PASSION UP A PAW PAW TREE — A Swills & Swoon Romance — ‘Ring – ring’ Timothy’s phone rent the cool, morning, sub-tropical air with mechanical insistence “Hellooo.” A voice as smooth as serpentine caressed his ear. “Goldie here, remember? You quoted on my verandah renovations; the price is right, and you seem to have […]
BOOK: The Australian Word
The Australian Word: The Short Story
THE SHORT AND THE SMALL Some uncharitable observers state that the short story is an inferior form of literature – a ‘mall’ story in fact! – designed for those with the attention span of a sparrow. Not so; in its most sublime manifestation, the genre stands as high as any prose form. The life of […]
The Australian Word: Australian Poetry
SEVEN SPIRITS OF THE SOUTH – 19thCentury Australian Poetry His riding boots made heavy going across the sand, the death-white winter spume of the Southern Ocean, Rider of the White Whale, dashed its spite harmlessly at his feet like a leashed terrier. Death-white also was his face; despair veiled the wild Spirit in his eyes […]
The Australian Word: Australian Colloquial Language
AUSTRALIA CALLING This article was written for an overseas readership G-day, I’m an Australian (we don’t mind ‘Aussie’), and I thought that it was time to expand your cultural horizons with an exposition on language Down Under. And talking about horizons, ours are very wide indeed – we’re not called the Land of the Never […]
The Australian Word: Poetry and History
A PAINTED SHIP James Cook: So what have you got down already? Samuel Taylor Coleridge: Not much really, Part 1 Begins with a kind of introduction that’s all. You told me the voyage was an initiation into the mysteries of the Southern Ether; so I have planned seven parts – seven is a pretty good […]
The Australian Word: Mime
THE MANY MASKS OF PIERROT The smile was as fixed as plaster, a grimace really, over a body writhing in torment. Elegant hands became tortured claws in an attempt to peel the mocking grin from the white face. The ultimate inner conflict between persona and soma was being expressed on stage with shocking impact; this […]
The Australian Word: Speech
HALLOWED BY THY NAME… … is the first line of the Lord’s Prayer after the invocation ‘Our Father’, etc. This ‘hallowed name’ could also be referred toas hallowed ‘Word’ of ‘Logos’. The very same that is spoken of in the first lines of the Gospel of St. John – In the beginning was the Word… […]
The Australian Word: The Novel
A RING OF BRIGHT STARS — THE NOVEL — “Hello, I’m The Novel. No, not A novel, the Novel – or the Spirit of same actually. I’m really one of the humble earthly servants of The Word – no, not A word, the word – that highest of spiritual principles attending human culture through the […]
The Australian Word: Humor
“YOU’RE FUNNY, ALAN” Four wretches cringed in the center of the forest clearing on an Attic hillside; dancing firelight mingled with the terror in their eyes What new indignity was to be heaped upon those already inflicted by the simple villagers? Each soul suffered from an affliction recognized then as ‘demon possession’, but today goes […]
The Australian Word: The Larynx
JEWEL IN THE CROWN OF THE BLACK PRINCE A large olive grasshopper flew in and landed on the window sill of the sunny breakfast nook at the Family Foresight’s. “Ooh!” said Mother “Look at the size of his legs – I bet he can jump high.” “They’re not just legs, there his fiddle bows as […]
The Australian Word: Words & Poetry & Speech
KNOCKING DOWN WALLS ———— WITH WORDS———– The Archangel Michael stared resolutely ahead, his features set with divine commitment. He did not look at the dragon writhing under his foot – he did not acknowledge its power. The spear of ‘Mikhail’, in the beautiful Russian icon, impaled the adversary to the earth – or was […]
The Australian Word: Student Writing Sample
FLAMER This is a modern Australian tale collectively created by my students in a term-long teacher-education course on Storywriting I conducted in 1980. Most of the students became, in time, talented story-creators in their own right. This story may happen anywhere, any time, it may have happened already. Somewhere in the center of this vast […]