Poem: About swimming
February 23, 2023
counting each lap mathematical strokes fifty metre groan PS Cottier
I’m just getting back into swimming. Unfortunately I don’t have a man with a rope to drag me along. I swim very slowly during the public access hours at the Australian Institute of Sport. Once, some years ago, some people filmed me swimming, probably thinking I was a proper swimmer from the Australian team. If I was, Australia would only win participation medals at the Olympics.
Tuesday Poem: I was meant to stride through
September 28, 2022
I was meant to stride through armour jingling, a whole orchestra of metal bits, cymbals and triangles. But something made me rest in the still, mushroom strewn wood, dank and smelling like dogs’ paws. Taking off the shiny carapace, I wriggled into the moss, napped, awoke to a gnome stealing gauntlets, to store in some illicit cavern. I decided not to give chase. Let him take what he wanted. Rolling over, my moist pillow seemed to release rich spores imbuing me with memories, indistinguishable from dreams. Before all this striving, all these ventures and clashes, I used to take the time to examine things, the varied feathers of birds, the damp exigencies of the frog. Who knows? In a hundred years someone may find a mossy log shaped a little like a knight, on which an escargatoire of snails pursues the silver quests of their kind, clothed in quiet brown armour of shell. PS Cottier
Any excuse to use the word ‘escargatoire’…
Scifaiku via link
July 1, 2022
Just had a number of science fiction haiku (scifaiku) published at Starlight SciFaiku Review Issue 2. Tap here to go there. The more I edit poetry for a newspaper, the more I seem to be writing speculative poetry. I am also having a scifaiku published every month at AntipodeanSF, which can be read here.
Poem via link: Osteoporosis
May 31, 2022
It’s been too long since I posted here, which is not (only) due to laziness, but because I have been incredibly busy. I am coming up to my first year anniversary as Poetry Editor at The Canberra Times, have been doing multiple book reviews, and just gave a reading. I was very pleased to have a poem published in an American journal called Please See Me, in a special issue on Women’s Health.
I am reaching the age where they start to monitor my body for all sorts of complaints and illnesses, and this inspired the poem. I also read the poem at the page linked to above.
Zoom launch of Monstrous
August 5, 2020
Last Sunday was the Zoom launch of Monstrous, my new collection of horror poems. Thank you to the publisher, David Reiter for organising the launch, and to Tim Jones for the launch speech. Also thanks to those who attended, and those who helped with the book, especially Kaaron Warren for the Introduction. If you would like to have a look, the launch is now up on YouTube.
The book is available as a paperback or e-book at many on-line retailers, from the publisher, or, for those in Canberra, direct from me, or at Book Lore in Lyneham.
PS Cottier 