Month: March 2025

Ron Riekki | WE’RE SITTING AROUND A TABLE NOT FAR FROM THE RUSSIAN BORDER

US author Ron Riekki’s writing takes the measure of topics some might prefer not be discussed – protest, authoritarianism, immigration – as well as issues of which there’s too little discussion – prisons, overpopulation…. Below, references to some recent work …                                                                       and the Chinese artist talks about holding up signs in Hong Kong that…

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RIP David Bircumshaw

Sorry to learn of the loss of English poet David Bircumshaw recently. Had thought I might get to catch up with him on a visit to England mid last year, but it didn’t eventuate. We published a couple of issues together (British and Australian versions) of a short-lived poetry journal (‘The Chide’s Alphabet’) years back;…

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Olga Tokarczuk: ‘It’s autumn in our countries now, the foggiest, darkest and most rainy season. A time of year when it’s easy to lose hope and to give in to negative thoughts.’

In one of your poems you write about the spring that will come. On our geographical latitudes, where for a long time the winter covers the world in darkness and cold, that’s a powerful metaphor. I understand it well. The spring always comes. (Olga Tokarczuk ~ from a letter to Kaciaryna Andrejeva, imprisoned in Belarus…

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