Exemplary 

Featured in

  • Published 20240507
  • ISBN: 978-1-922212-95-5
  • Extent: 203pp
  • Paperback, ePub, PDF, Kindle compatible

The superego’s unvarying verdict:

you have failed, you deserve it, get over it! 

Already a subscriber? Sign in here

If you are an educator or student wishing to access content for study purposes please contact us at griffithreview@griffith.edu.au

Share article

About the author

Kate Lilley

Kate Lilley is a poet-scholar who has published three collections of poetry and two chapbooks. Her most recent book, Tilt (Vagabond), won the Victorian...

More from this edition

It takes two

In Conversation Across nearly five decades, Richard Glover and Debra Oswald have been spinning the stuff of everyday life – family dynamics, growing pains, relationships, the ever-­amusing...

The octopus within

Non-fictionI’ve now watched quite a few doctors sketch my thyroid on office pads, something they all seem to love to do, relishing that butterfly shape, the two spreading wings. They do shade-hatching on the left or right lobe, colour in a dark circle to represent the tumour and draw four little dots for the parathyroid glands. I have started to look forward to this moment when a medical specialist transforms suddenly into an artist, taking pride in their drawing, picking up a special pen with a thin black nib, concentrating on making this invisible organ real to me. They are maybe unaware that through their own idiosyncratic drawing styles, they become instantly more interesting as people. They hand over the piece of paper and explain the next steps, and I take their drawings home, magnet them to the fridge beside the more exuberant pictures done by my kids, start making the necessary calls, and turn up on time to the next appointment, curious as a child in kindergarten.  Which is how I first learnt that there is an octopus within.

picker

Poetry light’s tacked to the window i  want it to pick at me eat  me like fairy floss or a scab you  say it’s sexual frustration i  pick at...

Stay up to date with the latest, news, articles and special offers from Griffith Review.