Medea – towards the end

Featured in

  • Published 20230502
  • ISBN: 978-1-922212-83-2
  • Extent: 264pp
  • Paperback (234 x 153mm), eBook

Accord for swallowing is first,
then comes a halting before
things turn dark. Sleeping is
necessary, watered down by
vibrant colours and a long
exhale. The ointment smoothed
on her skin protects her from
the nurse with the fiery breath.
She wanted to confuse the staff
and brings in a pebble from the
garden as suggested, placing it
into the pocket of the man in
the next room. It’s the best way to
get sugar in her coffee and salt
on her bread so that soon she is
practising placing stones in the
corridor, laying them carefully
together until paths of gravel
lace in and out of the building,
circling like a spiral. 

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

SJ Finn

SJ Finn is a fiction writer and poet from Melbourne. Her poetry has been included on short and longlists, including the Peter Porter Poetry...

More from this edition

The age of discovery

In ConversationPrior to Homo sapiens, populations might have just moved on or gone extinct in the face of environmental risks, whereas with Homo sapiens we were able to disperse widely across the world despite great ecological challenges. The underlying reason for that may be rooted in our social relations, our high level of co-operation – we don’t necessarily see that with earlier human species.

Pop mythology

In ConversationEven though I grew up on a small, remote island, I was still heavily influenced by television – particularly the sort of cartoons that would play on Saturday mornings, mornings before school, after school and so on. When it comes to DC and Marvel and all of those superheroes, for me that was ignited by my late grandfather Ali Drummond, my mother’s father, who had boxes of Phantom comics. Phantom was my early introduction to the strong, powerful male being who had supernatural strength and abilities.

To sing, to say

Non-fictionHow poetry works – its oracular way, its indirection – is how land works, he saw. Land as a teacher, as an embodiment not only of its own intergrity but of human aspirations and virtues like hope and beauty; land as an educator of the senses; land as a measure against which to prove and compare one’s own and others’ lives, as a theatre for the divine comedy of all human life; land as an elder, as a god, as a library...

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