Anthony Lawrence
'The Measurement Institute' a new poem by Anthony Lawrence
You wouldn’t think to look twice: no high fence
crowned with broken glass, no security guard
heavy with boredom and a lanyard of keys.
Anthony Lawrence reviews 'Selected Poems 1968–2014' by Paul Muldoon
Paul Muldoon’s friend and mentor, the late Seamus Heaney, once remarked that reading Muldoon was like being in a room with two informants: one a compulsive liar and one who always tells the truth. The trick, Heaney suggested, is ‘trying to formulate a question that will elicit an answer from either one that can be reliably decoded’.
Muldoon’s poems a ... More
News from the Editor's Desk - March 2017
Porter Prize
We received almost 1,000 entries in this year’s Peter Porter Poetry Prize – by far our biggest field to date. Entries came from twenty-two countries. The judges – Ali Alizadeh, Jill Jones, Felicity Plunkett – have now shortlisted More
2017 Porter Prize Shortlist
Drone
Someone says drone and I see the cell phone it tracks, see the hand holding the cell phone
Being tracked by the drone, see the arm connected to the hand holding the cell phone
Being tracked by the drone, see the shoulder manoeuvring the arm connected to the hand
Holding the cell phone being tracked by the drone, see the person attached to the shoulder
Manoeuv ... More
Episode #6: The 2016 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize ceremony
The 2016 Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize ceremony was held at the Melbourne Writers Festival on 27 August. The event was compèred by ABR Deputy Editor, Amy Baillieu, with opening remarks from poet and author Maxine Beneba Clarke.
Dennis Haskell reviews 'Dawn the Proof' by Tony Page, 'Headwaters' by Anthony Lawrence, and 'Gods and Uncles' by Geoff Page
The last two lines of Tony Page's Dawn the Proof (Hybrid Publishers, $25 pb, 87 pp, 9781925272239) ask 'how to seize / the grains of now'. One of Page's (implicit) ...
MoreNews from the Editor's Desk - August 2016
News from the the Editor's Desk in the August issue of Australian Book Review.
MoreJolley Prize 2016 (Shortlist): 'Ash' by Anthony Lawrence
When he steps outside and pulls off the mask, it feels like removing a second face, the one he keeps from the ones who wouldn't understand and those who would ...
MoreLetters to the Editor - April 2016
TROVE CURTAILED
Dear Editor,
As President of the Australian Historical Association, on 2 March I sent the following letter to the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull MP, Prime Minister of Australia, (and copied it to the Hon. Bill Shorten MP, Leader of the Opposition; Senator the Hon. Mitch Fifield, Minister for the Arts; and the Hon. Mark Dreyfus QC, MP, Shadow Minister for ... More
Domestic Emergencies
You’re opening a packet of star anise with a knife
designed for taking the sides from fish, when
two things happen simultaneously: the muscle
below your thumb some call the mound of Venus
More