Tuesday poem: How Canberra
May 22, 2023
How Canberra
Parking at the AIS, pink imps called to me, or rather, grey imps wearing pink floppy hats. Gang-gangs opening gates in the sky. Walked to the pool, touching the bronze Guy Boyd woman poised on a plinth, the magic saint of all bad swimmers. Crawled through my twenty laps, more snail-stroke than free-style. Back to the car past groups of kids, past a well-known former athlete, past the memory of Covid marked by a discarded mask. Coffee at Tilley’s and more cockatoos, swinging below powerlines like avian punchlines, yellow fringes tickling the clouds.
PS Cottier
So a little translation for those who don’t live in Canberra; the AIS is the Australian Institute of Sport. Tilley’s is a venerable cafe in Lyneham, a suburb in the inner north of Canberra. And gang-gangs are a type of cockatoo. They are the faunal emblem of the Australian Capital Territory. An absolutely beautiful bird which can be seen quite frequently in Canberra, but which are overall becoming quite rare. Unlike the cocky in the photo.
Poem: Plains-wanderer
April 3, 2023
Plains-wanderer Pedionomus torquatus Someone took a quail and put it on a rack. It hasn’t stopped being surprised, and looks around comically, this tiny survivor, this left-over, balanced on gum-boot yellow legs. Or perhaps it is shocked by all the sheep, the cats, the fox, the foul apparatus introduced by recent arrivals, cockier than any cockatoo? Plains wanderer likes the quiet life; endless stubbly land it punctuates like a soft bracket. Last of its kind, all it needs is space unruffled, except by herbs, and the female’s russet red, blooming like a tiny sun, as she calls to smaller moon of male. PS Cottier
JJ Harrison, CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0, via Wikimedia Commons
This year I was lucky enough to see the Plains-wanderer in the wild, which is truly a unique bird. The female is much larger than the male in this species, a bit similar to some birds of prey. But it is a truly harmless bird, and it was quite moving to see it hiding in the grass.
Tuesday’s Child is Full
October 20, 2022
This is the front cover of my latest book, a collection of poems first published on this very blog. I am particularly delighted with that cover, which relates to one poem inside the book about the Australian White Ibis, or tip turkey.
I have been writing this blog for thirteen years, frequently posting new poems, usually on Tuesdays, hence the book’s name. Thank you to all readers who have followed/commented/read the blog.
The book can be ordered here, from In Case of Emergency Press, which is the best name ever! It is priced at $20 (AUD). Re-reading thirteen years of this blog and selecting the poems was an interesting process, only occasionally bringing on a cringe. Dealing with Howard Firkin, the publisher, was a pleasure.
I will shortly be arranging a launch here in Canberra. Details to follow.
Poem: No genie, no wish
September 2, 2022
No genie, no wish I thought it was a safe dwelling, this huge shell, bright blue, blooming on sand. Not petty house for me, no scrummaging for dangerous weeks. My belly needs support, is un-calcified, tending to slump. I need other species to form places for me to hide, to live, and from where I scavenge, daily, for minute bites of food. Imagine my joy, at this mansion, the cavity through which I pushed an eager few centimetres of crab. And now I find myself trapped, unable to live in this blue world. When I die, I send out a cry, not in words but scent, telling other hermits that a shell has become vacant, and so, how many others will meet inside this treacherous, plastic tomb? A million such containers cover the beaches’ sheets of sand, a kaleidoscope of pain. Fake promises of security, washing up with very wave. I am a message, trapped inside a blue bottle of disaster, an artificial gift of doom. PS Cottier Hermit crabs are dying inside plastic and glass waste washed up on Australia’s remote islands: https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/12/05/what-happens-when-hermit-crabs-confuse-plastic-trash-shells-an-avalanche-death/
Tuesday poem [haiku…sort of]
August 23, 2022
Chitinous plates turtles party with roaches zoot scutes PS Cottier
It’s lovely thing to have a blog, wherein one can post one’s weirdest creations. I was thinking of an old fashioned phrase for parties; bring a plate. And I had a vision of cockroaches and turtles partying, with plates attached to their bodies (part of their bodies). A scute is the hardened shell of a turtle. And an excuse for a pun. Look up zoot suit, if you need to.
That wonderful illustration is by Jean Ignace Isidore Gerard, who used the name Grandville. Courtesy of the site Old Book Illustrations, which is just fantastic.
I will shortly have news about forthcoming publications!
PS Cottier 