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Amy Brown

In this episode of Australian Book Review's States of Poetry podcast, Amy Brown reads her poem 'Snake' which features in the 2016 Victorian anthology.

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When it was nearly still acceptable
to nip the shoulder of the pleasant boy
sitting cross-legged in front of you
(leaning back and pulling the royal blue

wool of his jersey with loose teeth)
I had an elastic idea, which stretched
through the next twenty-five years. Senior
primary school's kingdom of fully grown

flax bushes and adult-sized toilets,

We are following a track that loops
around a lake impaled with trees,
a pinned-down habitat for platypuses

I would like to see, so try to walk
silently until a shadow across the sun-
dried turf in front of me blushes

curls and slides down a bank.
I stop, tell you what I've seen, smile
at the luck. You jump onto a log.

For the rest of the wal ...


Amy BrownAmy Brown is a New Zealand poet, novelist and teacher who has lived in Melbourne for seven years. In 2012 she co ...