An anti-ode entitled ‘Fire’ opens with a line from a letter of Anton Chekhov written to Dmitri Grigorovich, March 28, 1886, Moscow, and published in the Picador edition of selected letters in 1984. The whole poem is about Chekhov, reading him in Melbourne during the January bushfires. FIRE “I have composed my stories as reporters write their accounts of fires – mechanically, half-consciously, “with no concern either for the reader or myself,” fire being the given, the sudden cause of all decisions the story tells as people run one way snatching belongings or would stay put and fight heat they cannot beat. Leave now, it is too late to leave, abandon your plans is the language of fire coming over the hill towards us. Staying doesn’t make you a hero. Fire came from nowhere. We’ve lost everything. The whole place has just gone. Fire quietens the township’s dreams of a world trip. Fire has leapt the r...