Tuesday Poem: My stalker (via link)
March 3, 2014
Here is a link to a poem by me called ‘My Stalker’, just published on journal Verity La:
http://verityla.com/my-stalker-ps-cottier/
I know this means that you have to click the link, dear reader, but it will take you to a beautifully designed and seductive on-line journal.
Here I am contemplating the passing of time…
Or, if you prefer, click this link, and see what poets in New Zealand have been doing:
Tuesday Poem: Café haiku
February 25, 2014
Umbrellas cup us
in upside down khaki
we sip browner rain
P.S. Cottier
That photograph is of the view of and from Tilley’s, which is less than a five minute walk from my house. When not trapped in the spider’s web of editing, I fly down and write there.
Here, for example, is a draft of this very poem, written at Tilley’s:
I had never thought before I started writing how the ‘U’ at the beginning of umbrella looks like an umbrella blown inside out. Small step from there to coffee cup, really. (And yes, I realise that those umbrellas are not khaki! Also that ‘in upside down’ is a little clumsy. But it reminds me of a blown umbrella, somehow.)
I am longing to be back with my writing routine, away from the exigencies of editing poets’ biographical notes for The Stars Like Sand. I am not really given to minimalism in poetry, and want the time to sprawl over several stanzas. I am sure the my fellow editor Tim Jones feels the same way in regard to wanting more writing time, although he seems to be involved in a myriad of other activities as well.
For me at the moment it’s edit, gym, drink.
Interspersed with the occasional coffee.
Click this feather and see if they make good coffee in New Zealand:
Belated Tuesday Poem: (maths haiku)
February 14, 2014
Slow fern uncurling
one two three five eight thirteen
Fibonacci green
P.S. Cottier
I am innumerate, but there is a poem about patterns in mathematics reflected (or enacted) in living things.
Next week I promise you a poem about algorithms.*
*The word ‘promise’ is written with fingers crossed. That makes typing difficult.
Click this feather, which no doubt can be read in a mathematical way, and see what the more punctual Tuesday Poets have been doing:
Tuesday Poem: Australian junk
January 28, 2014
Australian junk
Perfect beyond compare, the composition
glimpsed behind the sand dune, visitation
of a nation, expressed in three fork prongs:
a cricket stump, a tinnie, and a single thong.
Was there an arranger, of design intelligent,
or was it just luck, dumb evolution, that bent
time and space to make this eloquent trio?
Leprechauns fix just one shoe, but there’s no
Irishman likes cricket, it’s just not their game.
Should I search for walkers gone lame,
one side leaning? Or a patriotic drunk
who made tribute, through placing this junk,
into a precise summation of our Antipodes:
weird sport, sour booze, and feet liking breeze?
P.S. Cottier
A very light poem indeed today. Ye gads, it’s not even a proper sonnet! Yesterday was the public holiday for Australia Day (which was Sunday the 26th, for all you benighted foreigners), and the flags hopped out like feral rabbits. I find the yobbo aspects of patriotism very hard to take.
But the rhyming thing above celebrates a moment when I saw a thong (a flip-flop for all you benighted foreigners), a tinnie (an aluminium drink can that once contained beer – oh, do keep up!), and a cricket stump (surely you know what that is?) discarded at the beach.
Meanwhile, of course, morons are killing sharks in Western Australia as they occasionally bite people who are in the water. Meanwhile, our navy is reportedly pushing boats of asylum seekers back to Indonesia. Meanwhile, we still don’t recognise Indigenous Australians in the Constitution.
But at least we beat the Poms in cricket. (Men’s cricket, that is.)
Now, after this dubiously un-Australian rant, with all the affection hidden in the poem, I suggest you cleanse yourself by flying to New Zealand. Click this feather, and It Shall Be:
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.
PS Cottier 