Vale Ursula K. Le Guin
January 24, 2018
A wonderful writer just passed away in Portland, Oregon. I’ll never forget puzzling over new views of gender in The Left Hand of Darkness when I was about 10; long before I heard the word ‘gender’. Ursula K. Le Guin introduced me to a disturbing and surprising new world.
Fantasy and many science fiction books seem to have been fed a diet of steroids recently. They seem to grow bigger with each year, as if strength and length were the same thing. But in her often compact books, Ursula K. Le Guin broke down the unnecessary and intellectually inexcusable divisions between ‘serious’ literature and speculative fiction, with thoughtful complexity and beautiful prose.
Her books will live on for a very long time.
Tuesday poem: Excalibur’s Lament
January 17, 2018
This one is via link. ‘Excalibur’s Lament’ is one of a number of poems on the theme Arthuriana, which is the title of the latest edition of Eye To The Telescope. Adele Gardner has edited this issue, and I am finding it fascinating to see how other poets approached re-telling, or re-imagining, the world of the round table.
Eye To The Telecope is an on-line journal of the Science Fiction & Fantasy Poetry Association, based in the USA, which has members in other countries. (Including at least one in the Grand Duchy of Canberra.) Scroll down to find my poem, and enjoy reading all the issue.
Tuesday poem: (Rubik’s soundcube)
January 9, 2018
Rubik’s soundcube
my dull lips and ears
can’t decipher
a glorious puzzle —
international students
PS Cottier
I was just thinking what a boring place Canberra would be without the ANU and other universities attracting so many international students, and this tanka was the result.
Looking forward to another year of posting on (most!) Tuesdays
Tuesday poem: Burning the donkey
December 19, 2017
This one is a Christmas poem, just published at Verity La.
The poem is about reugees. It’s important to remember those excluded and shunned all year, but it’s particularly pertinent to Christmas, when God took on the form of a child born in a stable. The outsider became the centre of the story.
There’s another poem at the site about climate change and specifically, the Great Barrier Reef. An enormous number of future refugees will be fleeing the effects of climate change. And destroying the lives of other species is inexcusable, too.
God bless us, every one! Have a wonderful Christmas.
(Early) Tuesday poem: Interrobang
December 10, 2017
This one is via link to the Thunderbolt Prize, where it was highly commended. It’s about a bike being hit by a car, so prepare for seasonal cheerfulness! The other poems are well worth a look, too. The winning poem is by Jenny Blackford.
I also just had a poem published in Australian Poetry Journal, with a poem about work, and was a finalist in the New Millennium Monthly muse competition, on the subject of fear, but I’m going to hoard that poem for a while and get it published elsewhere. Those competitions are also well worth a look.
Australia is moving into Christmas shutdown mode as we speak. And by Australia I largely mean me…which is fairly arrogant, but there you go. I am not writing as much as usual, and drinking (even) more. Cheers.
