In this highly anticipated new issue, we encounter brilliant examples of what writing can do in a hypernormal time – whether that's Benjamin Gready on the absurdity of fieldwork on land under active occupation or Zahid Gamieldien's short story about a dancing rat who finds itself enmeshed in systems too shadowy to be true. But, as with the emotional cycles of resistance, hope and snark are features too. Dan Hogan considers the lawn as a class obsession, and π.ο. asks a question: why people hate poetry? We also read about a rakhasa family who passes on wisdom to their young kin, a story by Shefali Mathew. And you’ll find new poetry by Eli McLean, Fiona Hile and Sol Chan, among others, as well as a comic by Safdar Ahmed, plus heaps more. Co-editors Evelyn Araluen and Jonathan Dunk write in the editorial, "Writing always matters, but it matters most directly in the face of this kind of thuggish assault on language, our first and last commons. We can’t let the bastards have it.”
RH Morrison was the son of poet William Allder Morrison. He studied modern languages at the University of Melbourne and was employed during the Second World war by the Australian army as an Italian translator. After the war he worked in radio and television news but from 1968 devoted himself full-time to poetry, translating and reviewing. He translated works by Russian, Spanish and Chinese poets as well as of Australians who had written in Russian, Ukrainian and Italian. His translations of the works of Paul Verlaine was issued as number 6 of the Hawthorn Poets series (1972).
