Alison Croggon
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alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Alison Croggon
@alisoncroggon.bsky.social
2.6K followers 560 following 670 posts
I write words. Award-winning poet, novelist, critic, theatre writer. Arts editor The Saturday Paper. She/her. Living on unceded Yalukit-Willam Country.

http://www.alisoncroggon.com/
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alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Two years today since my youngest sister Fiona’s sudden death. This is my favourite painting of hers, made when she was young, an ambiguous dreamscape of a lone girl running through grass. It has always haunted me, it felt like a harbinger of what came later. I miss her
Painting of a girl in a yellow dress running through a forest with a white bird swooping behind her A woman in a red jumper and purple beanie with her back to the camera sitting in a garden
April 23, 2025 at 10:11 PM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Am forcibly reminded of DH Lawrence's poem, "How Beastly the Bourgeois Is" poets.org/poem/how-bea...
Oh, but wait! Let him meet a new emotion, let him be faced with another man's need, let him come home to a bit of moral difficulty, let life face him with a new demand on his understanding and then watch him go soggy, like a wet meringue. Watch him turn into a mess, either a fool or a bully. Just watch the display of him, confronted with a new demand on his intelligence, a new life-demand. How beastly the bourgeois is especially the male of the species-- Nicely groomed, like a mushroom standing there so sleek and erect and eyeable-- and like a fungus, living on the remains of a bygone life sucking his life out of the dead leaves of greater life than his own.
February 25, 2025 at 10:55 AM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
I love this annoying doofus, also pats are very therapeutic
Tabby cat lying in the floor looking up at the camera
February 14, 2025 at 1:00 PM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Former Venice Biennale artist Callum Morton says he’s heard that there are “significant resignations” from the Creative Australia board. As indeed there should be.
Facebook post by Callum Morton: This is appalling and deeply disturbing. So we don’t want complex and uncomfortable discussions about our shared present, about our tenuous future?! I hear there are significant resignations from the board, as there should be. As an artist who has had this opportunity in the past, the cruellest part of it is that Khaled was awarded the gig only for it to be taken away in such a humiliating way. I remember the thrill of getting the gig - I couldn’t imagine being treated like this. My heart goes out to him. I feel an offsite pavilion coming.
February 14, 2025 at 4:23 AM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Halfway through The Mahabharata at #perthfestival and wow. So good. Also like so many of these epics about the futility and destructiveness of power, eternally relevant.
Picture of the stage at His Majesty’s Theatre before the show. White down lights over a bare stage decorated with a circle of red earth, behind a line of instruments
February 8, 2025 at 10:00 AM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Feeling a little Louise Bourgeois today
Louise Bourgeois, Spider Cell. A four-side wire cage with some panels covered in gold and green tapestry, topped by curving iron spider legs
January 31, 2025 at 7:33 AM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
The Queensland government adopting the Trump "pause" on gender-affirming health care. What a servile little colony we are
Screenshot: Queensland suspends puberty blockers and hormone therapies for minors seeking gender-affirming care Ben Smee Ben Smee Over to Queensland, where the government says it will immediately suspend the provision of puberty blockers and hormone therapies to minors seeking gender-affirming care at state health facilities, citing “contested evidence” about their use. Before the 2024 state election, Guardian Australia repeatedly sought comment from David Crisafulli – now the state premier – about his party’s positions on the use of puberty blockers and the state’s healthcare policies for young people with gender dysphoria. His office did not acknowledge or respond to those questions. These included questions about a rightwing-controlled LNP branch that had sent an election-eve email claiming the state had been “captured by transgender ideology”. Now, the health minister, Tim Nicholls, says the state will hold a review – lasting at least until 2026 – about the use of puberty blockers and hormone therapies at gender clinics. The state will “pause” the intake of new patients under the age of 18 years for hormone therapies in Queensland health facilities. “There is a need to maintain confidence in public health services, particularly those delivered by Queensland Health for children,” Nicholls says. Patients who are already on a treatment plan … would be exempt, similar to the steps implemented in the UK.
January 28, 2025 at 5:20 AM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Living and working on Yalukit-willam land. Always was, always will be.
The Aboriginal flag
January 25, 2025 at 10:25 PM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Julie Mehretu at MCA is incredible. Felt I spent far too little time with her paintings, they change as you look. Ghosts and gods and doors
Orange abstract painting, very complex, full of light Mainly monochrome painting with script like markings, immanent light emerging Abstract paintings in huge independent aluminium frames, like screens
December 15, 2024 at 7:51 AM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Lee Ufan, Magritte and Cao Fei at AGNSW - all so different, so often surprising. Also saw Layla Stevens’ extraordinary Pahit Manis (Night Forest) but no picture, just a memory
Lee Ufan: two rocks, a reflective steel curving surface, placed on white gravel Magritte: cartoon green faced man in bowler hat innorgange jacket before a white and blue landscape Cao Fei: Strange transhuman avatar, white skinned, bald, with octopus tentacles weaving through her body
December 15, 2024 at 7:46 AM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
I’ve been visiting my favourite typo
Exterior of the Art Gallery of NSW with Roman lettering saying “Michael Angelo”
December 13, 2024 at 11:18 PM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Totally worth it
Lemon cake on a blue plate with a slice cut out of it, and a slice on a smaller plate with cream and a fork
December 7, 2024 at 6:51 AM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
What does it mean that the roast here isn't exactly a roast? Am I the dullest human being imaginable? [Pause for chorus of YES] [Curtseys]
Screenshot of my bluesky account with commentary from blueskyroast.com: Words Worth Their Weight in Gold Alison Croggon crafts tweets like a poet weaves stanzas—sharp, insightful, and occasionally purring like her cat. " Her feed is an eclectic mix of social critique, literary wisdom, and cat love—an artsy vibe with a hint of chaos.
December 6, 2024 at 10:46 PM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Daniel took this photo of me and Zoe a few years ago at the abbey by La Chartreuse, near Avignon, when we had a writing residency there. Feels almost impossible to believe I was there
Black and white photo of a middle aged woman in black trousers and a white linen shirt and a younger woman behind her also in black and white, stepping down a dirt path through a Mediterranean garden with poplars in the background
December 1, 2024 at 9:45 AM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
This storm is *intense*. Little fragments of chaos all over Victoria
Screenshot of BOM rain map with intense red and orange blotches drifting over the map
November 27, 2024 at 3:47 AM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Post a picture you took (no description) to bring some zen to the timeline
Ducks walking across a rice paddy
November 18, 2024 at 7:51 PM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Uber-daffy cat hunting phantom mice under the rug
Tabby cat with a paw under a rug looking up at the camera
November 18, 2024 at 9:27 AM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
About a year ago, Daniel and I swore a solemn oath that no more books could come into the house. Sweet innocents that we were
Desk with book piles and box of books on the floor Book piles by reading chair
November 13, 2024 at 7:34 AM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
It was the year of the grifter
Former Liberal Party vice president Teena McQueen, Australian mining magnate Gina Rinehart and the leader of the conservative UK Reform party, Nigel Farage, grinning like ghouls at Donald Trump’s election watch party.
November 6, 2024 at 10:32 PM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Upset Toshiro Mifune isn't pulling through to my feed, so here he is
A black and white closeup of a samurai in battle gear, looking ferocious
October 18, 2024 at 10:18 PM
alisoncroggon.bsky.social
Saw Finucane and Smith’s Global Smash Club, their 20th anniversary show, at Melbourne Fringe last night. Moira Finucane, Maude Davey, Yumi Umiumare, Mama Alto and others. Felt so lucky to witness these great performers doing such wild and beautiful stuff. Life affirming
Tall woman in red robe on a round stage surrounded by audience Women in blue dress in the middle of an audience singing with her head flung back
October 17, 2024 at 11:11 PM