On the buses
April 7, 2011
I wanna catch me some poesy...
No, this is not a post about a hideous 1970s (?) British comedy called On the Buses, but about poetry recently published on the bus network in Canberra. The ACT government buys the advertising space on the buses for three months, so that people have something to look at that’s a little more interesting. I’m delighted that my poem will be seen by an estimated 10,000 people.
Here’s my poem called ‘Dad’s tea’, which is about (drumroll…) tea. Click to enlarge.
Bullying is forever (and beauty is truth)
March 22, 2011
Told by an idiot
There will always be one; thick glasses
squinting into unfriendly sun of the lovely,
ginger hair sprouting like the devil’s alfalfa
or yellow snakes of teeth dancing from mouth
to a crooked unheard tune. The sporty ones
will always tease, with their effortless jumps,
and flicks of grace, the laurel of the popular
a crown to their cruel, unearned joys.
And at the edge, noticing or feeling,
there’ll still be the quiet, lonely ones,
slipping under the radar with their
secret books and scuba words.
P.S. Cottier
Taking my vocabulary for a walk
February 15, 2011
I was taking my vocabulary for a walk the other day when it brought back this poem! On this walk, my vocab. was more a poodle than a pitbull, and as it loves showing off, I decided to please it by publishing the rather silly poem here.
13 words that should be in a poem
Tintinnabulate, with no little white dog.
Albedo, a lemon wedge of sun, no gin.
Froufrou whispering of salons most Prousty
Overheard by stuffy disapproving frowzy.
Bilby, because they’re far better than rabbits.
Gubernatorial, before the Republic erupts!
Autochthonous ditto, when we ditch the Poms,
Just like the Indians, with bulk pappadoms.
Papillae and papillote, for nice soft curly fingers.
Isostasy threatened by two in that line I just writ.
Tectonic as panic rocks this poem’s solidity,
But I pulled it together. Quite sylleptically.
P.S. Cottier
Bad dog! Bad! Go back and find something more lyrical!
The best thing about writing a blog…
January 28, 2011
…is that you can post poems or stories that you know would be rejected from serious poetry journals. This little piece (not a story, certainly not a poem) deals with the Antipodean writer seeking publication in a Very Serious American journal. It’s partially based on fact: I had one editor tell me that while international submissions would be accepted for a competition, he didn’t encourage them, as some of the publisher’s books once went astray in Asia. A broad geographical area that presumably includes Australia. Needless to say I didn’t enter that competition. (Most US journals/publishers are much better than this, by the way.)
Smart and Serious
‘Be professional, patient and persistent’
Advice given on Duotrope’s Digest web-site
Three communications received from Smart and Serious: America’s premier journal of the literary short story and of avant-garde poesie by Ms Felicity Quillpien, writer (retired) of Sydney, Australia.
1-2-2011
Dear Ms Quillpien,
We love your story! It deals with the essential paradoxes of the human condition in an elegant and thought-provoking way. I particularly enjoyed the way you played with notions of gender throughout your story. Your style rivals that of Jane Austen and the description of the house of endless rooms is positively Kafka-esque! Congratulations!
However, Smart and Serious is a literary journal, and we are therefore unable, under any circumstances, to publish science fiction.
I suggest you submit to a genre magazine, if such pulpy things exist outside of my worst nightmares.
Yours sincerely,
Roland K Roland
editor
P.S. We are unable to return the manuscript, or your attractive ornamental tokens (‘IRCs’ whatever they may be) due to your disregard for our instructions that adequate postage be attached to a self-addressed envelope.
2-1-2011
Dear Ms Quillpien,
Sincere praise for your new story. I am glad to see that you have jettisoned any suggestion of the future, adventure, humor (note spelling, please) or the possibility of a life in any way different from that currently lived in North America (excluding Canada). The lack of any verb in the first ten paragraphs struck me as particularly conducive to engendering a feeling of contemplation on behalf of the more sensitive reader of our peerless feuilleton.
I was about to mail the acceptance letter, when I noticed you live in Australia. Smart and Serious does not accept stories translated from the original, although we often favor (spelling) the French language in our use of English. We find it adds a certain Proustian quality, the soft pas of a boulevardier, the frou-frou of dresses and the enchanting smell of the salon, would you not agree?
I suggest you submit to a German language literary journal, if such boldly Teutonic things exist.
Yours sincerely,
Roland K Roland,
editor
8-3-2011
Dear Ms Quillpien,
Thank you for your enquiry about submitting to Smart and Serious‘s first ever short story competition. I answer your rather curt questions and complaints in turn:
1. Payment must be made by check. (Please check your spelling before even considering further communication. Last I heard, a cheque was a type of European to be found quite close to Australia’s borders.)
2. I am sorry that a check for $15 US costs so much to arrange in Australia. May I suggest that a change of venue might be in order? Smart and Serious, as a literary journal, can hardly concern itself with the realities of international commerce, politics, or economics. ‘Countries may come and go but soft Literature is forever/ She slides through crepuscular mornings like a feline snail.’ (Copyright, Roland K. Roland, from Stanza 58 of my ‘Thoughts for Twilight Mornings’, forthcoming in next month’s Smart and Serious.)
3. Cash is not acceptable. It would lower the tone. Your suggestion that ‘money is money and at least the dollar speaks clearly’ does not bode well for any story that might be about to spring from your marsupial pen.
4. Electronic submission is similarly vulgar. If we embraced technology, next we knew, we’d be publishing science fiction! God only knows where that might lead!
I hope that this helps you in your admirable if rather surprising intention of submitting an entry (English original only, danke) to Smart and Serious. We like to think of ourselves as literary missionaries, bringing culture to the world. The world can only learn from the American literary journal, of which Smart and Serious is the exemplar, par excellence.
As I have been busy lately, I am afraid that the closing date for the contest has already passed. As the French put it, Temps fugit! Perhaps you might consider an entry in next year’s contest instead?
Yours sincerely,
Roland K Roland,
editor
On prizes and poetry
December 13, 2010
‘I had rather be a kitten and cry mew Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers’ (Shakespeare, Henry IV part 1)
Poetry long ago lost its place as the most respected form of writing in our society; poets may be the legislators of the soul, but the number of souls within poetry’s jurisdiction is comparatively small. You write poems, and you hope they make someone’s mind quake a little, or at least experience a bit of a shadowy quiver. Poets are become the sherbet of the soul, it seems, if not the fruit tingles. (Fruit Frisson, anyone?)
Prizes for poetry are important in that they show that (a) at least one other person has read your work and (b) they liked it. To be selected for an award judged by a ‘panel of experts’, all of whom must have preferences and peccadilloes (or armatures and armadillos) is sweet, as it means that your idiosyncratic words have touched more than one mind; perhaps even surprised people into forgetting that they are working their way through a pile of poetry taller than the average skyscraper.
I just heard that I have been awarded a prize called the David Campbell Prize (shared with another poet called Robyn Lance) administered by ArtsACT . The poem, called ‘Visitation’ was very bleak indeed; a mediated response to stories that we read in the newspapers of parents who kill their children, stories which can haunt the reader for days. I wanted to haunt the reader in the same way, to move well beyond sherbet.
Winning a prize for such a poem conjures forth ambiguous reactions: nothing could be further from my mind when I was working on the piece than the concept of winning. Writing a poem about the murder of children to win a prize would be sick indeed. (You’d be worse than a hack ‘ballad-monger’, regardless of whether the poem rhymed or not.) But I am glad that a poem on a subject outside the usual palette of subject matter won the prize.
PS Cottier 