Went to the launch last weekend of Kevin Brophy’s latest book, Mr Wittgenstein’s Lion, probably one of the last books to come out of the Five Islands Press stable.
It was a kind of bitter-sweet launch; it’s a fine looking book and judging from the poems Kevin read (I haven’t finished it yet) has some good work too.
However, it was also the farewell to Ron Pretty, who is heading back up Wollongong way after a stint in Melbourne. Sadly too, it’s the end of Five Islands Press as we know it and that void will be hard felt by Australian poetry. It will be a challenge for the new Australian Poetry Centre to take up where Ron and Five Islands Press have been.
thinking about poetry 
