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Keywords: Brian Doyle

  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Demerit points for bad poetry

    • Brian Doyle
    • 06 May 2009
    4 Comments

    It is a useful truth that every real feat is built on a mountain of failures. The price for poetry's occasional power is the ocean of self-indulgent, mewling muck produced and published annually under the tattered banner of the Poem.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Prayer for a drunk dad

    • Brian Doyle
    • 22 April 2009
    5 Comments

    At 1am I noticed that the dad of a friend of mine was in the corner drinking hard and telling funny stories. He got drunker and drunker until, at about 3am, he started shouting and cursing and some glass smashed. Finally he fell down.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    On not beating cancer

    • Brian Doyle
    • 04 February 2009
    13 Comments

    A nun once said cancer is a dance partner you don't like, but with whom you have to dance, and either you die or the cancer fades into the darkness at the other end of the ballroom. The words we use about cancers and wars matter more than we know.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    What it's like to be hit by a bullet

    • Brian Doyle
    • 19 November 2008
    4 Comments

    When you get hit by a bullet you never ever forget what it feels like. It feels like you got hit with the biggest rock there ever was. We were going along in the boat and we went around a beach where there was a battle, and a slug hit me in the armpit and knocked me right over.

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  • AUSTRALIA

    Vote 1 Michael Palin

    • Brian Doyle
    • 18 September 2008
    3 Comments

    When I heard John McCain had chosen 'Palin' as his running mate, I thought, wow, Michael Palin! Palin understands women (he's worn his share of dresses), animal rights (especially dead parrots), and commerce (particularly the cheese industry).

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Funeral for a marriage

    • Brian Doyle
    • 06 August 2008
    20 Comments

    Divorce is an incredibly powerful and painful chapter in millions of lives every year. Maybe we should create a public ritual for the end of a marriage by which we honour their brave attempt and mourn the death of love and hope.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Giving up on unreadable muck

    • Brian Doyle
    • 09 July 2008
    9 Comments

    As a reader, it's satisfying to reach that moment when you realise you don't have to finish the book you've been ploughing through. A book's unfinishability reflects less on the reader than on the writer. Even great writers flop sometimes.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Incivility trumps the empty dance of manners

    • Brian Doyle
    • 25 June 2008
    5 Comments

    One time we were in a meeting when a very important person proposed a very stupid idea. We knew our uncivil friend would pop a gasket, and he did, albeit in memorably incisive fashion. The silence that followed was a remarkable sound.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Humanity reflected in the diversity of books

    • Brian Doyle
    • 21 April 2008

    Like people, no book is exactly symmetrical. Often the cover belies the interior, just as the bright faces of people often hide the stories beneath. Many we ignore too easily, a million we will never know, such being the way of the world.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Revelations of a responsible literary citizen

    • Brian Doyle
    • 26 March 2008

    You find all kinds of books in people's cars — from novels and comics to atlases and bibles. The books people carry reveal something of their life and experiences.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Recollections of a reluctant kids sports coach

    • Brian Doyle
    • 27 February 2008
    4 Comments

    At the end of his last season as coach of his sons' basketball team, Brian Doyle found himself savouring the job that he didn't want three years ago. While occasionally there is a flash of creativity and grace among his players, it's the egregious mistakes he will miss the most.

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  • ARTS AND CULTURE

    Near the hallowed cricket ground

    • Brian Doyle
    • 27 June 2007
    1 Comment

    A man walking his dog tells a story. / He tells me that when he was a child / There was a man living by the river / In a tiny hut made of leaf and thatch.

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