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
Plastic Flowers
See how the tasteful arrangements
proclaim their permanence,
dewless and untender
as any furniture—yet very like:
tulip, apple blossom, rose,
lilies and delphinium,
scentless and their careful petals
dentless, something to be dusted
and kept nice.
My mother had a ball dress once,
crimson silk poppies
drowsy at the waist.
Crushed and spoiled at last,
they knew a kind of death,
their artifice did not outlive her.
So too the faded wedding wreath
and Parma violet hat,
unpretending ornaments that shared
a part of her mortality—
while these plastic beauties
still will bloom while
we decline, will meet
our last breath
with a bright stare.
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
