Self-portrait in Joy Hester pocket mirror

About the author

Melinda Bufton

Melinda Bufton is the author of Moxie (2020), winner of the Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest Award 2019.

More from this edition

The trick that tells the truth

Non-fictionAs subjects of late capitalism, we’ve become inured to the amoral cynicism inherent in relentless corporate marketing; yet both the good faith of our human nature and the susceptibility of our lizard brains ensure that we also remain receptive... In 2020, the disjunction between AGL’s public relations and the truth of the company’s business practices was highlighted and ridiculed in the public realm, ending in a court case of profound significance on Australia’s twisted road to belated action on climate change.

Vaudeville

PoetryIf the magical colours aren’t even across the page, it’s a failure of art according to aesthetes. An obscenity of blues and reds, they say.

Same old new village

FictionWe pass the food market, and the dining hall, where each morning I would take my grandmother to eat yong tofu, hot noodle soup with fishballs and stuffed tofu. She said she always wanted to eat, but in reality she wanted to show me off to her old friends.