Long Paddock for Southerly 76.3: Persian Passages
Persia is the name of an ancient civilisation, a cultural zone, and an aesthetic imaginary. It has long fascinated Western travellers, scholars of cultural dialogue and mystical poets. This issue of Southerly is an intervention in how Persian culture and poetics are perceived and adopted in today’s Australian and global literary scenes. How do contemporary Australian poets and scholars respond to the Sufi ghazals of Hafez of Shiraz? What has been the understanding of Afghan cameleers according to the discourse of Australian national identity? How are the questions of gender and identity addressed by contemporary Iranian writers? And what are some of the best examples of contemporary Persian- Australian fiction, non-fiction and poetry?
This issue of Southerly presents a diverse and provocative range of responses to these questions and shows how our literary cultures are intertwined. There is also a selection of texts to be found in The Long Paddock (below), and an offering of the best Australian writing on themes not related to the Persian world.
This issue of Southerly is available to purchase via our GumRoad site.
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DISCUSSION
POETRY
Kevin Gillam: “The Road”
Mike Greenacre: “Nocturnal House”
Chris Holdaway: “In colloquial trees”
R.D. Wood: “the madness of no parting”
Graham Kershaw: “Standege, Illuminated”
Ariel Riveros: “Cohomology”
Ashley Haywood: “Portraits”
Nick Ascroft: “And Flora”
Mitchell Welch: “Blue Ringed Octopus”
Annie Blake: “Chinese Lanterns”
Katie Hansord: “Pool”
STORIES
Tom Coverdale: “Detergent”
Joshua Lobb: “Further to Fly”
REVIEW
Ivy Alvarez: of Adam Aitken, One Hundred Letters Home
Melinda Cooper: of Gretchen Shirm, Where the Light Falls
Ben Eldridge: of Isabelle Li, A Chinese Affair
Peter O’Mara: of Arjun von Caemmerer, Vice Versa