The octopus within

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Home is where the haunt is

Ghosts, like people, tend to be attached to a particular place. The term ‘to haunt’ in English has three linked meanings. First, for a ghost to manifest itself at a place regularly: a grey lady who haunts the chapel. Second, to be persistently and disturbingly present in someone’s mind: the sight haunted me for years. Third, to frequent a place often and repeatedly: that’s his old haunt. Home and haunting go hand in hand. Ghosts don’t haunt an entire city. They haunt a specific house, a dwelling, usually assumed to be the place where they died.

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Intimacies, intricacies, cadences

Non-fictionOver cups of tea, Vince was soon telling me stories. About his grandfather, his Ngadjuri heritage, the Aboriginal boys’ home he’d lived in for seven years, a small town called Curramulka where he’d captained and coached the local Australian Rules football team. He also told a story, in passing, about how his mum had to hide him from welfare after his dad died, when Vince was a small child.

Exemplary

Poetry The superego’s unvarying verdict: you have failed, you deserve it, get over it! Stay in your own psychotic micro-enclave, opining about enactment and re-enactment. Now and again there’s...

Getting attached

IntroductionMore than fifty years after Larkin lamented the emotional inadequacy of generations past, we’ve equipped ourselves with an extensive vocabulary with which to characterise, analyse and diagnose our relationships with ourselves, with others, and with the places, objects and ideas that shape our sense of who we are and who we wish to become. Yet still we face the same old set of conundrums: from parasocial connections and fractious family politics to the solace we seek in non-human entities, our myriad attachments continue to offer us comfort and complication in equal measure.

Discovering the creatures inside

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