Tuesday Poem: (ute-ku)
February 2, 2015
Back of purple ute —
‘Jesus lives here’
holytray or holycab?
P.S. Cottier
I had a vivid image of Jesus balancing on the back of a tray going round a corner, perhaps holding onto a piece of rope, a little like a tethered kelpie. When he faces the back window of the ute, he can read the sticker saying that he lives there, which would become fairly unfunny quite quickly.
Mary hears about the ute surfing idea and is less than impressed
For those who would like to write lots of tiny poems, here’s a link to poet SB Wright’s site which has some information about Post-it note poetry. I am proud to say that the ute-ku is my own invention.
For those of you benighted enough not to know what a ‘ute’ is, it is Australian for utility vehicle. The phrase ‘pick-up truck’ is a crude attempt to achieve a similar effect.
Really short poems rarely appear on the blogs of Tuesday Poets. But perhaps there will be another one this week. Press this link and find out.
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And if you go here you will find another poem, written in old style English 5/7/5 haiku, about the merits (or limitations) of flash fiction. It is part of the 200th edition of AntipodeanSF. There is also the reprint of a story (a suspiciously prose-poemy story) that was published at AntiSF some time ago.:
The artwork is by “DasWortgewand”, whose real name is Reimund Bertrams. The editor of the journal, Ion Newcombe, just sent this through! Very cool.
Bloggers of Australia, this is for you!
January 28, 2015
A fantastic initiative to encourage quality writing on-line has been announced. The Thiel Grant for On-line Writing will give an Australian blogger $5000 to produce 50 posts in a year on his or her chosen topic.
Here is the link:
https://teacherintherye.wordpress.com/thiel-grant-for-online-writing/
Why not put in an application? It will provide a disciplined framework to develop your on-line writing to a higher standard. I sometimes think that any type of good writing is a result of inherent ability, drawn out by the exigencies of routine. Producing a weekly blog post has helped me to become a better writer, but that is an exercise that never stops.
For some reason I am now thinking of Raphael Nadal. Mind you, that happens from time to time to almost everyone, doesn’t it?
And here is a totally inappropriate image for the type of writing they are looking to fund.
I have had a good look at the application form and it requires an ability to express oneself concisely, rather than provide pages and pages of documents. All very appropriate for a blogger, methinks.
It would be churlish not to share this information. I now consider myself not to be a churl.
I will shortly announce some more upcoming publications I have this year, including one that was just accepted today, and which is a work in prose! Rewriting this work meant no poem for this week, but next week poetry will reappear.
Routine is a friend, even of the art that takes language and shakes it into new forms.
Tuesday poem: Gabriel Grub’s Song by Charles Dickens
September 16, 2014
Brave lodgings for one, brave lodgings for one,
A few feet of cold earth, when life is done;
A stone at the head, a stone at the feet;
A rich, juicy meal for the worms to eat;
Rank grass overhead, and damp clay around,
Brave lodgings for one, these, in holy ground!
This little song appears in The Pickwick Papers, and was therefore the work of a very young Dickens. It is part of a very long history of funny, morbid gravediggers in literature, and is no doubt intended to trigger memories of Hamlet. The illustration, by Hablot Knight Browne, captures this beautifully. It is well worth looking at his other illustrations on Wikimedia Commons.
Gabriel Grub is like a prototype for Scrooge; the miserable man is reformed by exposure to a goblin, just as Scrooge will later be changed by the ghosts. Even in this early book (1836-37) we see how Dickens loved playing with names; a sexton called Grub singing of worms is just wonderful. Grub, unlike Scrooge, is often very drunk.
Asking if Dickens was a great poet is like judging an elephant on its ability to tap dance. It really is missing the whole point of the creature.
I don’t know if any other poets have posted poems about death, but I shall shortly press this feather, dropped by a hungry crow, and find out:
Faith, hope, love
September 9, 2014
Sometimes amongst the flow of evil events that we call ‘news’ you read something so beautiful that it seems to come from a different, kinder planet.
Or Iowa, in this case, where a lesbian couple who have been in a relationship for over 70 years were just married:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/sep/08/ninety-year-old-gay-couple-marries-in-iowa
This story emphasises that the lives of ninety year olds can be as full of meaning and even excitement as those of people in their twenties. It also reminds people who tend to write off the United States just how diverse that country is. And how diverse Christianity is, too.
I hope that some day we will see such marriages in Australia. Civil marriages and religious marriages, for those who want them. If only most relationships lasted 70 years! To quote Corinthians:
‘But now abideth faith, hope, love, these three; and the greatest of these is love.’
(For once that is not the King James version, as that translates the last term as ‘charity’, which sounds a little odd to modern ears.)
This story is definitely the poem of the week. And I hope my complete lack of sarcasm may be forgiven by regular readers, for this week only!
Tuesday poem: Hope by Emily Brontë
August 13, 2014
Hope was but a timid friend;
She sat without the grated den,
Watching how my fate would tend,
Even as selfish-hearted men.
She was cruel in her fear;
Through the bars, one dreary day,
I looked out to see her there,
And she turned her face away!
Like a false guard, false watch keeping,
Still, in strife, she whispered peace;
She would sing while I was weeping;
If I listened, she would cease.
False she was, and unrelenting;
When my last joys strewed the ground,
Even Sorrow saw, repenting,
Those sad relics scattered round;
Hope, whose whisper would have given
Balm to all my frenzied pain,
Stretched her wings, and soared to heaven,
Went, and ne’er returned again!
There is another poem on the same subject by Emily Dickinson, of course, which mentions wings, but I prefer this one, being a renowned misery guts.
If you would like wingèd hope to plop onto your lap like an obese kakapo, may I suggest you press this feather? You will not fly, or run very fast, but you will find yourself reading many poems from New Zealand. However, a flightless parrot tells me that the very fine Hub Poem is by a member of what our Prime Minister just dubbed ‘Team Australia’. A phrase guaranteed to make any poet puke. If you don’t, please hand your licence back in to the Appropriate Authorities.
The poem at the hub is by a third Emily, by the way: Emily Manger.
PS Cottier 