Latest Articles
It's hard to believe the attention paid to Raygun's Paris absurdities, but there may be deeper lessons in that writhing and posing
Sep 10 2024
10 mins
From a perspective of some eighty years it is possible to misunderstand or underestimate the intensity of the fears—but also the hopes and aspirations—of the British people as they faced up to another colossal existential challenge, less than a full generation after what, it was now suddenly clear, had only been the first world war
Sep 10 2024
11 mins
The Republican presidential contender is an acquired taste. Given the alternative, it's a taste persnickety conservatives should make the effort to acquire
Sep 09 2024
4 mins
Patrick McCauley: Two Poems
Archipelagos
There are people with well founded dreams
from their own imaginations
who will create archipelagos of culture
that are hellholes based on lies
and corruption and unhappiness.
A thousand years of peace will not do it
if you don’t know what to do with peace.
Global citizens seem to be ashamed of Australia
they take their holidays in Europe or China or Asia
and tour the museums of terrible wars.
The Dreamtime is a moveable feast
which does not exist in time and space,
it expands the ether as we speak.
Patrick McCauley
Distance
Between the witness and the witnessed
falls the shadow of the journalist.
The paddock a thousand miles wide
separates the worker from the unionist
the maker from the middle man.
The anesthetic of the theatre intoxicates
the people in the screens of their laughter.
They suffer silently, invisibly watching news
and lie down on couches
like fattened human cows.
Though all our books are published
no-one reads the words.
Be good and take this pretty pill
it’s a thousand miles wide
an animal feeding something wild.
Patrick McCauley
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
