Latest Articles
Used as cudgels in divorce actions, domestic violence orders all too often reward perjurers and ruin innocent lives
Sep 19 2024
36 mins
The vice-presidential candidate, like many former critics, came to accept Trump was ahead of the curve on economic nationalism
Sep 18 2024
17 mins
The punditocracy won't admit that, when it comes to Trump's sharp tongue, he's a novice compared to, say, Paul Keating
Sep 18 2024
4 mins
Ken Stone: Maria
Maria
(after a painting by Russell Drysdale, 1950)
Barmaid Maria was a mystery I tried to trace
long before that painter sketched her
with her fingertips at her throat, as if feeling
the pulse of a gently distant sea.
Wall-eyed, but seeing all, he flattered
our Maria with ink strokes and coloured washes—
then coaxed her further.
In no time he had her posing
in her best apparel on the pub veranda.
That painter saw what I failed to see:
the way Maria would sometimes stare
beyond our village into her past,
Aegean-blue and golden.
With his curious brush and viable eye,
he saw that look and set it down.
I studied Greek Maria each afternoon
before Drysdale turned her into art.
I lost her to that timeless, painted pose
near the hotel doorway at Sofala.
Ken Stone
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
