Melbourne shows it's not afraid of romance

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

Richard Glover

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, do they then trawl around town until on the 99th visit, they strike a mechanic who says "no, the brake pads are fine"? And then driving at high speed up the F3, do they entrust their lives to this last opinion?

Go to bed with a good book? No thanks

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

Farewell For Poet Whose Mourners Celebrate Her Generous Love Of Life

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?

Faith

'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, yet the Talmudic sage Rabbi Akiva famously proclaimed: "If all sacred writings are holy, then the Song of Songs is the holy of holies."

Marketers Ready To Let Loose Millions As They Size Up Steaming Rice And Other Hot-shots

WITH T-shirts already describing her as "steaming hot Rice" and author Robert Drewe confessing to "Speedo-esque fantasies concerning zippers" in a salacious love poem, Olympic glamour girl Stephanie Rice is a marketer's dream.

Roses Are Red

Violets are blue. Bad love poems make you hurl. Alicia Wood reports.

Love And Peace & Friendship

Love and Peace & Friendship Nanushka, Jane Curry Publishing, $18.95 each These two small paperbacks are full of beautiful poems that capture the exhilaration and terror of love and the treasure that is friendship.

An Ode To Love

Next week two "boring old gits" are getting hitched, and it's a real love story, writes James Button.

Liam's Love For Nana Rewarded

MOST 10-year-old boys would shy away from expressing their love for their grandmother in the midst of a crowded shopping centre.

Love In The Time Of Poetry

Luke Davies last night won The Age Book of the Year. Jason Steger reports on a writer's poetic inspiration.

Totem Wins The Age Book Of The Year

Luke Davies says the inspiration for his latest book of poetry, Totem, was a gift from the gods. In a trice, he understood what the work would be in its entirety in 1999. Totem, one long, intense love poem and 40 shorter ones, was published to loving reviews about four years later.

Found: Mystery Author Of Famous Appin Mine Tragedy Poem

TWO days after an underground explosion killed 14 Appin coalminers in 1979, Ray Hallam sat down at his kitchen table and wrote a poem.

Love Supreme, Sound Superb

Book review: A LOVE SUPREME: THE CREATION OF JOHN COLTRANE'S CLASSIC ALBUM, By Ashley Kahn, Granta, $49.95