Poem: Components (via link)
November 11, 2025
If you go to this link, you’ll find a poem I just had published at the venerable AntipodeanSF, called “Components”. It involves a horse and cart, which allows me to use that wonderful illustration by Phiz, of a scene from Dickens’s David Copperfield.
The poem is about routine and magic, and is rather long, by my standards. But by no means Dickensian.
Poem (via link)
October 30, 2023
Very happy that my poem “Hip gnomes” was just awarded the Australasian Horror Writers Association Shadows Award in the poetry category for 2022. A great trophy! And everyone needs a tombstone arriving just before Halloween.
You can read the poem here, where it was first published at AntipodeanSF late last year. (That’s a link to Trove, which may take a little while to load.) AntipodeanSF is a free online publication that has been around for many years. Thank you to editor Ion Newcombe, and also to Kaaron Warren, who gave a speech on my behalf and picked up the award.
I’ve had two poems about osteoporosis published; this is by far the more fantastical (and dark) of the pair.
Scifaiku via link
July 1, 2022
Just had a number of science fiction haiku (scifaiku) published at Starlight SciFaiku Review Issue 2. Tap here to go there. The more I edit poetry for a newspaper, the more I seem to be writing speculative poetry. I am also having a scifaiku published every month at AntipodeanSF, which can be read here.
Aliens
September 13, 2021
Just had a poem published at Burrow, an on-line journal published by Old Water Rat Publishing, edited by Jillian Hall and Phillip Hall. It’s called The peculiar comfort of aliens, which was my response to the topic, non-human companions. I also put it one about a dog, but unsurprisingly, the submissions would have rained cats and dogs. Do have a look around the poems, it is a great collection.
Speaking of aliens, you can read some great short science fiction stories at AntipodeanSF, where I also have a scifaiku about nasty things that can happen in space. I’ll be having one there every month for a while. This publication, which has been around for a very long time indeed, is edited by Ion Newcombe.
A nasty nursery rhyme
August 3, 2021
Diddle diddle cumquat gnomes on the porch eating all the fairies with a golden fork See thirteen budgies aviary all full? screaming at a guinea pig red flag to wee bull Poets are itching itching with an itch one is a rhymer one is not so rich Gnomes are coming cumquat diddle dum hungry for eyeballs now they’ll have some fun! PS Cottier
I seem to be writing a lot of fantasy lately, probably as an escape from the exigencies of editing. Just had another very little thing published at the venerable AntipodeanSF. A scifaiku, the first of a few to come.
PS Cottier 