September 2011
Mother Russia
'Mother Russia' was my first published poem, and the first poem I ever performed in public. It appeared in 1991 in Textbase, a short-lived journal put out by the people who ran the Reasonably Good Cafe on Abercrombie Street in Chippendale, Sydney. I remember attending the launch and reading my poem. Afterwards someone told me I read as if I was calling the races at Harold Park.
“Т’га за југ”
A free transliteration of Graham W. Reid's translation of "Т'га за југ" ("T'ga za jug", or "Longing for the South") by Macedonian writer Konstantin Miladinov (1830-62).