Tuesday boast: Poet does non-fiction
December 13, 2016
Very happy that my wee book Paths Into Inner Canberra has been short-listed in the non-fiction category of the ACT Writers Centre Publishing Awards. Last year the book I edited with Tim Jones called The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry was highly commended in the poetry category, which is a different kettle of aliens.
The photo by Geoffrey Dunn above shows me pedalling vigorously (or coasting) between genres. Of course, poetry often describes the world in all its maddening detail from a slightly different perspective. Slant, as one Ms Dickinson put it. So rather than speaking of the bike-path running between poetry and non-fiction, perhaps we should picture two lanes separated by a weirdly curving, vivid orange line. Poetry as high-vis non-fiction? Non-fiction as poetry elongated into paragraphs? Mmm, I think I need to do a bit more thinking from under my invisible helmet.
I’m afraid I haven’t read the other non-fiction books nominated. Here is a link to all the nominations. I have read the two poetry collections nominated, and they are both excellent.
Looking forward to the announcement on Thursday, and I am more than happy that a book that retails for $4 (plus postage) has made it to the short-list. Makes an excellent alternative to the type of Christmas card in which Santa hovers over the chimneys like a rum-filled Hindenburg.
My new poetry collection, Quick Bright Things: Poems of Fantasy and Myth, marks a return to fairies. But often rather unpleasant ones, not so far removed from reality. It is also available at that link.
UPDATE: 16-12 Very happy that Paths received a Highly Commended at the awards last night. Building a City – C.S. Daley and the Story of Canberra by Jennifer Horsfield was the winner in this category, and well done to her.
Tuesday Poem: Two dogs
December 6, 2016
Two dogs
Young dog cups warmth
into her belly —
lots more where that came from
Old dog limps towards the fire
dreams, remembering bones.
We know of the bones to be.
PS Cottier
This poem first appeared at the Project 365 + 1 blog for which I wrote a poem a day in June. And yes, I have an old dog and a very vigorous middle aged dog. People always whinge about how quickly their children grow up, but a fourteen year old dog is not an adolescent!
Now I’m off to attempt to write something, and to paint my nails a vivid sparkly green. Christmas demands it.
Tuesday poem: Outings
November 28, 2016
Outings
Out for review
Out for the count
Out of time
Out for lunch
Out and about
Out for a duck
Out of luck
Out of the closet
Out on the town
Out of the corner of my eye
Out of the box
Out of the mouths of babes
Out of fashion
Out caught behind
Out of it
Out and out
Over and out
PS Cottier
A bit of fun this week; and why not, as we head into glorious summer and Christmas?
I was chuffed (a technical term for a state somewhere between freakily ecstatic and mildly pleased) to hear that I have been shortlisted for the Red Room New Shoots Poetry Prize, in collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney, and Rochford Street Review. You can access the full shortlists here (plural as there was a site specific contest for the Botanic Gardens, too). Lovely to recognise some other people on the list! And to see some names that are totally unfamiliar, as well.
Now I’m off to work on some sunburn.
Tuesday poem: Love letters
November 22, 2016
Love letters
I love you poetry because all I need is an old envelope — Telstra or power bill or guff — and a pen
And you wait there hidden between the grains of paper like a wee tiger, pouncing, or a huge poodle, primping
I can write you for everyone, or just for me
And through you I have met clever people, and some even good (and also pricks, but let’s not dwell in embroidery)
Poetry you keep my mind in the top fifteen percent of my generation
And you make me embed my thought in Real Words™ like a bloodbug in a mattress, burrowing
I weep for you when some use your name to produce pungent advertisements for self — ah! the faces I have slapped, the duels I have fought in your name (if only on paper)
You allow me to take a word — say egregious — and handball it back to myself with slicker hands than Hawthorn
And you stretch back and forward as far as music
And you adapt like Galapagos, but quick
Tourniquet and snake, you bite and comfort, and I love you like a convenient maiden aunt loves her old cat, who miraculously survived the pitbull
And you are the very pitbull, and the pitbull’s teeth.
P.S.Cottier
***
And in vaguely related news, I was just highly commended in the Poetry category of the Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing, organised by the New England Writers Centre. Very nice. The winner of the poetry prize (which I won last year) was Ian Hood, with a poem called ‘Drowning Satan’, which I look forward to reading. Paul Prenter was commended. All the poems (and stories, etc) will be published soon at the New England Writers Centre website, and I’ll link to that when I can. My poem ‘On average’ was about domestic violence.
The judge was John Foulcher, a fellow Canberran. (Judging was, of course, anonymous.)
P.S. ‘Hawthorn’ in the above, is an Australian Rules football team, who have dominated things over the last five years or so. (Until this year, in fact.) Another helpful guide to Australian culture for benighted foreigners my lovely overseas readers.
P.P.S. Pitbulls are awesome dogs, and are only vicious if abused.
Tuesday poem: Faith took a holiday
November 16, 2016
Faith took a holiday
He hitched down the Hume, or up;
he didn’t tell me. Faith has no fear
of murder, or everyday sleazes
and their boring imprecations.
It’s the ones left behind
who tend to fret. What if,
we say, and perhaps…
as if perhaps isn’t Faith
flipped like a decisive coin,
standing on his head.
As if as if isn’t
closer to for sure
than some might like it to be.
Faith rang me from Melbourne,
(so it was down the Hume)
and said he wanted to look around
a bit longer; catch the trams.
He too remembers
the excellent days of conductors,
with their magical brown bags.
Even Faith feels regret
at the passing of old days;
the spinning of so much
towards the expansive sun
of interconnected drivel.
There is a grace
in not knowing too much,
he said, though Faith would say that,
I suppose. That’s his job.
A kind of conductor
unseen in any tram,
on any route, whatsoever.
Faith will return soon;
I can hear the jingling
just at the edge of thought
and the tune is one
I almost remember.
The brown bag of my
restless, overloaded brain
awaits his presence,
and will sling itself, eager,
over his patient arm.
P.S. Cottier
Like a lot of the world, I’m suffering the post-US election blues, and almost didn’t post this week. The clever amongst you will have noticed that it is Wednesday, not Tuesday, and the weekly schedule has been disrupted. But poetry is fairly unstoppable!
For my overseas readers, the Hume is the major highway linking Melbourne and Sydney. Canberra is just a wee drive from it.
I have no idea why Faith is male in the poem. Perhaps it was some association with Christ? And my phone has just died, which has me longing for the ‘interconnected drivel’ which I decry in the poem, even if I’m avoiding news sites at the moment.
PS Cottier 