photograph by Bryna Bamberry
PS Cottier, aka P.S. Cottier, aka Penelope Susan Cottier, is a poet who occasionally stoops to prose. She has worked as a lawyer, a university tutor, a union organiser and a tea lady. She wrote a PhD on animals in the works of Charles Dickens at the Australian National University.
Her most recent book is a suite of poems called Selection Criteria for Death in Triptych Poets Issue 3, published by Blemish Books, and available for order here.
Her first poetry collection, The Glass Violin, was published by Ginninderra Press in 2008, and they also published her first collection of short stories, called A Quiet Day. This was followed by The Cancellation of Clouds. That’s poetry. They can all be ordered form Ginninderra Press, under poetry or fiction on their website.
Her poems have appeared in publications including extempore, Eureka Street, The Mozzie, Poetrix, The Canberra Times (all Oz) Hand Luggage Only (UK, an anthology of sonnets edited by Christopher Whitby), Gloom Cupboard (international), The Atlanta Review (US), Shakespeare’s Monkey Revue (US), Star*Line (US) and Contemporary Verse 2 (Canada). She has ben anthologised and anthologized, depending on the countries involved. Reviewing is something she does, as is excessive commenting on other blogs.
She lives in the peaceful burg of Canberra, Australia, after growing up in Melbourne, and counted three different species of cockatoos on her walk from the cafe to home recently. So when she says Canberra is peaceful, she really means it….Until the cockatoos start screeching, that is.
I am sitting up too straight for this to a be true representation
My books to date
Available from Blemish Books:
Available from Ginninderra Press under the pages for poetry or fiction:
(The header image on this and other pages is from a photograph by Bryna Bamberry.)
And now I spend as much time living on the south coast of New South Wales as possible. Makes Canberra look busy.
This is the first time I’ve ever commented within a site such as this – partly thru reserve, partly because of technological stupidity, but I just wanted to say how bowled over (or out?) by your young Jesuses/cricketing poem. It’s simply so rich, so complex and – not simple but unforced at the same time. I admired it immensely, esp. the transition you so bravely pulled off with the “He recalls/another day, when he was darker skinned’, which, in one sense, you shouldn’t be able to get away with but in another, is so strong and solid, it can’t be questioned, and I also thought all the resonances in the final three lines – none of them competing with but just working in harmony with one another – was spectacular. I think this is a very special poem. Congratulations, S Cottier. I’m looking froward to reading more of your work. And if I now push the wrong button, as is likely, and this flies off somewhere beyond both my and your reach, I hope the thought it expresses reaches you by force of its own admiration for what you’ve achieved. More practically, I could copy it to nigel. Best wishes, John Clanchy
Thank you, John, for tracking down this site! The poem is from the Triptych collection, and there is a note in there about the origin of the poem. I was in St John’s Anglican Church in Reid, and noticed how Jesus looks like David Gower in many representations in stained glass windows.
Of course, Jesus can be represented in any way; I have seen Aboriginal Jesuses, for example. But the historical Jesus was, presumably, dark haired, not golden!
I an very pleased that it was my poem that made you break your blog duck. But please, if you wish, forward this to Nigel as well!
Perhaps I will meet you at his novella launch later this month? I am not sure where you are in Oz.
Still Canberra, I see! So no doubt we’ll meet, (if we haven’t already).
Perhaps we already have, Penelope (met, I mean), but my mind is not entirely ‘steady’ these days (daze?). Yet I will be at Nigel’s launch, and look forward to meeting you (again?) nthen.
Best,
John
Look forward to it!