Dave Drayton

I learn that I have not made the interview stage for the role I had been performing for years prior. I walk to Campsie to meet with J, a former housemate, for a sauna, to sweat and swear. Like G, J has taken a ‘voluntary separation package’ from a different institution, and seems transformed since absconding from the academy. We strip off and I vent my spleen in the steam.

In the latter half of 2016 I set about writing a poem for each Australian prime minister, past and present, for a collection called P(oe)Ms.

‘Just as there is no one way to write a poem, there is no one way to compose a meme. And, as with poetry, there are a number of forms and types of memes, the conditions of which provide some guidance or instruction regarding form and content. In the same way that the haiku form is typically characterised by a poem composed of 17 syllables (morae), with a seasonal reference (kigo) and juxtaposition of images (kiru); a Doge meme typically comprises an image of a Shiba Inu, and the dog’s internal monologue captioned in multicoloured comic sans. Just as the modes of production for poetry vary (and can be linked with the poem’s form/content, as in a cento) so to do those for memes.’