One Moment Human
David Bunn, poetry and the rest
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‘In dreams let us not use first names‘ which now appears in this collection was joint winner of the Grace Harwood Poetry prize in 2012.
The judges (poets Gig Ryan and John Kinsella) said the poem is ‘admirably accomplished’.
One Moment Human
Reach for it and it slips like quicksilver from your glance.
The poems start from a flash, one human moment. Then the trouble begins – how to capture it, declare it, honour it, work out what it ‘means’.
They include politics, activism and settler colonialism and also consider painting, the uses of travel, gravity waves, love, landscape, sculling, translation, age, wine, war, the Big Bang, the succession of generations, death and squaring things with your father.
There’s a set of letters, written during the pandemic, on writing, art and plague.
But as Dr Johnston said, explaining why he was a failed philosopher – cheerfulness keeps on breaking in.
Three towers, a baker, a church if you’re prone to sin
or sit in the sun-spill square and drink sharp wine.
David Bunn is a Melbourne writer.
His previous book was The Great Scheme published in 2021.
Read more of his work.
Constellations 