Matthew Thompson Interview

But why is this word “Genius” being bandied around so much in poetry here, in Australia in particular – the noun in particular — not so much the adjective which very loosely is a synonym for ‘ingenious’ meaning “well thought out”. Genius, the noun sounds more like it belongs to the era of the Industrial Revolution, in an age that included the steam-whistle and train shovel — when industrialists & merchants took 2 round cast-iron plates and had them riveted together — perhaps they were merely being “engine-ious”. Was Ned Kelly a Genius?’

Given my ambivalent relationship to literary journals, why on earth would I want to start one?

Fifty years on, One Hundred Years of Solitude is still providing profound insight about our evolving human tale where horrors co-exist with wonders, where absurdities don’t provoke a blink.’

If you are a writer, or know one, there is no doubt you would have heard the statement ‘My book could have done better but the marketing was crap.’ The romance of publishing a book is alive and well and regularly clouds the reality of having achieved significantly with one’s labour and imagination (and a supportive publisher). Publishing a book rarely changes one’s life – but it can break your heart if you expect it will.

‘A student’s complaint about what is disparagingly called “rote learning” touched off some preoccupations that seem to go quite some way back with me. For some reason the topic of memory has always been centrally important to any thinking I have done about culture, politics, and society.’