Adam Casey
times, then asked for a glass of champagne. Struggling to sip it, he finally uttered, ‘I am dying as I lived: beyond my means.’ Apple founder, Steve Jobs, slipped into death’s door uttering, ‘Wow, oh wow, oh wow’, almost a prelude to his next adventure to the other side, a testament to a man who was constantly seeking the new, the next adventure. Humphrey Bogart lived up to his image of effortless cool and deadpan humour with the final proclamation: ‘I should never have switched from Scotch to Martinis.’ But sometimes, the last word is neither a proclamation or an expression of the human. As Marie Antoinette, queen of France in the 17th century, climbed the scaffolding to the guillotine, she accidentally stepped on the executioner’s foot, and apologised: ‘Pardon me. I didn’t do it on purpose.’ The last word, at its most fortuitous, speaks volumes of the human, at its most disastrous, showcases the ordinary, the everyday, that we’d rather not know. I haven’t said it yet, so I will now: all this talk of final words, is, in fact, fitting. ‘The Last Word’ literary anthology is a celebration of our final years as the Bachelor of Writing and Publishing—lovingly referred to as the BWAP—at Melbourne Polytechnic’s Fairfield campus, as it comes to a close. We’ve had so many bright sparks fly through our program, and we couldn’t be prouder of what we’ve achieved in our eight years as a unique and pioneering program. This anthology is a testament to that. It is also a farewell memento for our graduating students of 2017, their last word as BWAP graduates, but certainly, this curtain call won’t be their last. We will watch, with anticipation, as their achievements unfurl before them, the BWAP a cornerstone to their emerging voices.
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