World tour of one part of New Zealand…
July 3, 2013
…one part of the North Island of New Zealand, in fact.
Yes, next week I’ll be popping over to our comparatively near neighbours and meeting other Tuesday Poets, and particularly Tim Jones, with whom I am editing The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry.
We will be making final selections for the anthology, from the approximately nine million on our two lists of ‘must haves’. I’m also one of four poets reading at Au Contraire, a science fiction convention in Wellington.
And I hope to sneak off from poetry duties long enough to see a dead Colossal Squid on display, and also to see some live, medium-sized birds.
I really can’t wait. (That is not sarcastic, for once, by the way.)
I have visited New Zealand once before when I was a teenager on a school trip, and have vague memories of an extremely racist bus driver, a wool museum (like Australians really don’t have enough wool and need to visit other people’s wool museums), and the smell of Rotorua.
I look forward to contrasting Canberra with Wellington. The populations of the two cities are about the same. That fact says a little more about Canberra, I think, than Wellington.
So busy have I been preparing Vast Lists of speculative poetry that I have no poem to post this week, and next week may be dodgy too, as I’ll be buying things for Wellington.
Wool things, mostly.
A Very Blemished Evening
June 11, 2013
Canberrans!
Now is (almost) the time to come and hear novella-ist Nigel Featherstone, and poets JC Inman and P.S. Cottier. We’re all published by Blemish Books. Band Jason Recliner will open proceedings at Smiths Alternative on Thursday, 20th June at 6pm.
Smiths has a bar.
Smiths has a bar.
Smiths has a bar.
Tuesday poem: Almost pastoral, and a reading
April 29, 2013
Almost pastoral
Looking past the one long leg of tarmac spider, head in Sydney,
refusing to see her iPod plugged ears, hear tart mozzie hums,
or feel insinuating throb of pocket phone, nudging like a bull
against fabric seclusion, I spread blanket on bleached ground.
I closed eyes, and opened them, misting the scene in moisture.
I applied numbing cream to mounds of anted bites, reddening.
Wished away health filled salad, replaced carrot crunch with Corot,
cocky squawk with cagey flute. Then checking watch, I turned to go.
P.S. Cottier
A brand new poem as I enter a very busy week. Tomorrow night (Wednesday), at 7.30, I’m reading at Manning Clark House, 11 Tasmania Circle, Forrest, along with Charlotte Clutterbuck and Geoff Page. Do come along if you’re in Canberra. There’s an entry fee, which includes wine and snacks. It is $10, and $7 concession. Then there will be excellent books for sale, so don’t forget to buy one of them, if you are able.
A podcast of three of my poems is now available at the Blemish Books site. If you like what you hear, the book can be ordered from the very same site.
I have had a poem called ‘A question for Jane’ published at the Eureka Street blog: http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=36017 . The Jane in question had the surname of Austen, so have a look if you have time, and answer the question for yourself.
For other poems, please press this link. The Tuesday Poets are a group who are many and varied, and seemingly moulting:
Sociability and reticence: more thoughts from Conflux
April 27, 2013
I was thinking about the different ways of being in groups as I went to Conflux today; how some people plunge into things like, say, the Australian swimming team at the Olympics, whereas some of us are always at the side, looking on. Are we just frightened of being hurt? Of drowning? Or of attempting the social butterfly, and performing the dog-paddle?
I like a chat, but choke on gossip;
threads of conversation become barbed wire
glutted inside fairy floss.
Sometimes I despise my comparative lack of conviviality, despite my ability to make excellent small talk:
Small talk so fine
that the Higgs Bosun
can’t find a trace
And yet, you can look on things and still feel engaged; exchange truly well-meant pleasantries. Sometimes reticence is no bad thing, but another way of saying that the other person matters. I’m having a great time, but more in my own head than anywhere else.
So, just a quieter time than some. Here’s that picture of the hat again; I think the Victorian expression should be noted. All I need is my embroidery, or its modern equivalent, the smartphone.
Off with her head!
Fun at Conflux
April 26, 2013
I’m letting the emails pile up and ignoring everything to attend Conflux, the science fiction convention here in Canberra. There was a steampunk high tea yesterday afternoon, which allowed me to don a hat that has graced my wardrobe for some time:
Off with her head!
Today I have attended two panels; one on publishing and one on horror and the body. Tonight I’m doing a poetry reading, so I’ve escaped for lunch and to get my thoughts together. Then back into the fray.
I really admire those who attend everything possible at conventions; I just lack the stamina.
So far it has been a terrific convention. And it gave me an excuse to wear that hat…
UPDATE: We were a small but enthusiastic group of poetry lovers at the reading, so I turned the chairs around and we had a more casual event. Enjoyed it immensely, and assembling all my speculative poetry made me realise that I have enough for a small collection of my poetry in hat field. Sorry. That field.
FURTHER UPDATE:
Heard Sean Williams talk about TM, which existed long before Scotty beamed up Kirk.
Heard Nalo Hopkinson talk about her early writing career.
Attended an interesting panel on appropriating the sacred.
Caught up with various people, including Gillian Polack.
I’m stuffed, to put it in a most non-poetic way. (Although I am not the sort of poet who tends toward the flowery. Unless that flower be a pavement daisy. Yes, you may sneer at that, in a sneery way.)
PS Cottier 