Judith Beveridge is one of Australia’s most acclaimed poets. Winner of the Prime Minister’s Literary Award and the New South Wales and Victorian Premiers’ Awards, she is a highly regarded critic, editor and teacher of poetry. She has published seven collections of poetry, most recently Sun Music: New and Selected Poems. She is a recipient of the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal and the Christopher Brennan Award for lifetime achievement in poetry. She was poetry editor for Meanjin from 2005 to 2015, and co-editor of the anthology Contemporary Australian Poetry.
Bluebottles
So many swimmers ran out of the sea, branded with welts,or wearing scarlet copies of the tentacles of a swarm of bluebottles.They limped, yelled, rubbed sand, or poured water on the stingers,and some, unsure of the correct first aid, applied…