sometimes they give you the idea that australia is some pure land called ‘terra australia
incognita’ or ‘australia felix’ stuff like that or they let you think that australia is called cook
or murray or white or uk or robinson or howard or dyson or morgan or nolan or jennings or
gould or hughes or carey or martin or hanson or woodard or american or –

going through the cards that kind of australia is dissolved in names like arranga or zareski or
chan or ng or pitruzzello or karogiannis or truong or wang or zhang or ouyang or xiao or
strangio or asuncion or plousi or petrovic or abdulatiff or kovacevic or de jong or ubaldi or
van leeuwen or choy or lista or banitsiotis or teoh or wong or kee or da costa or quattrone or
moulin or maraoti or mudrooroo or oodgeroo or ginibi or huang –

still all you get to hear when you are put on hold or being put through is this helen or
margaret or dick or david or doug or dicky or sam or ian or merv or geoff or peter or simon
or les or john or richard or judith or judy or justine or jane or jo or joe or junk or jeff or tom
or terry or tony or tongue or tealby or ross or rose or ronnie or roy or ron or rot or raunchy or
rainy or ray or ring or james or bill or bob or bunny or kim or king or yvonne or –

makes you wonder what this identity business really is and if a yellow pages is more
australian than any genuine anthologies of literature and poetry put together can ever be and
if all these bunches of business cards i’ve spent years collecting in australia – and there are
not many years: only 9 – are not a real australia: realer than either you and me –