WHEN POWER RAINS DOWN Report by Alan Whitehead on the Australian Anthroposophical Conference, Melbourne, January 2005 Seeking the Spirit of Australia Among other things, this was a conference of both reunion and renewal; we stood in the present to revisit the past, and envision the future. Evidence of the former was one speaker who expressed […]
BOOK: The Australian Word
The Australian Word: Romance Novels & Poems
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 […]
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 […]