Alan Gould
Alan Gould has published nine novels, thirteen volumes of poetry, and two collections of essays. Born in 1949 of English/Icelandic parentage, he came to Canberra in 1966, where he has practiced as an author for over forty years. Among his many awards for both fiction and poetry are the NSW Premier’s Literary Award (1981), the NBC Banjo Award (1992), Philip Hodgins Memorial Award for Literature (1999), the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry (2006), and he has been shortlisted for both the Miles Franklin and the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards.
Torrid noon, I’m high in my mulberry harvest.
So, what is it with this tree? Lower branches, I click
quickly left or right – fingers safebreaker light
on the gorged capsules, and they detach,
drop, thuk and whole into my plastic bucket.
Yet from the tree-peak where the fattest fruit
clusters against the sun, O I must pinch
and wrest until the berries burst like bloodspray.
... (read more)
I found this a book of uncertain trajectory. On the one hand its target seems to be a broad readership, for these forty-three short stories were first written for the periodical, Tabloid Story, whose method of distribution has been the effective one of being hosted by student and national journals of wide circulation. On the other hand, the collection includes a long self-conscious explanation of ... (read more)
After attaining a low-luminosity arts degree, I worked for a year as a handyman in my university’s Research School of Physical Sciences. This was in 1972, when the new particle accelerator was being installed in its massive concrete tower; its assembly made my humble handyman job one of the most intriguing and happy employments I have had. We bolted together the sandblasted steel pipes for the S ... (read more)
I found Murray Bail’s novel Homesickness a work of brilliant and resonant artistry, which despite many unlikely incidents, succeeds in being thoroughly credible in all its parts. It is also a desolating book, a comedy, but a very black one.
The story describes the adventures of thirteen Australian tourists, following them from Africa to London, to Quito, to New York, to London again, thence to ... (read more)
