Author(s): Andrew Rutherford

Australian Poets

Andrew Rutherford thoroughly recasts Horace's Odes, Book One into the streets of contemporary Melbourne, drinking plonk among the 'yoof', dismissing as 'turd teflon' or 'idiot du jour' a rival in love. Here Horace's patron, Maecenas, becomes his mate, Mitch, and the dutifully reviled Cleopatra updates into an imperiously flaming Julia Gillard.; meanwhile the Bellarine Peninsula transforms into a distant idyll, an 'arbitrary arbour', free from the petty slights and misfortunes of urban life. In these ingeniously faithful renderings Rutherford stamps Horace's concerns as internally ours.