Iconoclast
May 2025
Iconoclast
May 2025
- The Curse of the Man Who Could See the Little Fish at the Bottom of the Ocean (Simon Leys)
For Hanfang Since the Beijing massacres, the question has already been put bluntly to me several times: “Why were most of our pundits so constantly wrong on the subject of ... - The Skin I’m In (Iona Italia)
All my life, I have been accused of having the wrong skin colour. My body’s wrapper—loosening and crinkling slightly around the eyes and mouth now, like the bow-tie-shaped foil around ... - The Emperor’s Return (Anne Casey)
Just one piece—they will never notice he whinnied as he secreted the piece in his pocket just before he ordered the summary evisceration of his predecessor, as black letters slicked ... - The World’s Longest Daisy Chain (Jenny Lindsay)
The first time I was complicit in inflicting public humiliation on someone has left a strong enough impression on me to be writing about it thirty-five years later. For various ... - Desolation Songs (Robbie Coburn)
Karma Indiscriminate rain and sunlight. muted light, the room instantly full of bodies — the way they pull up your sleeves and remove your shirt, examining your arms and chest ... - Back on ‘Zac (Nina Payley)
Why I am returning to my regular dose of Prozac after 2 years of tapering off A few days ago, at a candy store in another town, I asked if ... - Monostich for a time of resistance (Amanda Anastasi)
Within the tyrant, a tripped over child. The stuck are full of words. The mirror reveals my first and last enemy. Most robbers come bearing gifts. First the shrinking waves, ... - Reading and Writing in Exile (Mammad Aidani)
Gazing at the mirror, it says: You were born, There is no return to the time before that, so, keep on living. Exile is the strangest story. No one knows ... - As a Mother (Mandy Sayer)
Mrs Vickers was watching the six o’clock news, as she did every night, while sipping a Guinness and lemonade shandy. She liked the reader, Marcus Howell, whose deep voice was ... - Eggs of Freedom (Nina Sanadze)
If you’re not a runner, get out of bed the moment you open your eyes. Throw on your ripped jeans and Birks, your painting shirt—nothing too sporty. Maybe even your ... - it wasn’t that the yoga teacher shouldn’t have a car (Ali Whitelock)
just it was a porsche / & the registration was OM+NAMASTE / the artist said he only put the flying ... - Lesbians: the canaries in the mine (Susan Hawthorne)
I would suggest that when lesbians become victims of attack, they are a signal. They are the canaries in the mine. And if the perpetrators get away with it, then ... - Trust: A Fractured Fable (Jeanne Ryckmans)
MARCH 2020, SYDNEY A magistrate finalised an uncontested Apprehended Violence Order for two years against the Irish Professor under the Crimes Act (Domestic and Personal Violence) three weeks afer he ... - I am a Palestinian Child (Badaoui El-Hage & Zeina Issa)
Seventy years and spring has not yet arrived. For seventy years, our windows and doors brought forth revolt after revolt and we churned the tune of every song into an ... - Threads of Silent Longing (Hasti Abbasi)
Bahar drinks a glass of water. A soft sensation starts to stir inside her. Still within her regular cycle, yet this time, it feels different. She gets out of bed, ... - This Land Is Mine (Nina Payley)
Who’s Killing Who? A Viewer’s Guide Because you can’t tell the players without a pogrom! Early Man This generic “cave man” represents the first human settlers in Israel/Canaan/the ... - When Feminism Becomes a Tool for Assimilation (Nathalie Martinek)
You’re at a women’s empowerment event. Everyone on stage speaks fluently and eloquently. The language is crisp, the tone measured, and the slogans aligned. It’s a feminism that photographs well ... - Heathpack (Gregory Day)
The birds live a parallel existence to us in this place. Their comings and goings. Chords and clusters. Three pelicans flying past the Moriac Store. A skein of ibis over ... - Griftivism (Michele Seminara)
My first exposure to what I now call “griftivism,” a hybrid of grifting and Critical Social Justice activism, occurred in the arts. It was 2020 when—in my role as managing ... - Damnatio Memoriae (Nina Power)
Well, the Romans thought they could kill a man every record, after death (you could kill him too) zero He wasn’t here he didn’t do these things no one ever ... - To Sing of War (Catherine McKinnon)
December 1944 1 Lotte Nialu She hears singing: one lone voice at first, clear and resonant, a tenor, then others join in, and the song rises and falls, until it ... - THE PASSION OF ANDREI (Nathan Dunne)
after A. Tarkovsky I was born of cold hands in the light of the cells. I left the arms of my mother to find reeds and smoke of the steppe. ... - The False Dissension Over ‘Islamophobia’: an Iranian outlook (Ali Beikzadeh)
‘Cultural relativism commands us to see what we call our values as simple prejudices; the beliefs of a particular tribe called the West. The religion of the prophet is thus ... - Analysis (Yvette Henry Holt)
In the Middle of Analysis In the middle of the night in the middle of a shared pandemic I lay on my back not falling to pieces in the middle ... - Duende (Magi Gibson)
The Girl with Eyes like Dying Stars We sit in Costa, she bristling with the blue hair of her new-found tribe, tiny woodcut dolphins dancing from her ears & LOVE ... - As Satellites Replace Stars (Joshua Dabelstein)
The commodification of the cosmos is having a profound impact on humanity itself On Monday March 3, 2024, at 2:05pm Pacific Time, a satellite built by small Sydney start-up Space ... - Lost Within Myself (Mohammad Ali Maleki)
Mother, see the dust of my lonely sorrow — I need your prayers; I am drowning in my own swamp. It seems from the day I was born my fate ... - Only One Son (Magan Magan)
Once Mohamed had a dream about his son. The dream kept him up until the early hours of the morning. He was caged under his blanket — battening his mind ... - Lines on Maps and Foreheads (Paul Mitchell)
Ode to dismantle a poetry god I saw you bathing on the roof with all your Greek myths. Medusa was my favourite – I caught her staring at your naked ... - Her Rattle up the Road (Siân Darling)
Flesh and fat were luxuries of childhood, in that window before starvation was understood. My loose, thickened skin — coloured the same as my mama’s, who I’d never see again ... - The Orchardist (Claire Miranda Roberts)
Rigid and bony like an orchard in winter— a single tree can produce forty types of fruit. We can collapse a whole orchard by injuring the tree so that twenty ... - Heimlich Unheimlich (Sieglinde Karl-Spence and Hazel Smith)
A Note from Author Hazel Smith These images are extracts from the latter part of Heimlich Unheimlich, a poetry and art collaboration published by Apothecary Archive in 2024. The ... - Shut Up and We’ll Be Good to You (Koraly Dimitriadis)
Shut Up and We’ll Be Good to You Shut up and we’ll be good to you Be good and we’ll love you We’ll tell powerful people about your book But ... - The Leaves (Jacqueline Rule)
The morning sky is flat, a smooth grey pebble. There’s a row of trees across from the house where the social worker’s car has stopped, the limbs are pitted and ... - Courage (Maxim Bishev)
Inspired by ‘Mourn Not the Dead’ by Ralph Chaplin Grieve not the innocent who lie In cobbled cells, Awaiting execution. Grieve not the liar’s wretched conscience Which oft in moonlight ... - Editors’ Note (Verity La Reborn) Issue One: ICONOCLAST
After years of silence, Verity La returns. This is our first issue since the journal’s Managing Editor, Michele Seminara, endured a cancellation at the hands of activists. What followed was social ...
Join our mailing list
- The Curse of the Man Who Could See the Little Fish at the Bottom of the Ocean (Simon Leys)For Hanfang Since the Beijing massacres, the question has already been put bluntly to me several times: “Why were most of our pundits so constantly wrong on the subject of ...
- The Skin I’m In (Iona Italia)All my life, I have been accused of having the wrong skin colour. My body’s wrapper—loosening and crinkling slightly around the eyes and mouth now, like the bow-tie-shaped foil around ...
- The Emperor’s Return (Anne Casey)Just one piece—they will never notice he whinnied as he secreted the piece in his pocket just before he ordered the summary evisceration of his predecessor, as black letters slicked ...
- The World’s Longest Daisy Chain (Jenny Lindsay)The first time I was complicit in inflicting public humiliation on someone has left a strong enough impression on me to be writing about it thirty-five years later. For various ...
- Desolation Songs (Robbie Coburn)Karma Indiscriminate rain and sunlight. muted light, the room instantly full of bodies — the way they pull up your sleeves and remove your shirt, examining your arms and chest ...
- Back on ‘Zac (Nina Payley)Why I am returning to my regular dose of Prozac after 2 years of tapering off A few days ago, at a candy store in another town, I asked if ...
- Monostich for a time of resistance (Amanda Anastasi)Within the tyrant, a tripped over child. The stuck are full of words. The mirror reveals my first and last enemy. Most robbers come bearing gifts. First the shrinking waves, ...
- Reading and Writing in Exile (Mammad Aidani)Gazing at the mirror, it says: You were born, There is no return to the time before that, so, keep on living. Exile is the strangest story. No one knows ...
- As a Mother (Mandy Sayer)Mrs Vickers was watching the six o’clock news, as she did every night, while sipping a Guinness and lemonade shandy. She liked the reader, Marcus Howell, whose deep voice was ...
- Eggs of Freedom (Nina Sanadze)If you’re not a runner, get out of bed the moment you open your eyes. Throw on your ripped jeans and Birks, your painting shirt—nothing too sporty. Maybe even your ...
- it wasn’t that the yoga teacher shouldn’t have a car (Ali Whitelock)just it was a porsche / & the registration was OM+NAMASTE / the artist said he only put the flying ...
- Lesbians: the canaries in the mine (Susan Hawthorne)I would suggest that when lesbians become victims of attack, they are a signal. They are the canaries in the mine. And if the perpetrators get away with it, then ...
- Trust: A Fractured Fable (Jeanne Ryckmans)MARCH 2020, SYDNEY A magistrate finalised an uncontested Apprehended Violence Order for two years against the Irish Professor under the Crimes Act (Domestic and Personal Violence) three weeks afer he ...
- I am a Palestinian Child (Badaoui El-Hage & Zeina Issa)Seventy years and spring has not yet arrived. For seventy years, our windows and doors brought forth revolt after revolt and we churned the tune of every song into an ...
- Threads of Silent Longing (Hasti Abbasi)Bahar drinks a glass of water. A soft sensation starts to stir inside her. Still within her regular cycle, yet this time, it feels different. She gets out of bed, ...
- This Land Is Mine (Nina Payley)Who’s Killing Who? A Viewer’s Guide Because you can’t tell the players without a pogrom! Early Man This generic “cave man” represents the first human settlers in Israel/Canaan/the ...
- When Feminism Becomes a Tool for Assimilation (Nathalie Martinek)You’re at a women’s empowerment event. Everyone on stage speaks fluently and eloquently. The language is crisp, the tone measured, and the slogans aligned. It’s a feminism that photographs well ...
- Heathpack (Gregory Day)The birds live a parallel existence to us in this place. Their comings and goings. Chords and clusters. Three pelicans flying past the Moriac Store. A skein of ibis over ...
- Griftivism (Michele Seminara)My first exposure to what I now call “griftivism,” a hybrid of grifting and Critical Social Justice activism, occurred in the arts. It was 2020 when—in my role as managing ...
- Damnatio Memoriae (Nina Power)Well, the Romans thought they could kill a man every record, after death (you could kill him too) zero He wasn’t here he didn’t do these things no one ever ...
- To Sing of War (Catherine McKinnon)December 1944 1 Lotte Nialu She hears singing: one lone voice at first, clear and resonant, a tenor, then others join in, and the song rises and falls, until it ...
- THE PASSION OF ANDREI (Nathan Dunne)after A. Tarkovsky I was born of cold hands in the light of the cells. I left the arms of my mother to find reeds and smoke of the steppe. ...
- The False Dissension Over ‘Islamophobia’: an Iranian outlook (Ali Beikzadeh)‘Cultural relativism commands us to see what we call our values as simple prejudices; the beliefs of a particular tribe called the West. The religion of the prophet is thus ...
- Analysis (Yvette Henry Holt)In the Middle of Analysis In the middle of the night in the middle of a shared pandemic I lay on my back not falling to pieces in the middle ...
- Duende (Magi Gibson)The Girl with Eyes like Dying Stars We sit in Costa, she bristling with the blue hair of her new-found tribe, tiny woodcut dolphins dancing from her ears & LOVE ...
- As Satellites Replace Stars (Joshua Dabelstein)The commodification of the cosmos is having a profound impact on humanity itself On Monday March 3, 2024, at 2:05pm Pacific Time, a satellite built by small Sydney start-up Space ...
- Lost Within Myself (Mohammad Ali Maleki)Mother, see the dust of my lonely sorrow — I need your prayers; I am drowning in my own swamp. It seems from the day I was born my fate ...
- Only One Son (Magan Magan)Once Mohamed had a dream about his son. The dream kept him up until the early hours of the morning. He was caged under his blanket — battening his mind ...
- Lines on Maps and Foreheads (Paul Mitchell)Ode to dismantle a poetry god I saw you bathing on the roof with all your Greek myths. Medusa was my favourite – I caught her staring at your naked ...
- Her Rattle up the Road (Siân Darling)Flesh and fat were luxuries of childhood, in that window before starvation was understood. My loose, thickened skin — coloured the same as my mama’s, who I’d never see again ...
- The Orchardist (Claire Miranda Roberts)Rigid and bony like an orchard in winter— a single tree can produce forty types of fruit. We can collapse a whole orchard by injuring the tree so that twenty ...
- Heimlich Unheimlich (Sieglinde Karl-Spence and Hazel Smith)A Note from Author Hazel Smith These images are extracts from the latter part of Heimlich Unheimlich, a poetry and art collaboration published by Apothecary Archive in 2024. The ...
- Shut Up and We’ll Be Good to You (Koraly Dimitriadis)Shut Up and We’ll Be Good to You Shut up and we’ll be good to you Be good and we’ll love you We’ll tell powerful people about your book But ...
- The Leaves (Jacqueline Rule)The morning sky is flat, a smooth grey pebble. There’s a row of trees across from the house where the social worker’s car has stopped, the limbs are pitted and ...
- Courage (Maxim Bishev)Inspired by ‘Mourn Not the Dead’ by Ralph Chaplin Grieve not the innocent who lie In cobbled cells, Awaiting execution. Grieve not the liar’s wretched conscience Which oft in moonlight ...
- Editors’ Note (Verity La Reborn) Issue One: ICONOCLASTAfter years of silence, Verity La returns. This is our first issue since the journal’s Managing Editor, Michele Seminara, endured a cancellation at the hands of activists. What followed was social ...
Join our mailing list
The Australian literary scene and beyond is under attack. Tune in to our podcast, where poets Magan Magan and Michele Seminara explore the hostile nature of woke ideology and its attack on freedom of expression in the arts.
Coming Soon!
The Australian literary scene and beyond is being stifled. Tune in to our podcast, where poets Magan Magan and Michele Seminara explore the hostile nature of woke ideology and its attack on freedom of expression in the arts.
Coming Soon!
The Vault
VERITY LA POETRY PODCAST Episode 3: PS CottierPS COTTIER: Podcast Producer Alice Allan and Managing Editor Michele Seminara get straight into it with Canberra-based poet PS Cottier. Does entering and judging literary competitions put you on a special ... Read More
Griftivism (Michele Seminara)My first exposure to what I now call “griftivism,” a hybrid of grifting and Critical Social Justice activism, occurred in the arts. It was 2020 when—in my role as managing ... Read More
Thou Shalt Not Wank (Ali Whitelock)Artist’s Statement The horrific sex scandals pouring out of Canberra this year (2021) made my blood boil hotter than the planet: the rape allegations, the footage of liberal staffers masturbating ... Read More
Book of Colours <br>(Robyn Cadwallader)The cross had just enough lacework and carving to give space for his hands and feet, and despite his aching clumsiness he climbed up as far as he could for ... Read More
Back on ‘Zac (Nina Payley)Why I am returning to my regular dose of Prozac after 2 years of tapering off A few days ago, at a candy store in another town, I asked if ... Read More
The Vault
BEYOND THE FICTIONAL FRAME: an interview with Anthony UhlmannInterviewer: Anthony Macris In his role as Professor of literature and creative writing at Western Sydney University, Anthony Uhlmann has spent much of his career writing about the connection between literature ... Read More
This Land Is Mine (Nina Payley)Who’s Killing Who? A Viewer’s Guide Because you can’t tell the players without a pogrom! Early Man This generic “cave man” represents the first human settlers in Israel/Canaan/the ... Read More
A DECLARATION OF LOVE FOR HUMANITY: Judith Crispin reviews Les Wicks’ BeliefReview by Judith Crispin Edited by Robyn Cadwallader Les Wicks’ fourteenth collection of poems, Belief, is clever and brutal — an unflinching examination of human belief, in all of its ... Read More
Earth Apples of Modern Love and Mushrooms (Julie Maclean)after Marina Abramovic at MOMA They are lying again about Putin’s hacking I return to tears rolling face to face hungry for the strange one to look deep for longer ... Read More
The Skin I’m In (Iona Italia)All my life, I have been accused of having the wrong skin colour. My body’s wrapper—loosening and crinkling slightly around the eyes and mouth now, like the bow-tie-shaped foil around ... Read More