Book launch
August 24, 2012
Here’s the cover of my, or rather, our new book. Joan Kerr and J.C. Inman and myself each have a suite of poems in Triptych Poets Issue Three, published by Blemish Books.
The launch will be held at Paperchain Books in Manuka on 20th September at 6pm. Refreshments! Readings! Two out of three of the poets! Unfortunately Joan Kerr will not be there. I do hope I get to meet her some time.
Dr Paul Hetherington will be doing the honours. Do get along if you’re in Canberra. Josh (aka J.C.) reads well, and I’m not totally shabby either, so it should be fun.
I’ll post details of where you can order the book soon.
Tuesday poem: From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson
August 20, 2012
From a Railway Carriage
Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill, and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
From A Child’s Garden of Verses
On 7th September, the Poets Train (aka Poetry in Motion) will be leaving Canberra, bound for Sydney. Now this is not a plan by the burghers of the ACT to rid themselves of the tiresome pox of poetry, but an initiative of Australian Poetry, the relatively new national poetry organisation.
Vers libre: No-one is keeping it on the rails. Hence the lack of rails.
We will be composing poetry on the train. A chapbook of poems will result. Countrylink, the NSW train people, will be donating a return fare to anywhere on their network for the best poem. (How that will be judged is something I do not know. But throwing the other poets off the train seems like a wise precaution.)
In Sydney we will read and/or slam, given our preferences. I think it sounds like fun!
I will give an update on the Poetry Train later on. If you’re interested in joining the train, here is the Countrylink page with the details. (Scroll down). It may already be too late, but possibly not. You will have to book accommodation in Sydney (Fiona McIlroy, the organiser, whose email appears on the Countrylink page, may be able to help with suggestions for reasonably priced places and don’t forget a return fare! Unless you decide to stay in that beautiful, comparatively WARM city.)
In the meantime, the feather below may be pressed in an emergency. Such as if you feel the need for more poems.
Tuesday poem: Hoppy
August 13, 2012
Hoppy
One-legged plastic soldier lying on the footpath,
un-mourned victim of sand-pits and tree-houses,
imaginary scratch Iraqs of a childhood’s backyard.
Those battles are not what downed you, left you
bereft on naked concrete (though the single limb
speaks of skirmishes with WMD shears).
No, you lost the fight with years, as your Generals
grew away from you, took to iPods, booze or blogs;
left your moulded games of rigidity behind.
You stand to ever-lasting attention
(or would with one more prop)
but there’s no one to salute or shoot,
and your tall castles of Lego have toppled into bins.
Hoppy leans upon a book now
and recounts the days gone by
like a thousand wounded soldiers in
a thousand wounded bars.
Fodder for the poets; soldiers plastic,
soldiers fleshy, forgotten by their masters
tell such abbreviated tales.
P.S. Cottier
imagine one less leg
I found a one-legged toy soldier, who can’t stand up, and that inevitably led to poetry.
I don’t know if there’ll be any more poems about war posted on Tuesday poem this week. Click this feather, which is not that of a dove, to find out:
Tuesday poem: Dogs
August 7, 2012
Dogs
Descartes strapped them down alive, and cut.
Pavlov slit their throats and made them swallow.
Better the ignorant man and his pound mutt
who know love, unadorned, and wallow
in its myriad humble wonders.
Who can see a tail waving, without
her heart leaping in metronomic time?
They exist, I know, but my mind doubts
anyone who could question that airy prayer.
Simpler philosophy is sometimes enough,
Horatio;
that endless love with no thought of death,
this wiser being that knows no half, no grey
knows no lies, no second guessing or stealth,
is constantly re-born whole every day
(except for mini-deaths when we go away).
Baptising trees with presents of smell
reading sun in every squirt,
heaven in dirt; only finds hell
when we clever ones impose it
from high-minded above.
Dig deeper dog,
show us joy
in this moment
that’s forever.
Together.
Fetch.
P.S. Cottier
Scentimental, I know.
Click this link for added poesie:
Other one, moron
The state of the world weighing on your shoulders like last week’s albatross? What you need, my friend, is a good injection of humour.
You’d have to be Visually Impaired Freddy not to notice that humorous stories do not, in general, do as well in literary competitions as serious, sometimes even a little, um, dull ones. Here’s a competition that seeks to remedy that:
The Best of Times short story competition #14.
Here are the conditions of entry. Note that payment can be made by Paypal, and entries may be emailed, so people outside Australia have no excuse.
What to enter:
Humorous short stories (any theme) up to 2500 words.
Prizes:
First prize: $200, second prize: $50. (That’s AUD.)
Third place, highly commended and commended certificates will be awarded too.
Closing date:
31 Oct 2012.
Conditions of entry:
Entrants can enter as many times as they like.
Each story must be written in English and be the entrant’s own original work.
Stories that have won a prize or certificate in previous Best of Times or Winter Surprise competitions are ineligible for entry.
Entrants retain copyright and all rights to their work.
Postal entries:
No entry form is required. Include a cover sheet with your name and address, story title and word count, and where you heard about the
competition.
Entry fee is $6 per story. Send a cheque or money order made out to Chris Broadribb. Post your entry to PO Box 55, Blaxcell NSW 2142.
Include a large SSAE so that your story can be returned afterwards, along with a results sheet.
E-mailed entries:
Please provide your name and address, story title and word count, and where you heard about the competition.
Email your entry to cabbook-14@yahoo.com.au
Entry fee is $6 per story. Use PayPal to pay cabbook-14@yahoo.com.au
Results:
For an electronic copy of the results, please provide your email address.
Winners will be notified by email or post by December 2012.
The list of winners will be displayed on the competition website.
Winning stories will be published on the website if the authors agree.
Competition webpage (Popups)
The contest is organised and judged by Chris Broadribb. So tickle her. Pluck a feather from that albatross and tickle her like there’s no tomorrow. Which, I sometimes think…Oh shut up.
PS Cottier 