PS Cottier

The indefatigable Geoff Page (was there ever a better surname for a poet?) has just released his schedule for readings at The Gods this year. Here it is:

Poetry at The Gods 2014

Tues Feb 11 & possibly Wed Feb 12 Les Murray (Bunyah)

Tues Mar 11 Omar Musa (Cbr)
John Stokes (Cbr)
Lizz Murphy (Binalong)

Tues Apr 8 Tricia Dearborn (Syd)
Barbara Fisher (Syd)

Tues May 13 Catherine Bateson (Dandenong Ranges)
Dennis Haskell (Perth)

Tues Jun 10 Moya Pacey (Cbr)
Harry Laing (Braidwood)
Geoff Page (Cbr)

Tues Jul 8 Ron Pretty (Wollongong)
Lynn Hard (Syd)

Tues Jul 22 Dead Poets’ Dinner

Tues Aug 12 David McCooey (Geelong)
Maria Takolander (Geelong)

Tues Sep 9 Alan Gould (Cbr)
Michael Thorley (Queanbeyan)
Penelope Layland (Cbr)

Tues Oct 14 Samuel Wagan Watson (Bris)
Judy Johnson (Newcastle)

Tues Nov 11 Jennifer Harrison (Melbourne)
Jordie Albiston (Melbourne)

Tues Dec 9 Stephen Edgar (Syd)
Judith Beveridge (Syd)

You can see that there is a melange of local and interstate poets, starting with Les Murray. Les always attracts a huge crowd, and there will most likely be two readings.

The venue (a café and restaurant) gets its name from the fact that it is next to a small theatre on the Australian National University campus. My alma mater, at least for my PhD. I thought I’d put up a theatrical image because of that. And poetry reading is theatre; the darkened room, the sweat on the brow, the audience response. The critics!

In other poetry news, we are hard at work on The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry. The cover is being designed by David Reiter, and I should be able to post it here very soon. All being well, the book will be appearing around the end of April, although no date has been set yet. Very exciting. There is quite a cross-over between that list of poets at The Gods and the anthology, to segue like a mad thing.