David Brooks is an acclaimed Australian poet, short-fiction-writer, novelist and essayist. His most recent work is the acclaimed novella The Conversation (University of Queensland Press 2012). He teaches Australian literature and is coeditor of the journal Southerly.
Nonfiction
Nov/Dec 2019
Writing Animals
I There are many forms of “animal” writing — one might write of farming animals, or of hunting them, one might taxonomize, or write a history of our relations with them, or […]
Poetry
Mar/Apr 2017
Winter Gardening
I must plant the garlic and the onionsand so today, a late autumn Saturday, watchedkeenly by magpies anticipating a feast, am on my knees at the garden’s edge, turning the […]
Nonfiction
Mar/Apr 2017
Field’s Kangaroo
Spare a thought for “The Kangaroo,” a most intriguing poem by Barron Field, judge of the Supreme Court of New South Wales from 1817 to 1824, doubtless not the first […]
Poetry
Mar/Apr 2017
The Night Coming
I was thinking it was cold, the heater struggling against the draught, and that there was nothing I could say, how empty my mind was, but then looked up and […]
Nonfiction
Summer 2003
Napoleon’s Roads
His vision, from the constantly passing bars, has grown so weary that it cannot hold anything else. —R. M. Rilke, “The Panther,” trans. Stephen Mitchell At first I thought they […]