Latest Articles
A Sydney-based academic and columnist for the Nine rags sets out to explain the US to Australians. It's not a pretty picture
Sep 20 2024
8 mins
The philospher began with the conviction 'the only human activity that seems to have any importance' is the great cosmic 'why?'
Sep 20 2024
24 mins
In the Senate, a very queer notion of free speech
Sep 20 2024
2 mins
John Whitworth: Two Poems
The Shrieking of the Spirits
These children are possessed by evil spirits.
Their heads are empty for their brains are missing.
They bare their little pointed teeth like ferrets
And hiss like certain snakes. You can hear them hissing.
Their heads are empty for their brains are missing.
Spawn of Great Satan and a thousand witches
They hiss like certain snakes. You can hear them hissing.
Devils devoured those brains. You can see the stitches.
Spawn of Great Satan and a thousand witches.
Pity them not. They are no longer children.
Black devils ate their brains. You can see the stitches.
Their filthy bodies are deformed and shrunken.
Pity them not. They are no longer children.
Behind each wicked eye there glows an opal.
Their filthy bodies are deformed and shrunken,
Vessels to bear the sins of all the people.
Behind each evil eye there glows an opal.
We know they are the source of all our trouble.
We know they bear the sins of all the people.
And so for them our cauldrons boil and bubble.
Because they are the source of all our trouble,
Our smoking knives must carve their beating hearts out.
Because our seething cauldrons boil and bubble
Our smoking knives must hack their grinning heads off.
Thus with our smoking knives we carve their hearts out,
Their hearts possessed of certain evil spirits.
Thus with our smoking knives we hack their heads off.
They bare their little pointed teeth like ferrets.
Hark! You shall hear the shrieking of the spirits.
John Whitworth
Who?
Who, with just a lobster’s pincer,
Gouged out Grimbold’s eyes?
Who hauled Hopjoy through the mincer,
Making mutton pies?
Who translated Bootleg Fats
Via his fermentation vats,
Into soup for alley cats?
Who can tell me who,
Ah who?
Who will whisper who?
Whose illegal migrant workers
Came without a hitch?
Who sold schoolgirl sex in burkas
To the filthy rich?
Who burned down the Ebenezer?
Who torpedoed Little Caesar?
Who shut Mummy in the freezer?
Who can tell me who,
Ah who?
Hoochy-coochy-coo.
Who’s so hunky, huge and handsome,
No one can resist him?
Who holds Presidents to ransom?
Who defies the system?
Who shows drug lords how to tango?
Who takes bribes from every quango?
Who controls the whole fandango?
Baby-doll, it’s you.
How true!
It was always you.
John Whitworth
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
