Close Reading with Patrick Lenton
Edition Two
Welcome to the second edition of Close Reading, a dispatch of literary obsessions. Each edition features a guest writer who shares one word, one quote, one poem, one book, and “one other thing”. This edition features Patrick Lenton, a Melbourne based writer, journalist, and author.
Patrick is the author of the book of short stories A Man Made Entirely of Bats (2015), the book of comedic essays Uncle Hercules and Other Lies (2019), and the full length short story collection Sexy Tales of Paleontology (2021). His debut novel, a rom-com called In Spite of You, was published August 2025. He is a regular arts and culture commentator in the media, having appeared on The Project, ABC’s The Mix, ABC Breakfast and more. He is also the editor of the independent publication Nonsense, a newsletter which covers comedy, queer news and culture.
In this edition, Patrick shares words of humour, nostalgia, cocktails, work ethics, and flailing bodies.
Illustration by Lachlan Conn
One Word:
Akimbo
For someone who desires control, if not stability in their life, but who has chosen a lifestyle almost the polar opposite of this, the word “akimbo” has always delighted me. I think because I’m tall and ungainly, I’ve felt a connection to the word over a synonym like “askew”. Often I find myself stumbling through life akimbo, arms and legs wild, desperately trying to get some form of balance.
One Quote:
Kurt Vonnegut Jr
There is a Kurt Vonnegut Jr quote that I’ve managed to lose - it’s in his essays somewhere, and is hard to find compared to his much more famous ones, but it’s paraphrased as something like “we’re all in the same leaking boat, rowing furiously”.
I love this quote because it captures my attitude to being an author and an artist, and helps me to not compare myself to my peers or get jealous. We’re all rowing furiously and the boat is sinking! No time for that.
One Poem:
Animals
I love Frank O’Hara, and this poem of his “Animals” captures this gorgeous sense of nostalgia that never stops hitting me right in my emotions:
Have you forgotten what we were like then
when we were still first rate
and the day came fat with an apple in its mouth
it’s no use worrying about Time
but we did have a few tricks up our sleeves
and turned some sharp corners
the whole pasture looked like our meal
we didn’t need speedometers
we could manage cocktails out of ice and water
I wouldn’t want to be faster
or greener than now if you were with me O you
were the best of all my days
One Book:
Martini
The Australian author Frank Moorhouse released a book of essays called “Martini”, which is just a lot of thoughts he’s had about martinis. Somehow it’s become a blueprint of how I want to live my life (full of martinis).
One Other Thing:
How to Eat a Tire in a Year by David Sedaris
My favourite essay writer in the world is David Sedaris, and I would literally read a shopping list by him. That’s not an accident - he has set himself up to become a humorous writer on the mundane, spinning suburban moments into deeply funny and strangely affecting brilliance. This essay in the New Yorker about walking with an old friend DESTROYED me.