I A platypus used to be the lengthwise size of a boogie board A serene image Riding the creek tangling my handlebars of thick matted fur handlebars tangling in tidelets mouthfuls of creekwater when the ride dives big swallows that fractionalise the volume of the creek in drought days at least and oh the fish I could One two three Oh Woah what size of fish for I a platypus now in contemp lite size Do you even lift size we eats shrimp that we can’t even see Diet lite modern meals we find with electrics pinging off their pinchy […]
Cat Person (republished by kind permission of the New Yorker)
Margot met Robert on a Wednesday night toward the end of her fall semester. Some called it ‘autumn’, but Margot called it fall, because she thought it was a good time to fall for someone. She often had thoughts like this, and wondered, did it mean she was a genius? She was working behind the concession stand at the artsy movie theatre downtown, trying to get the vomit out of the carpet and longing for the day they would let her work AT the concession stand, rather than being forced to stay in the shadows behind it. Robert walked up […]
Lachlan Macquarie and the ‘Prisoners of War’
The post-colonial statue has long been a vexed component of Australian civic iconography. Depictions of Lachlan Macquarie and James Cook have been angrily daubed in recent days, but this sort of graffiti has a longer, wider history. In this extract, Matt Chun looks for the reasons why, and discovers a new view of Macquarie, as a frontier-war fighter. From the coming September edition of Meanjin: Macquarie has long been celebrated as a renaissance man and humanitarian. But, despite the assertions of police, Macquarie’s enduring historical status is questionable. On 8 May 1816, for example, Macquarie ordered that Aboriginal inhabitants: ‘… […]
The sad passing of John Clarke
We only had news of this this morning: that John Clarke has died, aged 68. There is much to be said about this wonderful gentle and achingly creative man. And I’m guessing that will flow pretty quickly now from the many people who knew, loved and admired him. For our part we’d just like to offer some of the last words he wrote for Meanjin. They were, in his typical way, superbly crafted and full of the luminescence of his unmatchable wit. John Clarke’s Commonplace column for Summer Meanjin 2016. John Clarke’s Commonplace column for Autumn Meanjin 2017.
Vogel Survey: Murray Middleton
Murray Middleton, won the 2015 Vogel. His online bio note reads: ‘Murray Middleton is an Australian author, born in 1983, and is based in Melbourne. He won The Age Short Story Award in 2010 with The Fields of Early Sorrow. He won the 2015 The Australian/Vogel’s Literary Award and was named Sydney Morning Herald Best Young Australian Novelists for 2016 with his collection of short stories, When There’s Nowhere Else to Run.’ Melanie Kembrey interviewed him for the Sydney Morning Herald and the extracts below come from that interview. ‘”I am never going to feel like I at all belong […]
Transport
Transport by Mark Brandi
Protected: Australia Council and Meanjin
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
Vale Frank Kellaway
Cheryl Taylor I first met Frank in 1968, when he attended a conference on Australian literature at the University College of Townsville, now James Cook University. That conference became a legend afterwards for its military-meticulous organisation; Frank came to the dinner in a blue velvet jacket that went well with his red hair, but contrasted with all the penguin outfits. He wasn’t putting on a show—he was just being himself. Over the next forty years Frank would sometimes drop into Townsville to see his friends, especially fellow poet Fiona Perry. He always had writing and painting on the go, and […]
Nanna’s Beanies
Cardigans, beanies,
Bathers, socks
Even crocheted jocks
The Joke After God
From Don Watson: ‘Plainly there is a revealed correlation between the death of God and the dying of humour.’
