With Sappho in the Antipathies

Impractical, technophobic, shy and a nervous traveller, James Harpur suspected he had the perfect qualities for not going to Australia when the Vincent Buckley Poetry Prize gave him the chance to visit the country in 2017. House-sitting in Melbourne, expecting to quietly write and research his putative ancestor, Charles Harpur, 'father of Australian poetry', Harpur instead had one of the most intense months of his life. He met a cast of unforgettable characters, including a church group who asked him to read a poem about Origen's self-castration; a young Dane whose dream it was to build a skateboarding park in Nepal; a teacher who had nearly been run down by Stephen Hawking in his power wheelchair; and a disturbed stranger who punctuated his conversation with the words 'I didn't mean to kill her!' He also came across the menagerie of Australia's wildlife, but none more delightful than Sappho, the arthritic cat under his temporary care. Written in the haibun form (prose and haiku) of Harpur's literary hero Matsu Basho, With Sappho in the Antipodes challenges prejudices and stereotypical thinking, gently unfolding a tender, poetic and witty homage to Australia.