imago 1. the final and fully developed stage of an insect after all metamorphoses e.g. a butterfly or beetle. 2. Psychoanal. an idealised concept of a loved one formed in childhood and retained uncorrected in adult life. Molly Rose Moon dreamt of worms the night before she married Jimmy Brown in Tooting Bec. Milky sticky wet worms wriggled and fed off one another in clumps all over the...

To love in a language prised from my wishbone.
To sing a landscape where village girls once burst the moon with giggles.
To dance through the fattest eye of a rice-grain.
To do all these in peace and war is the wish embodied in Merlinda Bobis’ poetry. From her epic poem Cantata of the Warrior Woman: Daragang Magayon to lyric reflections on longing, and finally to an erotic dance-drama, Bobis...

An anomalous kiss. A white turtle ferrying the dreams of the dead. A working siesta in a five-star hotel. A woman’s twelve-metre hair trawling corpses from a river. Or a queue of longings in Darlinghurst. These enigmatic tales are stories of chance and hope. Alternately mythic, wistful or quirky, Merlinda Bobis’ tales resonate with an original and confident storytelling voice. Published as The...