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Keith Harrison

Keith Harrison’s poems have been published widely in Australia, the United States, and the United Kingdom. He is presently living in Canberra. His translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight appears in Oxford’s World’s Classics series.

An Old Woman Sings in Her Bed but Makes No Sound by Keith Harrison

August 2004, no. 263 01 August 2004
The summer night is dangerous and deep.I lie, dead still, aware of the tiniest soundsBeing so full of joy I cannot sleep. The night is dangerous, so many lives.I love my husband well. A sharp moonRubs the spine of the barn. Nothing moves. So many lives for the small years that remain.My skin more wrinkled than a withered prune,I study my hand and no word can explain. ... (read more)

La Trobe University Essay | 'The Geist in the Mirror: Harold Stewart, James McAuley and the Art of Translation' by Keith Harrison

June–July 2005, no. 272 01 June 2005
Ern Malley aside, Harold Stewart and James McAuley are poetic confrères in a region of Australian letters that has been largely overlooked. McAuley (1917–76), who translated only intermittently from the German, gave us poems by Stefan Georg, Karl Haushofer, and Georg Trakl, but the poem I will concentrate on is his 1946 version of Rainer Maria Rilke’s ‘Herbsttag’, which is so remarkable t ... (read more)