Tuesday prose about poetry
September 3, 2013
I just had to write about last Friday, which saw a flurry of poetic activity at The Front, a café/bar/gallery/performance space in Lyneham. The regular poetry slam held there, organised by Josh (JC) Inman and Varisht Gosain also saw the launch of the fourth edition of Canberra journal Burley. Patrick Mullins and Cara Foster edit that journal, although I understand that the editorial team is being enlarged for the next issue. Lots of wonderful poets performed in the slam, which was expertly judged…(Why, yes, I helped with that. Chris was the winner.)
But most interestingly for this little rhymester, there were two guest poets: Jackson from Western Australia, who radiates energy and plays the guitar, and Jennifer Compton. Fellow Tuesday Poet JC. Here we are before the slam started, and you can see Burley-related activity going on in the gallery space behind us:
Berets aplenty!
(Thank you to the pretty young man who took the photo! If you have a name, I have forgotten it, unfortunately.) It is the first time I have met Jennifer, who has been performing right down the east coast; notably at the Queensland Poetry Festival. She was tired, but her poetry was far from tiring: she does a very nice job in wicked and quietly disturbing.
This was a night that showed all that is good about Canberra; even the weather is pulling itself up by its bootstraps. I am, however, referring to the energy of the poetry, in both written and spoken form. All happening within a very short walking distance of my house.
Wonderful stuff, with a real mix of types of poetry and ages of poets. Sometimes I really love Canberra. Not the politicians’ Canberra, but the place where people live.
Click this feather and go to New Zealand for good poets who published actual poetry today:
Tuesday poem: Paraskavedekatriaphobia
August 26, 2013
Paraskavedekatriaphobia*
Yes, lock the door. Tight. Check and check again.
Did you move the spare key hidden under the concrete swagman?
The unlucky swagman who drowned himself in the iconic creek?
Open door. Remove key. Lock door. Check and check again.
Make a cup of tea. Kettle is broken. Use the stove.
Sip slowly; only twelve hours to go. Enjoy the aroma. Peace.
God, God, do you smell gas? Yes, yes; check the stove for leaks.
Check each knob for verticality. Check and check again.
Germs! There are always germs. Clean and clean again.
Polish the door handles. Remove all swagman germs.
Clean the cup, the stove, the pot. Scrub hands. Disinfect.
Judas germs hide under nails. Check and check again.
Slip once and slip again. Polish is so slip slippery;
floors are ice-rinks to ug-boots. You trip and fall;
fall into the bath of steaming Dettol. Can’t move.
Broken neck. Swagman’s death. Die and die again.
P.S. Cottier
*Paraskavedekatriaphobia is the morbid fear of Friday the 13th.
‘Paraskavedekatriaphobia’ published in ACT Writers Centre Poets’ Lunch anthology (Boris Books) called Friday 13th. Selected by Michael Byrne and Paul Kooperman.
Lots of fun to write a poem laughing at irrational fears. So long as they are other people’s irrational fears, hm?
Now I promise that the following feather, although black, has no evil powers or even tendencies. Click it, fly to New Zealand, read poetry.
Just avoid any flying concrete swagmen on the way.
Tuesday poem: Flat pack
August 12, 2013
Flat pack
Welcome to the world of self assembly!
All the basics are provided. You as a baby,
tools, a diagram of a family with two options:
happy and Tolstoy. Pick up the Allen key.
Turn it towards you so as to see the end.
Notice the six, even-handed sides?
This hex key is useful for casting spells.
Wave it over yourself and gurgle.
Direction is unimportant at this stage.
You are both magician and magic;
worker, hive, queen bee and honey.
Gradually, you will begin to take form.
You may lean a little to left or right.
This is not a fault of manufacture,
but a natural quality of the components.
Wobbling, flopping and total disintegration;
undermining by termites or excess thoughts
are also to be expected. The high gloss finish
may peel a little. Oil it up with achievement
(not included in the kit, but easily obtainable).
When assembled, you should find yourself satisfactory.
If not, please use the supplied rope as you see fit.
P.S. Cottier
This poem is from my collection The Cancellation of Clouds. You can order the book on the ‘About’ page, if you are keen. I think I was trying out a little Dorothy Parker with that last line…
If you wish for more poetry, press this black feather, fly to New Zealand, and present the following invisible docket:(…………………) Poetry will be presented. Free steak knives are also a possibility.
Thursday prose: The dark side of the desk
August 8, 2013
The Edited Becomes the Editor: On moving to the dark side of the desk
See that link, dear reader? Follow it and you will glean valuable insight into the process of editing. You will read horror stories about Bad Editors! You will meet knights, zombies, ghosts and Me. Tim Jones appears as a back story, too.
Have fun!
Tuesday poem: Roll up! Leap through!
July 29, 2013
Roll up! Leap through!
Outside, beyond the neon tights, the paisley
sequinned flares of the artistes, tracing
such rococo knots in the canvas sky,
waits a lion called Frank, the last of his kind.
Tastes have changed, and lion-taming,
with such clear-cut rules of whip and chair,
has become passé, so yesterday.
The sententious prescripts of the pure —
that modern hygiene of the mind —
sweep scuddy sawdust aside like lice,
and draw a line through bear and lion.
So Frank, mane beige and moulting, lives
a most solitary life, a stuck record repeating
the rank smells of piss and popcorn,
the hooplah! and the swish of knives,
carving the air like a Sunday roast
around the tasty ribs of Madam Frisson.
She is just as bored and trapped as he
as she awaits her husband’s swinging arm,
as sensitive as a brass metronome.
Soon Frank will be too shabby, even for this
ring of superannuated fantasy.
No scrubby savannah of reconciliation,
no release for a circus-bred beast,
into a sudden pride of compliance.
Just the screams from the audience
at the trapeze and the squirt-flowery gambit
of painted clown. His dreams are smeared
with a thin imagined relish of gazelle,
as he bobs and bobs that shameful mane.
Soon, though, the final bob; the final doze.
He’ll leap, ungoaded, through the hoop of death
onto who knows what plains, what deer-rich grass?
P.S. Cottier
This is another poem written in response to a prompt, or in this case, ten prompts. The Canadian journal Contemporary Verse 2 has a yearly competition where they post a list of ten words, and the poets (who must have enrolled previously) have 48 hours to create a poem which must contain each of those words. Loads of fun, and some of the successful works are terrific. Hop over to Canada for a look. I just noticed that they used a little snippet of my poem on the introductory page for the competition. Which is nice to see.
I didn’t win however; hence the posting, but I quite like the poem.
(I had a slightly bigger cat in mind than the overly cute thing in the photo, by the way…)
Click this feather and fly to New Zealand, after your return from Canada, to read more poetry:
Incidentally, Janis Freegard is featuring another poem by me about a creature that sometimes bites: the smiley emoticon. Here’s the link. Thanks Janis!
