Tag: animals

The Polish Elephant

SoutherlyBlog

by Fiona McFarlane In my last post, about Robert Louis Stevenson in Samoa, I spoke a little about fables – Stevenson’s interest in them and his particular admiration for a translation of international fables into Samoan. I find this timely for a few reasons, the first of which is that I’m currently reading the very short fable-like stories of Polish writer Sławomir Mrożek, released by Penguin Central European Classics in a collection called The Elephant.[1] The second reason is that at the end of August I attended the third China Australia Literary Forum here in Sydney – a conference in…

… read more

A Photograph

SoutherlyBlog1 Comment on A Photograph

By David Brooks In my previous piece I wrote of the selection of photographs for a small exhibition. The photographs were not my own, but at one point there was some consideration of adding to it some photographs that were. When I wrote about the selected photographs I endeavoured to balance the impression created by one of them – of six ducklings in a pond – with a story of the tragedy that had taken five of their siblings a few days before the photograph was taken. It was a small point of scruple, perhaps, hardy a matter of the…

… read more

Wild Ducklings

SoutherlyBlog1 Comment on Wild Ducklings

by David Brooks At the Animal Liberation NSW ‘Animals and Art’ fund-raising event I wrote of in my second blog my wife Teja Pribac exhibited some of her photographs, each of which was available for purchase through silent auction. The most popular was of six ducklings in a pond, a striking, Monet-like image of intersecting ripples of green pond-water and the lightness of first feathers, the sharpness and already-fine features of beak and face. Several viewers spoke of their love for ducklings, and not surprisingly that photograph (not the one I reproduce here, but very like it) was almost the…

… read more

Swallows (The Narrow Road through the Deep North)

SoutherlyBlog2 Comments on Swallows (The Narrow Road through the Deep North)

by David Brooks I have just searched the Oxford English Dictionary – not the on-line version, but the two (huge) volume, ‘compact’ version I bought myself on special offer when I was a graduate student, beloved books now battered and torn from their bindings – for the word souciant and find that it is not there, nor (now that I have checked) in the on-line version. The reason I’ve looked is that, reading about cicadas the other day, I came across mention of them as a symbol of insouciance, of care-less-ness, of living for the day. It suddenly occurred to…

… read more

How to Ride a Horse

SoutherlyBlog3 Comments on How to Ride a Horse

by David Brooks October 4th was World Animal Day and I was privileged to be asked to read in Sydney at an Animals and Art fundraising event for Animal Liberation NSW, to an audience which included some of the people I most admire. Of course, declaring myself a member and dedicated supporter of Animal Liberation would have one marked out in some countries – the United States and Austria, to name but two – as a potential terrorist, it being seen as a serious offence in most parts of the world to impede or draw attention in any way to…

… read more

Cicada Season

SoutherlyBlog4 Comments on Cicada Season

by David Brooks Early October and it’s uncommonly warm. September’s average maximum was six degrees higher than the long-term average and this month seems as if it will be no different. Last summer was longer and warmer than any I can remember here in the mountains, and it seems as if this one will be a repeat. In the chemist’s, the greengrocer’s, the hardware store, the bank, and when now and again you stop to talk with some friend or acquaintance in the street, everyone agrees that the climate is changing. It seems incredible that so many politicians are still…

… read more

October monthly blogger – David Brooks!

SoutherlyBlog

Many thanks to Rebecca Giggs, for her excellent, thought-provoking posts. This month, our blogger will be David Brooks, one of our managing editors and editor of our upcoming Liar/Lyre issue, writing on animals, ethics, and literature. His bio is below: David Brooks has published several collections of poetry, short fiction and essays, and four novels, the most recent of which is The Conversation (UQP 2012). His work has been highly acclaimed, widely translated and anthologised, and short-listed for the Miles Franklin, NSW Premier’s, Adelaide Festival, Banjo and many other awards. In 2011 he published The Sons of Clovis: Ern Malley,…

… read more