Launch of The Cancellation of Clouds
October 21, 2011
This is the cover of my third book, with a somewhat pensive sheep under a very blank sky. (It’s a poetry collection.)
Hal Judge launched The Cancellation of Clouds at 6pm, Thursday 20th October 2011 at Smiths Alternative Bookstore, Alinga Street, Civic. (Civic is another name for Canberra’s ‘city’ centre – a non-existent thing, really – and the name is intended to contrast with political, governmental, national Canberra.) Hal gave a very thoughtful speech, and I read a few poems, and drank a poetic amount of wine. Senator Nick Xenophon, an independent Senator from South Australia, also read a poem, after he launched the bookstore’s new bar.
Senator Xenophon takes a gamble
(Thanks Lily Mulholland for this photo.)
If you would like to order the book, please go to this page, within the Ginninderra Press site. The first review of the book, by Professor Peter Pierce in The Canberra Times, describes it as ‘droll, intelligent and varied’, which was a very positive thing to read. And totally right, too! Another reviewer, Michael Byrne, states that ‘It is…love for (and embracing of) the different that seems to define Cottier as a poet.’
And in the book’s first international recognition, New Zealand poet and man of letters Tim Jones describes The Cancellation of Clouds as an ‘Australian poetry collection with a distinctively wry yet dark tone and very effective use of long stanzas and densely packed lines.’. All very gratifying, especially hearing I’m more dark wry than white bread…
***
Now I return you to the real piece that bears the title given above. I originally wrote what follows below back on January 22, 2009, and it still seems a good inclusion for my blog, although I notice a recent trend to write a little more often here than I did originally. For a long time this was the first post the reader saw on my blog, and I only recently allowed it to move away from its ‘sticky’ position on the first page.
Cicadas and tortoises. And poetry?
In my case, cicadas and tortoises seem apt metaphors for the process of writing. My first book, The Glass Violin, a poetry collection, has just been published by Ginninderra Press. Some of the works in the collection go back twenty years, so the easy option of comparing myself with a tortoise comes to mind. There’s nothing like a good old shell of cliché in which to hide an idea.
Yet I actually write quite quickly. I’ve just been a shocker about trying to have my work published. About a year ago I decided to put an emphasis on seeking publication, and I have been quite fortunate in finding places that liked my work.
Cicadas spend most of their life underground, only emerging after years and years to produce an ear-splitting cacophony. They only live a short while after emergence. As a practising poet, I feel a lot like one of these insects, pushing through editorial mud, but hopefully the process of publication has just begun. I wrote this poem about the vocabulary used for referring to poets as emerging, developing and established:
Emerging poets
White, shovel-shaped finger-nails,
rotten smell, the world’s worst bulbs.
Like durian fruit mushrooming,
zombie poets emerge, pushing
through editorial soil, groaning,
after a decade’s slushy stew.
Perhaps some emerge politely,
quaint chicks toothing oval eggs.
Others make neat papier mâché
cocoons from rejections, wait,
then one day, poof! Harlequin
wings, trembly antennae. Most
are born bogongs, banging on
bright lit windows. Any more sir?
(I like to think that my poetry is a little more melodic than the noise of a cicada, although this example is admittedly a little less than elegiac. Incidentally, all poems on this site are by me, unless otherwise indicated.)
This will be a very occasional blog, as this cicada prefers to work on her poetry. It’s always a temptation to bury yourself away, once the soil has been so very comfortable for so long…
I was very happy to read this review. And this one, too.
And since then, a second book, this time a short collection of short stories:
Both can be ordered from Ginninderra Press, under poetry and fiction respectively.
First review! Plus stars!
September 30, 2011
That’s to say this is the first review on this site. Fear not dear discerning blog-lover, I have written quite a number previously. Indeed, my reviewing efforts were once rewarded with the prize of $200 worth of wine by the ACT Writers Centre, as part of their annual awards. That’s what a poet calls ‘Breakfast’. I have the pleasure of judging the same award for book reviewing, sponsored by Z4 wines, this year.
And actually, I’m lying. There is a link here to a review written by a Canberra writer who calls himself or herself Poetix. So the review is not really here at all. I assume Poetix is a Canberra writer as the review of Canberra and Beyond by well known Canberra identity Bill Tully appears on the RiotACT, a Canberra-based discussion site about all things Canberran.
Sometimes you can have just too much Canberra.
For those 99.999% of the world’s population who have no interest in Canberra (which is the capital of Australia, for those overseas who have never heard of it) please enjoy this little poem about the frustrations of astronomy. The night sky differs between the hemispheres, but there are always stars.
Kicking the telescope
All this antic fiddling
when I wanted wonder
injected from you
like a syringe of pure white.
Fingers work, and thumbs,
in order to make a handle
of space, my grip as dumb
as a paralytic’s knee.
Perspicillim, sounds like
a Martian’s green-snot cold.
Ugly tripod, alien crouching,
on those three ungainly legs.
I swing mine to make a fourth.
You bow your one-eyed head.
P.S. Cottier
About whales
September 6, 2011
Stranded
Huge rubber torpedoes loose themselves onto shore;
a giant’s speed-humps beached. Incomprehensible,
these commas in a language no-one knows to speak.
Like sheep they follow each other, but no canny dog
can turn them, head them back to deep supporting sea.
Victims of gravity, bulk weighs them down,
and spread of sand becomes a massy grave.
That short word why grows in watchers’ minds,
pressing like the bodies on that fatal beach.
No answer comes. We water them like giant bulbs,
and strain to plant them back in bed of ocean.
But sometimes there can be just too much coast.
Unseen sirens called them, and some turned back
to dire, heavy death. Lapped by waves,
gentle as a fading memory, what do whales see
in that final surge, before their spirits swim away?
P.S. Cottier
Google doppelgängers
August 23, 2011
Not my cup of tea
Google doppelgängers
These other Mes are so athletic.
One plays rugby, knows scrummy secrets,
has pressed his face into smelly invisibility,
and walked the fat spider, laying one brown egg.
These other Mes have mazy businesses,
an eye for opportunity as I have not.
Invest wisely, reap their golden wheat
or fleece, exporting goods, or bads.
Do those other Mes look me up?
Perhaps they say ‘a poet, how very cute.’
Then return to muddy boots, or cruciate schemes,
and smile. Or think a rhyme, at least in dreams.
Trail of disinformation
August 18, 2011
Must find accent key...
Trail of disinformation
P.S. Cottier
‘Does it really matter, love? After all, we’re talking about a snail, aren’t we? I put down bait for them. Or squash them. It’s them or my veggies.’ Bill smiled, ate a peanut, and drank a little more beer.
‘It’s a special snail. A green one. Tiny.’ I sounded vaguely desperate, and I knew it.
‘But it’s still a snail, green, orange or purple. Rainbow even. I just don’t see the point, worrying about an ugly little bugger like that.’
Bill had hit the nail, or the snail shell, on the head. We were just talking about ‘ugly little buggers’. We wanted to prevent the development of a proposed mine because of the presence of rare miniature green snails, only found in one small pocket of rain-forest. If it were koalas, once the subject of a bounty, we would have been national heroes. A rare species of bird would be understandable. Everyone can see beauty in a bird. But a mollusc is quite a different kettle of fish. Too far beneath our eyes to count. Too near our feet.
It was Jennifer, my best friend and fellow conservationist, who came up with the idea to give our campaign to save the habitat of the endangered snail a certain indefinable…je ne sais quoi.
I knew we were onto a winner the next time I ran into Bill at the pub. He was reading the newspaper, the one that Jennifer had just leaked her ‘secret information’ to. It trembled in his hands. I noticed that he wasn’t smiling, or cracking jokes like errant carapaces amongst the beans. Indeed, he seemed a little angry, a little red in the face.
Bill turned the paper over so I could read the article he had just read. I had to cover my nascent smile as I read:
‘French offer to take Aussie snails
This paper has heard that an offer has been made, through official channels, for all the endangered miniature green snails in the area currently being considered for the development of a new mine to be removed and relocated to France, at the expense of the French Government. It is hoped that the species may prove edible.’
‘Bloody cheek’, said Bill, as he took a long drink of beer. ‘They’ve got their own snails. Poor little buggers. Why do they want to steal ours?’
He’d forgotten his previous comments about pellets and gardening. We had wrapped the miniature green snail in the flag, rendered it as Australian as the kangaroo. We eat them, but that’s different, apparently.
Despite vigorous denials from the French embassy, the story stuck. The public was outraged. Next week, the Government officially declared the snail habitat protected.
And deep in the bush, the tiny snails act out their slimy lives, safe from the development of a new tin mine. And of course, safe from any forced repatriation to the restaurant rich and risky boulevards of Paris.
PS Cottier 