Vain? Me? Never! Also You Are Here.
March 11, 2014
Usually when I have a photo taken, I freeze up into an iceberg of Titanic proportions. It is to the credit of Geoffrey Dunn that he managed to take quite a few photographs where I look thawed. In this one I look literate, for example. He has posted more on his site, at:
http://blog.lushpupimages.com/ps-cottier-poet
The one he has chosen of me with a parasol on the street is my favourite. The purpose of the session was to get a better photo for The Stars Like Sand, and we did, but I do like the more adventurous photos.
***
I have a busy few weeks ahead of me. On Saturday 15th, I am reading at Word Coop, at the ANU Food Coop, in Kingsley Street Acton, at 7.30 to 9.30pm. No, I will not be reading all that time. Other poets are Rochelle Fong, Good Ghost Bill and Ma Ya Ga Ng Re Ne. I may be wrong, but I suspect that some of these persons may be slam artists…Hosted and curated by the indefatigable Andrew Galan (who looked fairly fatigued last time I saw him) and by Amelia Filmer-Sankey.
Speaking of performance, on 22nd March, at 4pm, I am appearing at Smiths Alternative, with CJ Bowerbird, who has been crowned the National Poetry Slam champion. We will be reading some poems and discussing poetry, and responding to one of each other’s works. Andrew Galan will be in charge of that one too, fatiguing himself yet further.
These two events are part of the YOU ARE HERE Festival, which runs in Canberra between the 13th and 23rd. Many many events, so if you are lucky enough to live in the area, do check it out.
In between those two, I will be going out to Yass, as one of my poems has been short-listed in the open section of the Yass Show Poetry Competition. Should be fun. It was last year.
That is Lizz Murphy, on the left of this definitely not professional snap taken at the Yass Show last year. Lizz will be reading tonight at The Gods, with John Stokes. Omar Musa was to be the third poet, but he will now read later in the year, and a super-sub will be taken from the bench.
No poem today, I’m afraid, as I have been caught up in egregiously demanding Things. If you feel like poems, click this link, and see what other Tuesday Poets have been doing:
UPDATE: 10.22pm
Unfortunately, Lizz Murphy was unable to read for serious personal reasons. Very best wishes to you and yours, Lizz.
Harry Laing was the third reader, and Charlotte Clutterbuck stepped in at the last moment to take Lizz’s spot.
A successful evening, but I did miss Ms Murphy.
Look what I found at the beach…
February 6, 2014
This is a small version of the cover for The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry (Interactive Publications), which should be out in late April. Click for a better look.
Not a bad piece of flotsam. Or is that jetsam? No, they were the cartoon characters who lived in a perfect American future, weren’t they? With nifty jetpacks?
When all this egregious specpo is over, I am going to read a novel of such staunch realism that you wouldn’t read about it. With a plot so heavy it would drown you, if you read it on a lilo floating on a pool.
Unless, of course, it was a hover-lilo. Now there’s the ultimate personal transport device. I sneer at your pathetic jet-packs, American cartoon people.
Canberra: Centre of Poetry Excellence (and nice meals)
January 22, 2014
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.
Tuesday poem: Clumsy in love
December 2, 2013
Clumsy in love
Clumsy wears ug boots, where others don high heels,
or light reflective slippers of glass. They waltz,
all Straussy and fine in white, with froufrou and swish.
Clumsy stomps. Even his sheepskin words betray him.
He muffles passion in good intention, dags love
in a brown blanket of nag. Clumsy would be lacy,
suggestive, a slight touch between eyelash and wink.
But his eagerness clutches and grabs, rummages
for a lost gold key of ease. He speaks words
subtle as a losing barracker at three-quarter time,
pie’s warm filling dripping onto his mind’s feet.
Dreams subsist, nonetheless, in quiet fleecy nights.
P.S. Cottier
A brand new poem, this one. Unsullied by previous publication, or heavy editorial touch.
I notice that, as the temperature climbs in Canberra, my blog has had snow added by WordPress in North America. I’m leaving it here, as it amuses me to be sitting in 30 or even 40 degree heat (that’s celsius) and look at this cold confetti thrown over my words.
Particularly when the words are dealing with a person who is unlucky in love, for whom cold confetti seems appropriate.
The word ‘dags’ by the way, is usually a noun, here pressed into service as a verb by the pesky sheepdog of experiment. Look it up if you dare.
Click this black swan feather, and check out New Zealand’s peaks of poeticness. Poeticity. Rhymsteration? Just do it.
By the way, we have sent the manuscript of The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, to the publisher, David Reiter of Interactive Publications. There will still be a lot of checking and fiddling, but as I said in a comment to the last post here, it has moved out of our grasp. I have enjoyed aspects of this process, namely, reading the poems, placing them in what seems to be pleasing patterns, and writing the introduction. Other aspects are more tedious!
I don’t think I’ll rush into anthologising again for a while.
The most amazing thing is that Tim Jones didn’t murder me at some stage in the process. Although, to be fair, I think I have slightly more of a temper on me…He is almost annoyingly patient.
This lack of murder is one of the benefits of working with someone from another country.
Endgame: The anthology
November 12, 2013
We are finalising The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry. Here is a recent photograph of me as I enjoy the process of fine-tuning things:
I am both the one in the hole and the one with the weapon.
My only consolation is that Tim Jones, co-editor, probably looks worse…
It will be a wonderful day when I hold the book in my hands, and all this egregious checking is out of the way. Then I’ll no doubt find a typo, and hit myself over the head with that.
PS Cottier 