Latest Articles
We are encouraged to rely more and more on government officials to do for us what we could equally well do for ourselves—and, maybe more importantly, not to do what might help us solve our own problems.
Sep 08 2024
10 mins
If we imagine a metric called the Pinocchio Scale, which measures the number of lies told by a politician as a percentage of his or her overall public statements, our current prime minister (for want of a better description), Airbus Albo, has moved well into uncharted territory.
Sep 06 2024
5 mins
Robyn Lance: Six Poems
Drought
Travelling west the land burns
but the sky withholds its cure.
Slouched in his ute a farmer watches stock grazing roadsides, wonders
how long he can cling to land tortured by extremes, when he’ll be forced
to sell the genetic line, fine-tuned for fertility, once fleshed for profit.
How long? The question a refrain.
How long before the smell of rain?
Robyn Lance
Haiku
forget-me-nots shiver
in the morning breeze
bees buzz the blues
Robyn Lance
The Headmistress
A thickset figure with tight grey curls.
Eyes roll up under fluttery lids as she speaks
the word of the she god to those in her sights.
Spectacles removed, held out then up to tap the teeth.
No irises evident so no eye colour known.
Mere moments of white in the strobed lid-lift-and-fall.
Stopped in corridors, called to the office
girls stare like hares in headlights
though hers have a faulty connection.
The voice rumbles on ‘til silence demands an answer.
The spell lifts. One…
Madam: Archbishop Fisher (July-August 2024) does not resist the attacks on his church by the political, social or scientific atheists and those who insist on not being told what to do.
Aug 29 2024
6 mins
To claim Aborigines have the world's oldest continuous culture is to misunderstand the meaning of culture, which continuously changes over time and location. For a culture not to change over time would be a reproach and certainly not a cause for celebration, for it would indicate that there had been no capacity to adapt. Clearly this has not been the case
Aug 20 2024
23 mins
A friend and longtime supporter of Quadrant, Clive James sent us a poem in 2010, which we published in our December issue. Like the Taronga Park Aquarium he recalls in its 'mocked-up sandstone cave' it's not to be forgotten
Aug 16 2024
2 mins
