07: NORTHERN TERRITORY

Index of Poems
Released 2000 (print) | 2001 (online)
Poetry Editor Adrian Wiggins
Pandora Archive (NLA)

Our sixth and final issue in print was in fact a double issue’s worth of poetry, critical articles, reviews and visual works. This issue was also our first to appear online. For convenience, we’ve split the poetry in the issue into two categories: 06: NEW POETRY contains the majority of the poems in the issue, while 07: NORTHERN TERRITORY contains a special feature on poetry in Australia’s Northern Territory, as well as translations. Check out the original archives on the National Library of Australia’s Pandora website.




Prithvindra Chakravarti: Twin Mangoes

Posted on February 2, 2001 by Cordite Poetry Review

We never spoke, never sat face to face. Our company evaporated with the morning dew. The midday sweat dried up on the quilted rice field: our wornout scarfs and robes reincarnated as embroidered ripples all around, a blossom in the …

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Prithvindra Chakravarti: We all discard our eyes

Posted on February 2, 2001 by Cordite Poetry Review

We all discard our eyes one day. Sticking them on the wall, we scratch around caught in a cobweb, relish our rest peacefully. Once Anancy created a whole world, now he will undo his mischief, relieving us of our routine: …

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John Muk Muk Burke: Some Lines for Reading

Posted on February 2, 2001 by Cordite Poetry Review

Adelaide River War Cemetery Bones of Polly Mop or Mine below the last plaque on the grass. Blasted into death, there’s now no flesh but her still fresh name has stopped me. Fourteen runes I read ‘POLLY MOP OR MINE’. …

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Kaye Aldenhoven: Pandanus Fruit — Ubirr

Posted on February 2, 2001 by Cordite Poetry Review

for Elizabeth Mansutti     On the edge of the floodplains At dusk Beneath recursively barbed leaves Shards of vermilion enamel Drop onto burnt black earth. Now delicately dismembered The knobby sphere Displays like jewels On a jeweller’s cloth Smooth …

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Leon Felipe (1884-1968): Auschwitz

Posted on February 2, 2001 by Cordite Poetry Review

Translated by Marisa Cano     Those infernal poets, Dante, Blake, Rimbaud … will they speak lower? will they play lower? Will they shut up! Today any inhabitant of the earth knows much more about hell than those three poets …

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Sylva Fischerova: Slow Evenings

Posted on February 2, 2001 by Cordite Poetry Review

Translated by Louis Armand and Daniela Furthnerova     … when even words were eaten and behind our backs they were forming a picture an inscription illegible but flawless as that other time when words were still things their melody …

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Al Zolynas: A Double Life

Posted on February 2, 2001 by Cordite Poetry Review

At the end of their refugee journey, the long forced pilgrimage, burdened with the smallest and heaviest bundles, they settle at last, uneasily, anxiously, in the wounded heart of a city or its distant fringes beyond the fashionable and complacent …

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Zhang Zixuan: Untitled

Posted on February 2, 2001 by Cordite Poetry Review

Translated by Ouyang Yu     there has been much rain this year and I am very thin there are three sparrows chirrping on the wall when I get up in the morning I always hear Wang Huali brushing his …

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Yang Chunguang: Doing the Favour

Posted on February 2, 2001 by Cordite Poetry Review

Translated by Ouyang Yu     she wanted it so i put her in bed but she wanted me to admit first that she was doing me a favour and i was the one who was asking for it only …

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Wang Jiaxin: Untitled

Posted on February 2, 2001 by Cordite Poetry Review

Translated by Ouyang Yu     a man who is chopping wood for winter can bring more energy to winter than the fragile sun a man who is chopping wood for winter has got powerful, precise hands and the way …

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Shane Wolfe: A Bend in the River

Posted on February 2, 2001 by Cordite Poetry Review

Where the river crept out from behind the dunes, brown as tea, we turned off the road in my uncle’s station wagon and roller-coastered around a paddock that slumped into the sea, a furious spot where trees grew sideways slicked …

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Shane Wolfe: In-flight Reflection

Posted on February 2, 2001 by Cordite Poetry Review

When the door folds shut it’s like a confessional, this bright box of light sucked dry of air — a toilet, a basin, and me in the mirror’s broad expanse, barely a foot from nose to nose. Here I’m obliged …

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