...and Down Under

As most of you know, I was in Sydney, Australia, earlier this month. Wherever there is an LGBTQ bookstore in a city I’m visiting, I try to patronize it, but my timing was off in this case, alas. After 43 years, The Bookshop Darlinghurst, Sydney’s oldest gay bookstore, closed its shop last month, though it still operates online.

Fortunately, I found another option: Gleebooks, which doesn’t only purvey LGBTQ literature, but is primarily known for that. Like Kramerbooks here in D.C., it has a restaurant, Cafe Sappho, but that was still closed for the holidays despite the website’s assurance that it was open.

After perusing the shelves, I selected Typewriter Music, a 2007 poetry anthology by David Malouf. Malouf is one of the few names I recognized, though I can’t remember where I’ve read his “Seven Last Words of the Emperor Hadrian,” which is included in this collection. (Quite possibly, it was in one of the anthologies we've read over the years. If any of you recall, please refresh my memory.)

Comprised of short poems, the slender volume seemed like a good choice for the long trip home, and it was.