Brenda Eldridge's Golden Days navigates a gentle way through the journey of her husband Stephen Matthews'fight with cancer and his choice to take the path of Voluntary Assisted Dying. In Brenda's poem, 'Silver Light',she writes:I tease him about becoming a butterflyI want so much for him to be free.Brenda's glorious and confronting poems explore a couple's descent into illness; the helplessness and pain this inflicts. Her poems speak to an extraord...

The almost inescapable presence of TV advertising and social media in our lives means we are being constantly bombarded by information. News can be about devastation by natural forces, or the unspeakable atrocities of man's inhumanity to his fellow beings. We are exposed to the appalling behaviour of so-called world leaders and wonder why our young people find it so hard to believe in anything. Closer to home we struggle with broken relationships, illness, tragedy and loss. Coming to the e...

Vivid memories prompted by hearing a few stray notes playing sent me wandering through my very rich life to renew my love of particular pieces of music and songs. When I started writing poems, I recognised that, for me, music is like ekphrastic poetry. A composer responds to something and in turn there is my response to the composer. From my own experiences, I was reminded how my mental image or emotional response to a piece of music was not necessarily what the composer had in mind. Being...

Unexpected challenges to my self-confidence and then reading The Order of Time by Carlo Rovelli sent me on an exploration of time and memory. Rovelli took my understanding of time to pieces from a physics perspective and put it back together again from a philosophical one. I've been aware for years of those famous words of Descartes - 'I think, therefore I am.' Rovelli is saying something similar, that it is our memories that make us who we are. Rovelli says everything is made up ...

As a child, I drove my mother to distraction with my never-ending stream of 'Whys?' I knew I had reached the end of her patience when she answered with 'Why? Because.' My stream of questions has never run dry, rather I have learned over long years to accept that most things have only a temporary answer because more and new information and understanding will appear as I read and experience more. In the world of sea, wind and sky, questions have become more like musings and these days I don'...

The question is, how did I become a seventy-two-year-old woman, mother, grandmother, great-grandmother, wife, stepmother, editor, poet, essayist, artist and friend who ends every single day sending her prayers of thanks to the moon? A frank and moving reflection on how a shy English child fulfilled her potential in Australia.

As a child I drove my mother to distraction with my constant question, Why? After a stream of these endless whys I can still hear her exasperated voice saying, ‘Why because.’ and I knew that was the time to stop – at least for a while. Nothing has changed. I am still asking questions. These days I know there are no specific answers but it can be fun exploring possibilities. Wise woman or philosopher? Is there a difference? I have no piece of paper that says I’m qualified to be either or bo...

In his poem ‘The Road Not Taken’, Robert Frost writes of taking the road less travelled and this making all the difference. In ‘Leisure’, W.H. Davies writes, ‘What is this life, if full of care, we have no time to stand and stare’. Both poems have strongly influenced how I have lived my life. In the past, I have said I write to make people think and with my passion I was hoping to make people more aware of their impact on others. I have written to try and understand my own choices and resp...

Everyone has a story. It would be foolish indeed to make comparisons, for there is always someone better or worse off than oneself. However, there is a comforting and healing sense of kinship with others who have had similar experiences. Even death, that, which we call the last act of our play, does not end a story. Everyone who has existed, no matter how briefly, affects someone else for the rest of their life. They affect others and so the story goes on and on. Perhaps, when grief and he...

A collection of lively recollections about the author's life in Port Adelaide and travels through Australia, mixing warm humour with sharp observations. The author is an acclaimed poet and non-fiction writer, and editor of the Ginninderra Press Pocket Poets series.

We were enjoying a blissful life, making the most of every day. I, the poet, was still rather bemused by the freedoms of retirement and Stephen was doing what he loves – publishing. Our idyll was rudely interrupted when we were told that Stephen had cancer. We were suddenly thrust into an unaccustomed world. This is not a horror story. Stephen relied on stoicism and determination to get through. The poet wrote her way through a harsh reality and the story of a new love that was tested – an...

A delightful short story from Jane Gardam, revisting that Titan of the Hong Kong law courts, Edward Feathers (known to many as Old Filth) in the days after he loses his beloved wife, Betty.