Ramblings (misc.) Including a Tuesday Poem
November 24, 2015
Just when it has begun to dawn (as opposed to dawning to begin) that next week contains some of a month called December, I see that next year is already totally stuffed with events, like a Christmas stocking full of jolly wee gifts. (I would be quite happy with a stocking full of miniatures of vodka, rum and gin. But Santa never heeds my blog written hints. Either that or his historic sponsorship by Coca-Cola has made him renounce alcohol, the capitalist running dog.) Jason Nahrung has a very useful list of next year’s literary festivals on his blog:
Hilariously, the Adelaide Writers Week dates are set until 2019, which is so redolent of 5 year plans as to be practically North Korean. Though the wine in South Australia is undoubtedly better (listen, Santa, Goddamn you!) and they have luxuries like food, too. If you know of any other events, let Jason know!
Just had my first poem published in the Australian Poetry Journal, called “Secondary ghosts”. In his introduction, editor Michael Sharkey touches on ecopoetry, birds, and questions of popular appeal/playfulness. It seems to me, on first reading, that the volume is chockas, if not chookers, with winged things (my words, not Michael’s). Hence my arranging the journal next to by embroidered cockatoo cushion (that is a most playful bird) on a chair which is covered with a fabric called Virgin Lawn. (No kidding.) The colours of the beautiful cover of the APJ (painting by Lise Temple) reminded me of the chair. And, as the person who wrote the ghost poem, here’s a little poem about that poem:
I do the ghosts
In all their unseen glory,
or whingey postlife
neediness, rattling,
booing or ruining feasts.
Which is not to say
that some feasts don’t need ruining.
Which is not to say
that a good scare is a bad thing.
Yes, birds flutter
through pages like
olive leaves. Some simply
go away, evermore,
but so many leave
droppings, and so we
put them into poems;
poems of soar or seediness.
But there are other
gnarlier alternatives,
neither here nor there.
So I do the ghosts.
P.S. Cottier
This is all getting a tad intertextual, which is when Santa leaves a new pen next to the list of gifts (which read Vodka, Gin, Rum) after amending it to read New Pen.
Tuesday Poem is going through something of a reconfiguration at the moment, but I certainly intend to keep posting on Tuesdays. Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets by pressing here.
Next week there will be fewer brackets.
PS Cottier 
Excellent poem! And, all praise the heroic efforts of the poetry workers of South Australia, who yearly exceed their norms! (Mind you, Norm isn’t that hard to exceed.)
Sharlene is the one to watch; a true hero of laborious poetry.
Norm is but a Menshevik.