Cirrus@Austlit

'I was sent a copy of the recording of this interview by my friend Anna Couani around the time Antigone Kefala was awarded The Patrick White Literary Award on 24 November 2022, shortly before her death on 3 December 2022. The timing of the award was bittersweet, for her many fans and admirers. The interview was recorded in her home in Annandale and is more of a conversation between Antigone Kefala, Vrasidas Karalis and Anna Couani. It is Antigone Kefala’s last interview. She had given an interview in March 2022, one month prior, to her publisher and friend Ivor Indyk of Giramondo Publishing. I had the good fortune to meet Antigone Kefala and the author Yota Krili at an afternoon tea at Anna Couani’s house in December 2021.' (Introduction)          

'local concerns itself with the local environment of the Glebe, an inner city suburb of Sydney and with other areas of the inner city. Some of the poems were written as part of 366 Poetry Project. It traces the author’s family history and connections to the inner city and also addresses issues of colonisation and the dispossession of indigenous people in Sydney. The book contains 13 artworks by the author.' (Publication summary)

'Thanks to Sarah for asking me to launch this book, her first book. It is a beautiful production and features a wonderful cover design and layout by Dylan Jones. Also congratulations are due to Mark Roberts and Linda Adair, small press people from way back, who reactivated their publishing enterprise 7 years ago with The Rochford Street Review, an online journal, and now Rochford Press, their imprint for book production.' (Introduction)

'Thanks to Kit for asking me to do the Sydney launch of Poor Man’s Coat.

'Poor Man’s Coat is Kit’s latest publication, one of many books of poetry that have gone before, about 17, according to his online bio. As many of you here today will know, Kit is not in the mold of the languorous poet, leisurely dreaming up another verse but is a phenomenon and a force of nature, tapping into some inexhaustible source to produce a large output of poetry and academic work, to attack his many projects as a writer, publisher, scholar and catalyst for countless other people, including me. And today we’re also launching a book by Les Wicks that is published by Kit’s Flying Islands Press.' (Introduction)

'`To End All Wars' was a phrase applied hopefully during `The Great War'. Its various permutations were meant to suggest that this one might be the last war of all. How quickly the phrase became ironic. How many wars have followed! The words `to end all wars' must remind us today that all armed conflict is a vast social catastrophe. The centenary of the World War I Armistice comes with a barely veiled triumphalism in the countries that were victorious one hundred years ago. It was that triumphalism, and the failed peace that followed it, which led onto new catastrophes in World War II and then the Cold War.

'Now, well into the twenty first century, with ever uglier nationalisms raising their heads everywhere, it is time to critically examine the Armistice of one hundred years ago, and its meaning for Australia and for the world, then and now.' (Publication summary)

'With so many local references to Glebe Point, you’d think that Glebe was a peninsula culminating in a point. However, Glebe is like a rounded breast nestled between the peninsula arms of Balmain and Pyrmont, and slightly bulging into the harbour. The Point is a nipple, a pointy constructed thing between Rozelle Bay and Blackwattle Bay and the site of the historic house, Bellevue. Once though, before the invasion, there were abundant wetlands on each side of Glebe, in the Blackwattle Cove Swamp and the Johnson’s Creek Swamp. Called ‘swamps’ rather than ‘wetlands’. Then, Glebe would have been more of a peninsula, surrounded by water on three sides.' (Introduction)