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Now, to drag sloths into a blog is terribly out of date; a bit like a parent trying to speak to a teenage child and speaking of ‘Instantgram’ and ‘Readit’.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.
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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.
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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.
Tuesday poem: A timely monster
March 9, 2015
A timely monster
And if I could drink youth in
through my eyes — a vampire
of glance, lapping it from
perfect blush of skin —
would it be possible not to
drink and rise, leaving years
like a phone lost in cushions?
And yet, and yet…
before my eyes suck, remember
the self-consciousness,
the rash redness of life
before it wrapped itself in time?
To take, and lose a burden,
is to lift another,
cutting into hands or mind,
like an overloaded bag.
So let them pass, and let me yearn
and learn to stop, just here.
I’ll sit, and plait kind memory
through this smoked nostalgia of hair.
P.S. Cottier
Very traditional matter there, about the passing of time, given a sprinkle of Polidori. I like ‘my eyes suck’. Certainly not over-poetic! Monday was a public holiday in Canberra, so I did a little revision of this poem, and decided to post it.
More and more I find myself unable to wait the months that some journals take to say yes or no to a piece. I pity the editors, but I value my own work more! This blog now has many readers (hello to you all, from France to India to the Americas to Binalong) so why not self-publish?
Of course, I am foregoing the huge piles of pelf that poetry usually attracts, and there are some journals and anthologies that I really want to be part of, but I do like the immediacy of this medium. Particularly when I can find such cool pictures for free at Old Book Illustrations!
Other poets enjoy that too, whether they are posting their own poems, or those of others. Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets. They are definitely worth the clicks.
Paths Into Inner Canberra: my next publication
March 6, 2015
I am having an essay published. Yes, in prose, with two bonus poems. This is happening in a wee pocketbook to be called Paths Into Inner Canberra. The publisher is Ginninderra Press, based in South Australia. It is part of a new series they are publishing, called Pocket Places.
In the book, I describe riding a bike through Canberra along the bikepaths, and the wildlife that one can see, such as cockatoos and turtles. It is part memoir, part philosophical reflection (that’s a very little part) and part evocation of aspects of this city that I love.
The lovely photos have been taken by the very clever and cool Geoffrey Dunn. Here is one that the publisher chose not to use, which I quite like.
How do I obtain this wonderful book, I hear you cry? And is it true that it costs only $4?
In answer to your first question, I will post a link when it is available. Or if you see me in Canberra, enquire direct, buy me a coffee (or a beer or wine, if your accountancy skills are delightfully bad) and one will be your own to keep. To quote Willy Loman ‘That is a one million dollar idea.’
In answer to the second: Yes. Plus postage.
I am very happy that this essay is being published, although I should probably call it creative non-fiction, or extended haibun, or something clever. Does anyone write essays anymore?
Tuesday poem: A persistence of jellyfish
March 3, 2015
a persistence of jellyfish
flesh liaisons bloom
sea-flowers have no soul
P.S. Cottier
‘sea-flowers…’is from Jules Verne, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea
This bluebottle is the sort of lovely Australian creature that delights visitors. The image (PD Wiki Commons) is very fine, but doesn’t show the long tail of the creature, which is the bit that stings.
I have a vivid memory of swimming out of my depth, when one of these wrapped around my arm like a mad doctor’s blood pressure tester. I had to swim to shore, against a slight overtow, with a band of pain tightening around one of my arms. I developed a delightful weal on my arm, resembling a string of rubies given by a particularly sadistic Prince from a fairy tale by Angela Carter.*
At the time, I didn’t know how bad the sting of these creatures was, in terms of how poisonous. Fortunately, they are not too bad for most people, unlike the small invisible jellyfish found further north, which are deadly. (Some people have bad reactions to them though, as with bee-stings. See this article.)
Interestingly, the bluebottle is actually a co-operative of creatures that band together, rather than a single life-form. I believe that these are the sorts of things that we will find on other planets. ‘Other planets’ here means the south coast of NSW.
I believe that Australian wildlife may be touched on in the central Tuesday Poem this week. Press this link and find out.
*UPDATE: I have been flicking through other posts by Tuesday Poets, and just noticed that Helen Lowe is featuring a poem by Tim Jones about Angela Carter. There is an absence of jellyfish in the fine poem, but the coincidence tickled me. Like a bluebottle, but a lot less painful.
PS Cottier 