Neil Astley The SHEPHERD POET
Kirsten Norrie
an interview with Neil Astley
BLOODAXE publishing legend, poet and novelist NEIL ASTLEY is engagingly quizzed by Kirsten Norrie for MONK about his experience of living (and nearly dying) in Australia, the soul’s search for its release in language – and his affinity for the humble sheep.
SOPHIE LÉVY BURTON Soul Sister
Corinna Ferros
MONK founder and editor SOPHIE LÉVY BURTON in conversation with Corinna Ferros on how and why she founded MONK.
ROWAN WILLIAMS Through the Narrow Gate
Catherine Coldstream
Former Carmelite nun and Oxford author CATHERINE COLDSTREAM travels to Cambridge to talk exclusively for MONK with poet and former Archbishop of Canterbury DR. ROWAN WILLIAMS on the relationship between faith, spirituality and the life of the imagination.
DAVID SOMERVILLE Into The Glimpse
Sophie Lévy Burton
Sophie Lévy Burton explores the extraordinary palette of artist DAVID SOMERVILLE and his power of bold abstraction
Inward Sight, Outward Seeing
Catherine Coldstream
The complex interrelationship is explored by CATHERINE COLDSTREAM between the realism of her painter father’s seeing sense and her own emerging lyrical sensibility
SUSAN HOWATCH Her True Self
Steve Petford
Steve Petford enjoys a high-spirited talk to best selling novelist SUSAN HOWATCH about the whys and hows of her extraordinary STARBRIDGE series and her own mystical path. I’VE LONG BEEN a fan of the novels of Susan Howatch particularly the the compelling inner-worlds of the ecclesiastical characters that inhabit the cathedral sagas of the Starbridge […]
Hats Over the Tiber
Anna Zaranko
SHE WASN’T REALLY listening. She’d switched on to fill the ache of empty pockets left hanging in the air by the departure of the children.
The Poetry Pharmacy
Rachel Kelly
Best selling author and mental health campaigner RACHEL KELLY narrates her powerful journey with depression and the healing power of poetry
Aspects of Chance Part 1
David Somerville
This short film is part of a trilogy based on images of my surrounding environment. The concept of the film is to create a combination of abstracted images and edited sequences drawn from chance observations of the reality of everyday life. I have taken film footage made over 30 years and set it to music […]
The Playadox – Reflections on Burning Man
Rory Spowers
Does the road of excess lead to the palace of wisdom?
RORY SPOWERS finally makes it to Burning Man, the notorious week-long festival in the Nevada desert and revered by many as a rite of passage-immersion within a burgeoning sub-culture, based upon the principles of Radical Inclusion, the ‘gift economy’ and unlimited self-expression. Did the event live up to its reputation?
Speaking with Country
James Burnett
an interview with Judith Nagala Crispin
Australian photographer and poet JUDITH CRISPIN talks to James Burnett about the complexity of her unique photographic process and the creative – often spiritual – exploration of her aboriginal ancestry.
I Am a Griot
Mbizo Chirasha
Zimbabwean poet MBIZO CHIRASHA weaves a rhythmic prose-tale on the biographical details of his birth and childhood – and the genesis of his extraordinary talent
Identity Apples
Mbizo Chirasha
I am a fat skeleton, resurrectingfrom the sad memories of dadaand dark mysteries of animismI am BugandaI bleed hopeI drip the honey of fortuneMakerere; think tank of AfricaI dance with you wakimbizi dance I am TanganyikaI smell and fester with the smoke of African genesisI am the beginningKilimanjaro; the anthill of rituals I am the smile of AfricaMy […]
Naked Villages
Mbizo Chirasha
In these lost villagesFolksongs are baked into brown burnt slangGossiping hyenas splitting villages apart.In these naked villagesVultures eat our spoken word and verse.Eagles breakfast the diet of our culture. May 2019 Mbizo Chirasha MONK
Return by minor road
Heidi Williamson
‘can you say that a man is lost just because you cannot distinguish him from the background’
BEAUTY and other dangerous words
Susanne Sklar
DR. SUSANNE SKLAR journeys around the beguiling concept of Beauty and asks, theologically speaking, Can Beauty Save the World?
The Deluge
A. R. Thompson
I THE GIRL STOOD beside the gate at the top of a field, looking down toward its centre. There, a tree grew from the ruins of an old farmhouse. Though her entire childhood had been spent in and around these fields and though she could map the web of narrow roads as accurately as a […]
The Interrogation
Andreas Smith
ARE YOU comfortable? Yes? Where would you like to begin? Is beginning at the beginning acceptable to you – or would you prefer to begin at some other point? [Silence.] Shall we start, then? [He clears his throat.] Where do you buy your socks? Do you eat before going to bed? Do you like being […]