Image: Michael Farrell.

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Nick Whittock: Watching the Grass Grow

When it is cricket that is the matter, all forces return to the ball at the limits of the universe. The grass is still growing. It is photosynthesising, there is a flow of moisture involved here among other things (sunlight, carbon dioxide...). All of this, operating within a cricket match, can only be of concern in terms of the way it breaks up the flow of the ball and contributes to the continued production of this flow.

Nick Whittock vs Sam Kidman

Melbourne poet and raconteur Nick Whittock recently took time out from writing his inimitable cricket poems in order to face 12 questions sent down the wires by friend and fellow cricket tragic, Sam Kidman.

Like most, my understanding of French poetry had not really gone beyond the Mallarmés, Rimbauds, or Baudelaires of its 'golden age' in the 19th century, ironically, an age that is also representative of the majority's perception of French poetry today.

• Jean Orizet
• Pablo Garcia
• Mathieu Hilfiger & Sebastien Raoul
• Pierre Brullé

For Dorothy Porter, writing librettos is a natural extension of her desire to "open things up" with her poetry; to discover the realms in which it can move. However, renowned as the woman who writes with rock music playing (the final sections of her latest verse novel Wild Surmise were written with P.J. Harvey on the stereo), the shift into opera in recent years doesn't mean Porter's CD collection has altered too much.

Paul Mitchell: International, Interspecies

A recent international scientific report suggesting chimpanzees should be admitted to the human family - because they share 97 plus percent of our functional DNA - has produced worldwide confusion. First there was the problem of whether or not the formal admission was coming a little late.

Moses Iten: Because I Was Brought By The Road

One boat remained out in the ocean, beyond the rock. The other twelve boats had pulled ashore before we arrived. Not a single little fish had been in their nets today. The fishermen of the whole village would have to eat crabs from the lagoon. Scrape together some pesos to feed their families. So we headed to the lagoon nearby for some crabs.