There are many things that come to mind when I sit down to write about these stories. The first is how great they are: that much is clear. But hovering over that is the cloud of everything that’s happened since submissions for this edition closed.

Let’s get this out of the way. Prince was a song-writer, not a poet. While pop music does make use of poetic techniques, the modes of expression are fundamentally different. The craft and conventions of pop music are wholly different to those of poetry. Nevertheless, (as a teacher) I often use ‘Raspberry Beret’ to demonstrate the power of image over abstraction.

My pilgrimage to Milton’s cottage began with my first experience of Paradise Lost. I say ‘experience’ because my initial exposure to the poem wasn’t in print, but rather through an audio book. I listened to it – all 10,000 lines of verse – in my car driving to and from work. Milton, I like to think, let me come to him.

The destroyer rested in the channel, broadside to Wharekaho Beach, its bow pointing towards the northern cape of Mercury Bay. On the crest of the hill above the beach, Stan stood with his hands in his pockets, concentrating.

On my first visit some twenty years ago I was astounded to discover that people in Queensland are active outside their homes before work starts. Imagine that! Free of the tyranny of daylight savings time, their lives are not unnaturally skewed towards the evening; they are not artificially coerced into late-night shopping at Pacific Fair or double-dipping during happy hour at the Keg and Prawn.

Morrissey has written a novel. It’s called List of the Lost. It is, according to Michael Hann at the Guardian, an ‘unpolished turd of a book’, about which ‘all you need to know is not to buy it.’ I bought it.

Fear of books is an ancient phenomenon. Some 360 years ago, John Milton had what should have been the last word on the foolishness of book censorship when he published Areopagitica in 1644. Milton’s treatise on censorship seems particularly relevant to the discussion of Family First’s appeal against Dawe’s novel. How is it that Milton, a dedicated Christian – in fact a radical Puritan – could advocate ‘promiscuous’ reading (Milton’s word), while the modern Christian organisation Family First seeks to restrict access to certain books?