Issue Seven Poetry

AN ATTEMPTED ESCAPE

Port Arthur, Van Diemen’s Land, 1842 By Bill Cotter,   I slunk from black to grey and black again. Smelt the gum leaves. Felt the...

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Delivery

by Eleanor Hooker.  ...

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Feeling the Cold

by Moya Roddy   I told myself you didn’t feel the cold, out and about in tee shirts in all weathers. When the rest of us were...

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Mapping like all colonisers like to map

By Gareth Jenkins   An earlier version of this poem was a finalist in the 2016 Newcastle Poetry Prize and published under the title...

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THE “EARL CORNWALLIS”

By Bill Cotter, Between 1788 and 1840, twelve thousand women were transported, usually for minor offences, to New South Wales.   Oh,...

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Matrimonies

By Stuart Barnes     This poem was previously published in Glasshouses (UQP 2016)...

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no angel

By Magi Gibson   she was nine and half her milk teeth gone because she’d kissed the boys behind the shed And she listened in on big...

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TWO POEMS BY SULPICIA

Translated by Melinda Smith   V: From my sick bed Sulpicia 5 (Tibullus 3, 17)   Cerinthus, will you keep faith with your girl now...

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safe hands

By Philip Porter,   She falls into her father’s arms from various heights: This was the light that held her darknesses from her....

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ERNIE ECOB AS A BARE-BELLIED JOE

By Melinda Smith ‘Women only want to be shearers for the sex’ — Ernie Ecob, former Secretary, Australian Workers’ Union   She...

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Tuam Lullaby

By Gary McCartney     Hush, Macushla, time to sleep The night is getting colder Pray the Lord your soul to keep For you’ll...

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Metamorphosis

By Anita Patel (in memory of Maria Sibylla Merian – 1647 -1717)   It is not natural for a young girl to gaze at insects night...

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Jerilderie

By Nathanael O’Reilly   Eat a counter lunch of lamb shanks, salad and chips at the Royal Mail Hotel in the room where the Kelly...

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Cockle Picking

By Amanda Bell   Look first for an open cockle shell, spreadeagled on the damp part of the strand, then, with your fingers, form a...

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Woven in the Bone

By Audrey Molloy   And all this time, was anyone keeping account?      Light from Light, true God from true God, Child-years lost...

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As woman surface

By Ellen Shelley   You watch as shadows wear you as ink dries hard up inside the stone.   Tombs collapse with their dialect of...

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I Speak

By Chad Norman, Remembering Kenneth Patchen, but written for those war and politics uproot.   I speak because I can because I can use...

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Juliana Curr 1835, 2 years, 10 months, 14 days

By Rose Lucas Highfield House, home of the Van Diemen’s Land Company Manager, Stanley Tasmania    ...

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I SPEAK FOR YOU

By Chad Norman   Freedom surrounds my life at the moment bees doing their thing in white clovers, laughter at a nearby picnic-table is...

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Habitual

By Bernadette O’Reilly   He attempted to strangle her in the Bedroom of our house. Frightened mouse Drew back the curtains Light...

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Child At Play

By Bernadette O’Reilly   Pink tea set Bought for me By Uncle Jim The blue by Mum. Pretend play Fear The howl of the wind His key...

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eggshells

By Stuart Barnes i.m. Nancy Barnes   This poem was previously published in Glasshouses (UQP 2016)...

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CRUSHES

By Kenneth Pobo   In junior high I had a crush, on Mr. Lotee, my history teacher. How I stared as he stood by the board and said how...

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The crack

By Jenny Blackford   Cold left-over lamb sat on a flawed floral serving plate in the icebox. Just a thin crack nothing that...

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Old Parishioner

By Bernadette O’Reilly   In the hallway He places a hand On my bottom Before going into mass I turn furiously Tongue explodes I...

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Double Dealer

By Vashti Farrer   Let’s not prejudge him, scorn, deride, decide, dispense with. Hard not to. Hosts of Dickens’ grizzled...

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Nurture Through Nature

By Mari Maxwell  ...

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