Four Oceans News Today

Macquarie University/The Lighthouse Australia’s wartime leader John Curtin declared from his first days in office that everyone should read poetry, writes Macquarie University poetry scholar and Curtin’s great-grandson, Dr Toby Davidson, author of a new book about the PM’s passion for verse. When he first became Prime Minister in October 1941, John Curtin informed the press that he held to a Sunday night poetry reading ritual and he declared that “every man should read poetry for the go...

Four Oceans: Lydia, Madeleine, Kate, and Emilie, photographed in Austin on Nov. 13 (Photo by Shelley Hiam) Before each performance, the four women of Ley Line huddle together onstage momentarily to catch their breath, calm down, and reconnect. The group invites audiences into this same circle, opening a space of meditative togetherness with expansive global rhythms and twining harmonies. In fact, the ritual proves essential to the Austin quartet of Kate Robberson, Emilie Basez...