Tuesday poem: Which hands? Also, a reading.
May 18, 2015
Which hands sewed these hands?
The girl’s flapping exclamations,
two arched pink dolphins beached
framing that Tim Burton waif face.
Blank panic screams to eloquent air.
Thin spaghetti legs show bruises —
a manic teacher worked her too hard
at the barre of a ballet sweat shop.
Her hair a nest of vermicelli.
Blue eyes stare past sense —
blue eyes gape despair.
P.S. Cottier
This is why I sometimes love online shopping almost as much as op shops. In this case I bought these two puppets from the Salvation Army’s online store, combining two favourite shopping destinations. (Well Anglicare’s op shop in Queanbeyan is my favourite; you get a nicer class of second hand stuff, in general…)
The above is really notes towards a longer poem. I have yet to tackle the other puppet, complete with his magic cape of jewels.
I may use these puppets in a future reading. You have been warned.
UPDATE: A forgotten hat arrived in the mail with an apology from the Salvo’s store today. This puppet just keeps getting better.
***
Last Friday I was lucky enough to attend a reading by Stuart Cooke and Michael Farrell at Manning Clark House in Canberra. (Stuart is on the left of this photo.)
I have been reading Michael’s poetry and was delighted to hear him read his allusive and intellectually tantalising works in person. It was a small but enthusiastic audience.
The poets read a couple of poems in turn rather than dividing the time into two discrete blocks. I was particularly happy to hear ‘A lyrebird’, previously featured as a Tuesday Poem (posted by Jennifer Compton, with her comments) here. Stuart’s poem about Durras sticks in my mind: I was driving there the next day, escaping the desperate need for beanies and coats and bus stop conversations about how ‘chilly’ it’s getting, for a single warmish day. Minus 4 is not ‘chilly’, peeps. It’s appalling.
I found myself searching ‘ug boots’ on eBay the other day, which is slightly tragic. Particularly for sheep. That direct segue between fleece and foot enacted in a boot…where does puppet end and clothing begin?
Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets around the world by pressing here.
I am so very nice
April 21, 2015
Why that self praise? I am about to share the details of a wonderful poetry prize currently on offer with all readers:
http://www.canberra.edu.au/about-uc/competitions-and-awards/vcpoetryprize
First prize is $15,000 for one poem of up to 50 lines, and entry is $20. It is open to everyone in the world who writes English and has a credit card with at least $20 left on it. That may exclude quite a number of poets, admittedly, but a few may qualify. There’s a bit over a month before the prize closes. Obviously, there will be quite a few entries!
Pick up pen, tablet or crayon and write. Or enter a poem that you have been too lazy to send in to a journal. Do it or be beaten by this rabbit:
I am hoarding a poem for the competition like Gollum with the Ring. It just requires a bit more polishing.
Good luck!
A special afternoon
April 19, 2015
David Stavanger works on a line between music and poetry…No.
David Stavanger erases the line between music and poetry….That’s better. Though overly simplistic.
Here he is setting up before his gig in Canberra at Hotel Hotel in New Acton.
Richard Grantham played actual music, including electronic delay with a viola, and keyboards. David played his throat, and the audience, in a devilish performance.
Ellie Malbon also performed her poetry, and at one stage she was joined with Aaron Kirby in a piece with eucalyptus forests, and drowning, which made me think of Birnam Wood coming towards Macbeth in his castle (in the soon to be released play of the same name). Also there were surfing images, and a challenging of the division between elements, and a questioning of myths of improvement. There was a bath, too, in another poem. Here are Ellie’s feet, displayed on the interesting floor which could hardly be described as minimalist:
CJ Bowerbird emceed and performed, and I regret not having captured either his suit or his performance. Andrew Galan read works from his forthcoming second collection, which had a decidedly canine feel to it. This is the sort of maniac that he had in the audience:
Thanks to Annie Te Whiu for the photo.
All in all, this was a wonderful afternoon of poetry and music at Hotel Hotel, in which a lot of poems about water were transformed into magic. The wine was good too…
David’s collection, The Special, is one I should have read by now, but it’s always great to buy it from the poet direct.
Publications and sloth
April 18, 2015
No, I am afraid you won’t get a picture of a sloth engaging in upside down cuteness on these austere pages. But here is one of some dogs. One of them is even upside down, and some say she is a cross between a dog and a sloth.
I have been at the beach for a week or so, and relatively slothful, aided by very dodgy internet access. Although I did enter the best poetry competition, whereby a list of ten words is provided and the entrant/masochist must write a poem containing each of the words. In 48 hours. There are, it seems, very few sloths in Canada. That festival of energetic composition is organised by Contemporary Verse 2. For some poets, this contest would seem overly prescriptive, but I quite like the challenge of using the ten words without them screaming ‘We were given, not found’. It keeps you on your poetic toes.
If you would like to read a poem I wrote which did not derive from a competition, please press this link. The poem deals with space and jazz, and is called ‘Miles and Beyond’. It was just published at Eye to the Telescope, which is the online journal of the Science Fiction Poetry Association, based in the United States, a nation to the south of Canada, also bereft of sloths. Diane Severson edited this issue, which is made up of speculative poetry about music.
Now, to drag sloths into a blog is terribly out of date; a bit like a parent trying to speak to a teenage child and speaking of ‘Instantgram’ and ‘Readit’. (Tragedy often wears a cardigan.)
In fact, including sloths here might be described as slothful.
***
The issue of Midnight Echo I mentioned in my previous post is now available for purchase. It is currently only in PDF, but will soon be available in different formats. I wrote a column about poetry and an actual poem for that issue, edited by Kaaron Warren.
UPDATE 21-4
Midnight Echo is now also in epub and mobi.
Tuesday Poem: Poet assassin for hire
March 17, 2015
Poet assassin for hire
The poet is armed and kicks.
Sometimes that even hurts.
Then she legs it, all enjambe
ment and blisters.
A regular mule with the metaphors,
she similes like a snake on butter,
and can tell voltas from mere electrics.
She chucks haiku
and knows better than counting
syllables like coins.
She put the eco in ecopoetry
and swoops like a precarious bird
onto the blank pages of logs.
Knuckledusters swell
on the ends of her fingers
like real toads waxing
in totes imaginary salons.
She stashes bullets
in well-worn culottes.
She will absolutely murder
for a few couplets more.
I, too, dislike her.
P.S. Cottier
(Many apologies to Marianne Moore.)
Wistful and vicious
Sometimes it is good to have fun, ‘because fun is good’, as Dr Seuss wrote. Did you spot the ‘haiku’ embedded in the poem? Sorry, there is no prize.
I know at least three people that a poem written purely for fun will annoy, as they disapprove of play. I hear that Poet Assassin does not care. She is beyond shame. But obsessed by spelling; and I hear that she chose enjambement over enjambment for some obscure reason of poetics. Question that decision and die…
Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets around the world by pressing here.
***
On a very different note, there is a great new opportunity for poets who would like to write a speculative poem. A competition, organised by Joanne (Jo) Mills, will award $1000 (that’s the plucky Aussie $) to the best poem written in the science fiction, fantasy, horror or any related field. Entry is $12 (again, in the magic coin of Oz). Online entry? Yes.
Here are the details:
https://interstellaraward.wordpress.com/interstellar-award-for-speculative-poetry/
I am chuffed that the contest was partly inspired by the book The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry edited by Tim Jones and myself last year. Ms Mills had a poem called ‘Folds’ selected for the anthology by the incredibly talented and gorgeous editors, who are only slightly inclined to exaggeration in one case.
PS Cottier 