Tuesday poem: Sea
September 24, 2012
Sea
It pulls harder than any roping octopus,
Kali’s deep green army of sinuous terror,
bites deeper than haunting white shark,
bloody ghost that gutted brothers before birth.
It throws off surfers, tinnies, yachts and tankers
like a gnarly horse at rodeo, then clowns with us,
pulling down rescuers, spewing out the sodden child.
At stony beaches it applauds itself with each sigh,
the percussive pebbles played by ten thousand hands.
Sometimes, floating, I feel it stroke my back, teasing,
fingering, like a well-schooled lover. It whispers
not yet, I’m not ready, when I’m ready, you’ll go down.
P.S. Cottier
This poem appeared in my first book, The Glass Violin, which can still be ordered from Ginninderra Press. (Go to the ‘About’ page of this blog.)
I am gradually getting back into my routine of coffee and writing, after too many exciting things happening recently. I am on a panel and reading at the Conflux science fiction convention here in Canberra this weekend, speculative poetry being one of my loves. But as this is at the weekend, I don’t see it as breaking my routine.
At heart I am truly a bore. But sometimes a productive one.
More poetry? You want more? Click here and receive a free set of steak knives.*
*Imaginary steak knives in real kitchens.
Launch
September 21, 2012
Last night Paul Hetherington launched Triptych Poets Issue Three, and a good time was had by all. I enjoyed Paul’s comments, although I became quite alarmed as he emphasised the way I use ideas in my poetry. I had had one or two drinks and could feel the few remaining ideas in my brain rapidly taking leave through my ears, their little wings stroking the lobes as they took off. It’s the sort of situation where you just nod and smile.
Fortunately I read first, before the last idea fairy had flown to a more fertile and curly cortex, throwing a look of disgust over her fickle shoulder.
J.C. Inman (Josh) gave an energetic and charismatic reading.
The launch was quite interesting in that it brought together people with their roots in the slam poetry scene, and those whose emphasis has always been on the written word. There were lots of people and I think we sold a few books too.
Thank you to Paul Hetherington. I would love to read what he wrote, as I am always too edgy at launches to take everything in. Thanks also to Paperchain Books, and all the people who came. Here is the MC for the evening, Lesley Boland from Blemish Books.
I bought myself a Where’s Wally? lunchbox as a souvenir. See, I really am an intellectual… I also have an idea for my next book’s title. A lady said that I was quite well-dressed, for a poet. Well Dressed for a Poet could be a goer. What do you think of that for a title?
If you would like to partake of the book, please head here, and Blemish Books will assist you in your noble endeavour.
No Tuesday poem from me!
September 17, 2012
I am fully focussed on the launch of Triptych Poets Issue 3 on Thursday evening.
(Manuka, Paperchain Books, 6pm.)
So please see me as NASA, pre-launch mode, all nervous nail-biting and tapping. Although I hope I am somewhat less daggy than the average NASA scientist. (No offence. I’m sure some of them are totally gorgeous, comb-overs or thin ponytails and all.)
Regular readers will notice that I have removed the sticky page introducing myself that has graced my blog since time immemorial. It seemed a tad dated.
But details of my books and how to order are now on the ABOUT page. So go there and buy!
And head over to New Zealand for a poetic fix. Unless you’re in Canberra, in which case, save it for Thursday. And enjoy wine with Josh and myself. And the luvverly publishers, Lesley and Greg of Blemish Books.
Sydney twice in two different ways
September 13, 2012
The first was on the Poets Train from Canberra. Four leisurely hours to take in the scenery, to read, to compose a poem (we read out our efforts every hour). Arrival at the beautiful Central Station where we read to ourselves again, and a couple of punters.
The next day we read at The State Library. Here I am doing just that, in a photograph taken by K.A. Rees. (Note the staring into the middle distance):
And that night we read at the Friend in Hand pub in Glebe, where a cockatoo, George, chats to the customers. I chatted to Martin Langford, whose vocabulary is much greater than George’s. (No offence George!)
And in between, I enjoyed all Glebe has to offer. Interesting food, cheaper than in Canberra. The big vegan breakfast at Badde Manors, for example. Lying on a chaise longue that was used as a prop in the film Moulin Rouge, writing a review. Drinking wine. Longing for the ability to stay in that fair city. Sigh. As usual, I found myself looking at real estate agents’ windows, doing very unpoetic calculations.
Then four hours back, dozing and composing on the Sunday.
And today? (That’ll be yesterday by the time I post this.) Up to Sydney again in 23 minutes by plane. Barely up before you’re down; the landscape something to get over rather than through. State Library again, where I was lucky enough to pick up a third prize in the Society of Women Writers poetry competition, judged by Judith Beveridge, for my poem ‘A brief history of fun’. Judith gave a wonderful seminar focussing on sound in poetry, and although her ideas are quite different from mine, I left feeling inspired. There was a haiku/ haibun/tanka reading. There was Mark Tredinnick, although I had to leave his PowerPoint talk early to catch the flight home. A fire siren test provided the ideal moment for slipping out.
Twenty-three minutes
Throwing steel through air
We scorch the sky
Now I’m in pre book-launch mode! Radio interview on Friday on local station ArtSound. But I am haunted by a most beautiful spirit at the moment.
A ghost called Sydney
Lithe warm and lively
Winding me back home
Home that is, to a city I have never lived in. And against whose inducements I must block my ears, and tie myself to the cold mast of common sense.
Also known as Canberra.
I’ll love it again in a few days, but I have to learn to do so again.
Tuesday poem: Ammonite
September 10, 2012
Ammonite
Stony rose blooms from centre, soft thorns of feelers long since lost.
Aeons before any bee roamed from flower to flower, fields of round shells
pumped through seas, curled rams horns butting at white choppy waves.
Now round-eyed fossil stares at me from my desk, surprised to see
one so pink, so soft, so new. Soil frozen bubble reminds that our kind
is also a wink in time’s long receipt; a mere fingerprint of bone will
one day remain, hardened into artefact like ammonite, to be mined
and grasped (if the finders should have hands). Old cockle swirl,
ridge-back, cocks a snook at certitude; oceans of twisting time
sound through mud-filled shofar, airless conch, a mazy call of years.
P.S. Cottier
Having returned, very tired, from the Poets Train last night, I’ll recycle this old, though as yet unpublished, poem and give a more train-specific post when I’m back to my routine. Or timetable.
Suffice to say that many words have passed these lips over the weekend!
Click this feather and see if any more poems are dealing with ancient creatures:
There’s one terrific poem about robots on Tim Jones’s blog. Take my word for it…
PS Cottier 