Readers responded to our love poetry competition with big hearts and hard heads, writes John Elder.

Do climate-change sceptics have the same attitude to other pieces of expert advice? When their car develops a fault and the local mechanic says the brake pads are shot, do they seek a second opinion? And having been told by the second mechanic that, yes, the brake pads are shot,..read more

Romantic love has never been less fashionable in Australian fiction, writes Matt Buchanan.

WHEN Dorothy Porter was first having treatment for cancer four years ago she wrote a poem called Charles Baudelaire's Grave. Its first line reads: How do you bury poet?

'LET him kiss me with kisses of his mouth." The Song of Songs is passionate. It is erotic. It celebrates human sexuality and carries desire to the limits of language. But why is it in the Bible? Neither God nor His people are mentioned in this ancient poem of love,..read more