A journal of contemporary art, literature and criticism
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Sūdō Journal is an online journal, publishing images, poetry, creative writing and essays that challenge prevailing cultural and political trends. Taking its name for the Latin “I sweat,” Sūdō comes to you from Australia’s tropical north with an eye to anywhere people are speaking uncomfortable truths from the edge. The seventh volume of Sūdō Journal asks what lies on borders, edges, and…
W e end 2025 and begin 2026 amidst crisis and loss. Our theme for this volume, “Disconnect,” was chosen in early 2025, but feels increasingly prescient. Arts organisations are being robbed of funding. Universities are cutting subjects and contact hours, replacing face-to-face interaction with YouTube lectures and optional Zoom tutorials. Corporations and institutions are buying into generative AI…
Sūdō Journal is an online journal publishing images, poetry, creative writing and essays that challenge prevailing cultural and political trends. Taking its name for the Latin “I sweat,” Sūdō comes to you from Australia’s tropical north with an eye to anywhere people are speaking uncomfortable truths from the edge. The sixth volume of Sūdō Journal asks what it is to disconnect in an increasingly…
Oh! Woe! The more things change, the more they ossify into pale impressions of what once was. Entropy is the rule of the universe. All things are destined to face the cold, dark abyss of the heat-death of the universe. But this is not true of our northern hearts, which blaze with the eternal fires of our equatorial passion! Nor is it true of our northern gaze, which penetrates every sub-atomic…
Following a hiatus in 2023, our fifth volume is scheduled for release in December 2024, with a brand-new editorial team at the helm. Assuming a position of militant anti-militancy and brutal open-mindedness, Sūdō Journal has no interest in serving as a mouthpiece for the increasingly dogmatic vanguards of Australian culture. Instead, we plead for submissions of insight and intellect that prove…
Following a hiatus in 2023, we are pleased to announce that Sūdō Journal will be publishing it’s fifth volume, “Eras,” in 2024. In the face of ever-increasing parochialism and partisanship, Sūdō Journal will continue to seek disparate voices, intelligent argument, and to value, above all, the interesting. Welcome to our new co-editors! Bethany Keats is a a Townsville-based writer who likes…
For the fourth time, we find ourselves at the beginning of another volume of Sūdō Journal . There was never a plan for anything after volume three—from here we all find ourselves in strange new territory. Nevertheless, we are overjoyed to introduce a new volume of Sūdō Journal for public dissemination . As the world licks its wounds in preparation for the next “unprecedented” event, we hope that…
For what feels like an eternity we have been praying for an ending. Some finality to justify this interminable wait. But we have no more salt to throw and no more sage to burn. We have made sacrifices of ourselves, and burned all of our bridges. We believed—if only for a moment—that these offerings might force the hand of fate. But here we are again. Waiting. Orchestra—once more, with feeling! The…
Third time’s a curse . Since the publication of our first volume in 2019, we have borne witness to inundation, conflagration, revolt, plague, and the apparent heat-death of the Humanities. With each volume we have lamented the horrors of our age only to watch on in dismay as they are heaped upon themselves ever higher. Our consolation (or is that consternation?) has been our art. Nevertheless, we…
While you, our dear readers, await our most recent assortment of pyrotechnics and pipe bombs in volume three of Sūdō Journal , we considered it worth directing your attention to a new collection of poetry from Kevin Densley. Those of you well acquainted with Sūdō Journal may recall Tenille McDermott’s review of his previous anthology, Orpheus in the Undershirt , in our very first volume, and it…
