Hecate articles from May 1996

Hecate archives from May 1996

'Me operation:' abortion and class in Australian women's novels, 1920s-1950.
May 1, 1996... . . . she thought of all the women there were in the ward where they had taken Oily; they seemed to stretch in an infinite row of white beds; women who were the broken spears of a revolution against the future, who had said 'Stop' to a Juggernaut...

The search for Xiao Li'd head: a magical tale of female re-memberment. (short story)
May 1, 1996... Once upon a time in a country far far away (some say it was somewhere between the great mountains and China but most say it really does not matter for the story could have happened anywhere), there lived a girl called Xiao Li or young plum. Xiao...

Frontier. (poem)
May 1, 1996... Bosnia on the news watching myself not watching Dances with Wolves television off in the next room imagination sees what's happening next episode around wipe out the other race I wipe my eyes well one with him the lone one they will try to...

How do detectives make love? (poem)
May 1, 1996... how did my parents make love/ was it in the 1950s way/ in their pyjamas under the blankets/ could my father switch off from his job as he switched the light off/ when he made love with my mother in the dark/ did they laugh/even though he told me...

The noise that the house made. (poem)
May 1, 1996... the noise the bedroom made was her numb determination/ as she hacksawed their marital bed in two/ she said: he can't hurt my feelings because i haven't got any/ so that each stale half rested quietly & separately/ growing cobwebs like wrinkles/...

The day they asked me to write a creed. (poem)
May 1, 1996... I believe that the church is dead Today for me Rape and silence throb through its walls and the sound of prayer shoots out like semen into a small child's mouth fast and frightening choking and chiding stopping speech and covering pain...

You. (poem)
May 1, 1996... If the rough edges of my heart chafe you hand it back to me and I will weigh it in my palm like a firm green apple ripe for the eating and then, taking this old fruit peeler plastic red I will peel away, slice away its callused skin in one long...

An oak grove. (poem)
May 1, 1996... i Once in Doire the place of oaks No beast laid down. There was no wind yet leaves stirred Cold sunshine curdled in murky glades of ancient celtic rites ii Observation towers of oppression aggression shadow the land banishing sunshine....

The phoenix and the dragon. (poem)
May 1, 1996... It used to be all so lush Monique says we stare from the apartment at the brown steep hill terraced with stones we can see long black scars where the bamboo and vines were raked into bundles for burning there is a low shack close against a...

RSI. (poem)
May 1, 1996... My arms hurt. They ache and throb. From shoulders to elbows to finger ends tendons, ligaments, muscles complain and protest at the long punishment I've inflicted. There's nothing much to see: the suntanned, freckled surfaces appear normal to...

The last guitar. (short story)
May 1, 1996... A guitar traditionally has three strings made out of gut and three of silk. Silk can be flimsy and elusive so those strings are tempered by a covering of fine silver wire which gives them longevity. Before the guitar came the lute, a full-bodied,...

Australasian Lesbian Movement, 'Claudia's Group' and Lynx: 'non-political' lesbian organisation in Melbourne, 1969-1980.
May 1, 1996... In a 1994 article published in Hecate, Clive Moore was only able to point to Liz Ross's 'Escaping the Well of Loneliness' and two short pieces in Robert French's Camping by a Billabong as constituting the total sum of publications on Australian...

Sorrow stories. (short story)
May 1, 1996... Introduction: Little Girl Sorrow She lies curled in a foetal ball, clutching a broken doll. An action type doll, army warrior doll, female by its gloss lips, anime blue eyes, black shiny hair, plastic moulded breasts. Similar to Wonderwoman,...

Letters. (short story)
May 1, 1996... 1. I look at the words crisp-printed black against the white, and I write the story of while on my way down the garden path to the letterbox to meet the fading blow of the postman's whistle, down a garden path of fox gloves purple scented...

From 'The Female Man' to the 'Virtual Girl': whatever happened to feminist SF? (science fiction)
May 1, 1996... Two events prompted the decision to investigate the current state of feminist science fiction. The first was my recent rereading of Joanna Russ' The Female Man,(1) that quintessential example of early second wave feminist science fiction. My...

A reverence for tilt. (poem)
May 1, 1996... Earth has no love of straight lines. Even in space she tilts spins on her axis, the lean of millenniums solidified in stone, and fixed through the spinning, sweeping passage of our year. One hemisphere to face the sun, the other turned away....

Hometown freeway blues. (poem)
May 1, 1996... Secular-architecture city light-blasted against the sky, tin-and-timber houses perched on spindle-shanks, waiting to fly, mangroves sucking up the tide, unfurled freeway, windscreen wide, West End's jasmine spices heat stir jagged in my mind... ..

Monemvasia: in memory of Yannis Ristos. (poem)
May 1, 1996... Below red cliffs silk-starred with native cyclamen in early spring, the city's entrance narrows to a needle's eye, a vaulted alley. By the west rampart the house with fading burnt siena walls, rust in the balcony's wrought iron, poet and siblings...

Winter village. (poem)
May 1, 1996... Walking in snow makes me think of Russia, ice in the village street, faded signs that might be Cyrillic lettered in old-style Greek, grizzled trees, men in flapped fur hats, women shawled, flowered and fringed like nesting dolls, houses with...

Woke up. (poem)
May 1, 1996... woke up with stuff on my hands stuff like blood was my first thought cause it was roughly the same colour kind of darker he woke up woke me up on his way to work kissing me laughing kind of chuckling a little bit - what have you done to...

Communion. (short story)
May 1, 1996... I did not choose to eat alone, but the dinner waits, company enough. The scent of sambal at the door fills my mouth with saliva. I smell cinnamon and sweat. The chatter in the room clothes me. One chair at the table. One flower in the vase. Hold...

Hettie Ross formerly Hedwig Weitzel.
May 1, 1996... Hettie Weitzel's earliest recollections were memories of New Zealand's North Island. Her childhood and adolescence were spent in Wellington at a time when the labour movement there reflected the militant and volatile reaction of exploited working...

The molding of menials: the making of the Aboriginal female domestic servant in early twentieth century Queensland.
May 1, 1996... At the turn of the century, a domestic servant was often conventionally known by the euphemism of 'slavey,' a corruption of 'slave' and a reflection upon the poor pay, bad conditions, back-breaking work, high surveillance and low status which...

From 'Letters to Huldah.' (short story)
May 1, 1996... Friday January 27, '89 Dear Huldah, When you said you'd be interested to hear more about The Buttonhole, my mind became a patchwork of memories. I think every Sydneysider my age and even younger has not only heard of it but also at some...

"The River Ophelia": trawling the 'net.
May 1, 1996... Date: Thu, 30 Nov 1995 12:12:12 GMT +9:30 From: Subject: generation X and dirty criticism 'X' merely marks the spot; it is up to whoever - marketers, critics etc - to give this spot a sociospatial meaning. The 'shock/horror' at the activities...