by Glen Hunting
This place’s wounds are sacred ranges, sagging houses, scarified sedans. But body art can’t disrupt the eruption of buffel. Only the blossoms move with the seasons: spectra in rubble waiting beside the rails. Standing room only for refugees after rain. Glen Hunting is a writer from Perth, Western Australia (Boorloo, Whadjuk Noongar boodja), now living in Mparntwe (Alice Springs) on Arrernte country. His poetry has been published in Plumwood Mountain Journal, Meniscus, Portside Review, London Grip New Poetry, Burrow, and elsewhere. He was the recipient of a 2024 Varuna/Arts NT residential fellowship.
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by Zoe Odessa
My heart is too big for my body / So you take a piece and hold it under your tongue / Hair between fingers, criss-crossing / (weaving I love you I love you I love you) / into the back of your head / Peals of laughter, choking sobs, stony silences / Head to toe on your bed / breathing in time / You’d kill for me / I’d kill for you / Halving clementines and sharing gum / He doesn’t deserve you / You stick your fingers down my throat / To clear out the dust / Hold my hair back as I retch / Then kneel as if in prayer / So I may hold back yours / And yes there are moments / Stretches / Of silence / Of wondering / Where have you gone / But you spring back / as ever / And our hearts meld as one again and / Forever Zoe Odessa (she/her) is a 23-year-old poet and writer who wishes to be utterly consumed by words. Currently based in Cairns, Australia, on Yirrganydji land, she is at the tail end of her USYD B.A in English Literature. She loves difficult women and challenging feminist literature. She has previously had poetry published in Sour Cherry Mag. You can find her on her instagram @zoe_odessa_ by Dave Clark
I go on a trip overseas and get these messages saying that I seem to be doing a lot more than usual I am making the most of packed-away moments and several people are still surprised and subtly criticise when they see me enjoy life Micro-aggressive texts contiki across continents to suck the steam from this dream holiday, making me feel like I’ve done something wrong whenever I do something fun I chase occasions that transcend chronic illness and yet words strike at these hard-fought steps, flattening the topography of my health, pounding it to a plateau of predictability until I'm standing on an Arctic butte veiled in pure snow and can only feel the stinging cold of their scolding As my knees fall into the frozen blanket spread beneath, I make a ball of their slush and sling it to where it belongs so that nature’s song can be heard again, the seraph sound of snowfall mixed with the playful giggles of someone so used to red desert dust Dave Clark is a reliable human with unreliable health. He is a writer-poet with chronic fatigue syndrome, living in Mparntwe (Alice Springs). His writing speaks into grief, illness, justice and how we love and laugh together. Dave works as a counsellor, creating space for stories of significance. Instagram/X: @DaveClarkWriter by Angela Arnold
Such a thin band of despair, shaped with all the care of a parent snugging a child's scarf. The kiss of death a prolonged affair, kicking the habit of living with a lust and a zest and a violent longing for air – the circlet's neat grip making it a monstrous appetite. Feet still dreaming. A telling hollow there just a foot from where greenstuff would have been made complicit. The magic attraction dangled just-so inviting plain habit: lured home; beguiled to venture into another pale Grass Moon night. A dog's bark in the distance perhaps the last flippant comment on a life now left as hairy powder, forgotten bone. The final insult. Some mighty Human never even clucked in triumph. Angela Arnold (she/her) lives in Wales. She’s also an artist, a creative gardener and an environmental campaigner. Her poems have been published in print, anthologies and online, in the UK and elsewhere. Collection: In Between (Stairwell Books, 2023). Twitter: @AngelaArnold777 by John Bartlett
wattlebirds wait for darkness to loosen the dreams of children for days to taste of peace Dianella fibres like silk strong enough to resist the callous winds of winter river redgums along the banks of my childhood suffered dumb rage of axe and saw autumn dew drops from leaves’ length clear dear atonements of magpie song slice the crisp air into a day full of sky where is that untouched world its birds wide-winging cormorants their dottled dipping scratching the surface of mirrored creeks where John Bartlett is the author of eleven books of fiction, non-fiction and poetry. He was winner of the 2020 Ada Cambridge Poetry Prize, Highly Commended in the 2021 Mundaring Poetry Competition. His latest poetry collection is Excitations of Entanglement. by Tony Norris
I was born foaming at the crux of where salt meets water two things your diet needs but cannot have together and I the deity of every motivation on earth cannot be divined without being dissected not even in my birth but I was born longing before you spent my life being chased being made un til I became pearl-like which is to say girl-like which is to say weary eyed from being lapped at but rarely swallowed and all this time I knew I was ancient but forgot I was also hallowed it is true, what the Greeks think there is terror in the beautiful there is beauty in the terrible when you first saw me I saw you tremble I was cradled in a clam shell naked arm on breast hand on _____ this became my symbol not for pleasure, not for modesty but to be born knowing what it is like to hold and to be held Tony (he/him) is a Meanjin/Brisbane-based performance poet. He has been a state finalist for the National Slam Championship and has hosted Rainbow Open Mic Nights with Gold Coast Libraries. Tony started out at Ruckus Youth and Voices of Colour and has been a featured poet at numerous creative events across Brisbane. by Izzy Roberts-Orr
If you spend enough time with the trees you begin to feel endless. There are some here I'd wager almost three times your lifetime triple your wingspan more than ten times your height. Your handspan – a trick of the eye – the same branches bolstering sky. The trees bow and remember. They'll fall, humbled by termites hiding homes for the busy lives of spitting possums and the parenthetical bodies of galahs. The trees know they'll fall but continue standing all the same through downpour and drought blazing heat and smokestacked, encroaching flame. Izzy Roberts-Orr is a poet, writer, broadcaster and arts worker based on Dja Dja Wurrung Country. Izzy is Creative Producer for Red Room Poetry and a 2020-2022 recipient of the Australia Council Marten Bequest Scholarship for Poetry. Her debut collection, Raw Salt (Vagabond, 2024) was the recipient of a Wheeler Centre Hot Desk Fellowship, and longlisted for the Colorado Prize for Poetry. by Madeleine Dale
I break the surface of anger unexpectedly, like a diver prising the bay into halves, a knife through muscle and shell. The oyster reefs were licking the tide clean, honeycombed on their racks, varnishing their little hurts without philosophy. Helpless as swell, I have painted indifference over injury, and it has turned so heavy. My body lolls in the estuary, where silt meets salt. Broken shuck catches my skin. I carry the pearl-weight of love out to sea. Madeleine Dale grew up on Tamborine Mountain and now lives in Brisbane. She holds first-class honours and a Masters degree in creative writing from the University of Queensland, where she is currently completing a PhD. Her first chapbook, On Fire with Dangerous Cargo, was published by Queensland Poetry in 2023. Her first full length collection, Portraits of Drowning, won the 2023 Thomas Shapcott Prize and is forthcoming from UQP. ![]() by Rae White bloated catfish surge at the cusp of river’s oil-licked lips. the bent elbows and legs of rocks have grey foam and bottle tops in their crooks. at my side, your fist is clenched like balled-up lunch wrap. ‘what a mess’ lingers at the edge of my teeth before I swallow it down with my throat’s impatient bile. a waning moon flickers behind wind-ruffled blue gums. another storm is on the way. Rae White (they/them) is a non-binary transgender poet, writer and zine maker. They're the award-winning author of poetry collections Milk Teeth (UQP 2018) and Exactly As I Am (UQP 2022), and the Bitsy game stand up. Rae is the founding editor of #EnbyLife, a journal for non-binary creatives. by Genevieve Osborne Coast Dawn A slow light fingers into cracks and angles Spills over cliffs and pools; Pinks the streaming manes of skittish mares And combs the fur of foxes loping to their lairs; Works into a weighty nest of sticks To hone the eagle’s beak; Glints the scales of mullet rising in a wave And pokes the rosy bones of fruit bats fallen in a cave; Sidles through a valley to a farm And flames the windows of the sleeping house; Bloods the veiny ears of pigs blinking in their pens Then primes the udders of the waiting cows; Wakes the rooster shatters in his crow And showers in shards and prisms on his hens. Garfish
Is it the way a shaft of winter light leans into the kitchen that lets these distant pictures play now sharp and clear? Hands lift a parcel test its weight fold back white paper garfish I watch my mother line them up on the old marble topped table slim silver bodies each with a slender sword watch her sprinkle on the flour rub it gently on the cleaned slippery skin and place them side by side in the hot oil in the pan with their tails curved up one side and their snouts pointing over the edge of the other watch her turn them deftly and lift them out onto a plate lined with kitchen paper a row of pale golden fish with skin just crisp moist white flesh to drizzle with lemon and separate carefully from the almost invisible bones. Genevieve Osborne is a Sydney writer. Her poems have appeared in various journals including Southerly, Meanjin, Island, Red Room Poetry's The Disappearing and The Emma Press Anthology of the Sea (UK). She was joint winner of the Henry Lawson Prize for Poetry and runner-up in the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize. Genevieve spends a fair amount of time thinking about food and cooking. Her favourite place to be when growing up was in the kitchen, watching her mother cook. She says her mother was the best cook she has ever known. |
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June 2025
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