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ABR Arts

Theatre

Gaslight 

Rodney Rigby for Newtheatricals in association with Queensland Theatre

Book of the Week

Ghosts of Paradise
Poetry

Ghosts of Paradise by Stephen Edgar

With a title like Ghosts of Paradise, it is no surprise that Stephen Edgar’s latest poetry collection is haunted by loss, mutability, and mortality – the great traditional themes of elegiac poetry. But Edgar’s poetry has long, if not always, been characteristically elegiac. In this new collection, Edgar’s first since winning the Prime Minister’s Award for poetry in 2021 (and his first for Pitt Street Poetry), the poems are haunted by the poet’s late parents, late fellow poets (especially W.B. Yeats, but also the Australian poet Robert Adamson, for whom there is an elegy), and ancient poetic forms, such as the sonnet. The collection also includes meditations on ageing, corpses, and photographs (including Roland Barthes’ ‘theory / That every photo is a memento mori’). An interest in the intertwining of memory, embodiment, and visual representation is powerfully realised in ‘Still Life’, in which the memory of a trip to Broken Hill is

Interview

Interview

Interview

From the Archive

November 2003, no. 256

A Perilous and Fighting Life: : From communist to conservative: The political writings of Professor John Anderson edited by Mark Weblin

Most of us know something about John Anderson (1893–1962). He is remembered as a libertarian philosopher who, during his time at the University of Sydney, influenced various individuals and groups, most notably the Sydney ‘Push’. Writers on Sydney’s intellectual tradition tend to locate the Scottish-born Anderson at the epicentre of this universe. Anderson is someone, however, of whom it is true to say that he is more often referred to than read. His major philosophical works were collected, or entombed, in Studies in Empirical Philosophy (1962). Now, as part of his ongoing attempt to resurrect Anderson, Mark Weblin, the John Anderson Research Fellow, has collated, edited and provided a useful introduction to Anderson’s political writings. The volume, as a whole, raises two questions. Firstly, do Anderson’s political views remain of general interest? And secondly, what is the place or legacy of Anderson in contemporary Australian debate?

From the Archive

February 2010, no. 318

Advances - February 2010

ON CLOUDSTREET

When we sought readers’ nominations for the ABR Favourite Australian Novel of any era or genre, we anticipated goodly interest in the poll, partly because we know you are a well-read and passionate bunch, but also because Oxford University Press and Penguin had offered us a couple of outstanding prizes to complement our three-year subscription to the magazine.

From the Archive