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.
***
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.
Poems at Australian Poetry
January 22, 2015
Press this link for poems written during the on-line course ‘Write what you can’t know’ in which I tutored last year for Australian Poetry:
http://www.australianpoetry.org/news/our-speculative-poetry-on-line-course/
One by Merryn Juliette, one by Robyn Black and one by the tutor currently known as moi. Mine is about a very nasty poet elf.
This image pleases me; so here it is again.
Tuesday poem: Better than a facelift
January 19, 2015
Better than a facelift
(Inspired by the rejection of a prose work I wrote about poetry for possibly supporting the view that poetry is an ‘adolescent’ activity.)
Damn those adolescents,
with their playful texts
their unruly emotions
and their weird conceits.
The world is as it seems.
Damn them for their quirky fashions
and their belief in signs and dreams.
Settle down, you freaky teens,
and develop a CV.
It is never too early to be half-dead!
There is nothing like
advanced middle age
for teaching what one should see,
and how to take things solemnly
like the sensible me-he
who patrols this moat, and keeps it pure;
ejecting the splashy-squeaky.
Exeunt, stage right, and take
your selfies with you,
and those peculiar devices. Go!
And pick up those rappers!
I like things neat as a plastic lawn,
without a single blush of flamingo,
where no emoji dares to grin
and poetry conjures forth
a proper sense of dread.
P.S. Cottier
World’s Oldest Adolescent
‘Nuff said, really. Except that when one is my age, being called potentially adolescent causes an undeniable frisson.
Of course, a view that the ‘adolescent’ is a thing to be avoided reinforces the belief that poetry is a very dated interest. Ironic that, given that some poets of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries tended to act like adolescents are reputed to act. Shelley (PB) for example, would now just about qualify for the modern category of ‘adolescent’; if one is oddly interested in such uneccessary categories.
There is a view, of course, that seriousness equates with solemnity. That is, like totes sad. (Rising inflection, please. For am I not an honorary adolescent?)
It did make me think though, that rejection, and swear that I would continue writing what I want. Which sometimes tends toward the playful and humorous, like this cathartic little slap of a poem. Being light, or stompingly satiric, has its place, in both prose and poetry.
I have some more poetry to write, and must break out the shocking puns and the unlikely meatphors*. I promise not to mention flamingos again for a while, as I realise that they are becoming a trope in my writing. A pink trope, which isn’t only adolescent, but ‘feminine’ as well. Shudder. That’s so flippant it’s an ornithological handbag.
*A genuine typo, but let’s let it stand.
If you would like more poetry, defying all easy categorisation, press this link.
Beyond the realm of the merely freaky
January 12, 2015
That’s where you’ll find me, from time to time. One exciting development in the horrible world that lies on the wrong side of THE THIN BEIGE LINE OF COMPARATIVE NORMALITY ©* is Midnight Echo, the official magazine of the Australian Horror Writers Association. Kaaron Warren is editing the next issue, and I have a poem in it, along with a column about poetry.
Press this link for the fully horrible Table of Contents. I can’t wait to be sickened, in a good way, by the issue.
who left the drawbridge down?
I also have a poem coming up in the 200th issue of Antipodean SF, which explicitly addresses the merits, or otherwise, of flash fiction. And I believe a story of mine from THE VAULTS, otherwise known as 2008, may also be appearing.
There are other publications looming too, like the mutant pterodactyls of Moscow in a novel by Dmitry Glukhovsky, but these are enough for today.
*no, not copyright at all. If you like dreadful writing, please help yourself to the phrase.
