Tuesday poem: haiku
April 16, 2019
Autumn wind
white leaves swirling
cockatoos
In Canberra at the moment there are thousands of sulphur crested cockatoos and corellas, supplemented with galahs and gang-gang cockatoos. Some of these birds come down from the higher mountains to avoid the even worse cold, and some stay here all year round.
This morning I was having a coffee outside a café watching a cockatoo eat seedpods in a tree, making the leaves fall down, as many other birds flew overhead. Blame him/her for this little poem.
Two anthologies for spring
October 20, 2018
Very happy to have a poem in Best Australian Science Writing 2018, edited by John Pickrell (NewSouth Books), and another one in Poetry Bridges: Canberra/Nara Commemorative Anthology, edited by Saeko Ogi, Amelia Fielden and Noriko Tanaka (Ginninderra Press).
I just attended the launch of this second one, and it was a delight to hear the poems, including mine, translated into Japanese. There is a Nara launch next month, where the Japanese poems will no doubt also be read in English. Nara and Canberra are sister cities, and have been for 25 years. BASW is being launched in Sydney in November.
I am on two panels at Quantum Words in a couple of weeks; this is a day long festival looking at science and writing in Sydney. One is specifically about poetry and science, the other has the unassuming title ‘Writing the Universe’ which sounds vaguely biblical to my ears! To finish off, here is a very Japanese crane, at home in Hokkaido. We were lucky enough to see them in the wild, as well as at the sanctuary.
Tuesday poem: (Rubik’s soundcube)
January 9, 2018
Rubik’s soundcube
my dull lips and ears
can’t decipher
a glorious puzzle —
international students
PS Cottier
I was just thinking what a boring place Canberra would be without the ANU and other universities attracting so many international students, and this tanka was the result.
Looking forward to another year of posting on (most!) Tuesdays
Tuesday poems: via links
September 21, 2017
A new online women’s poetry journal, based in Canberra and edited by Sandra Renew and Moya Pacey, has been launched called Not Very Quiet and I have three poems in it, covering such topics as homelessness — and the middle class desire to avoid the homeless — depression, and the way that depressed people are patronised, and annoying editors, and what should be done with them. That links to the last mentioned poem, which is the funniest one. Writing humorous poetry that also has more than laughs to it is quite an art, I think, and one type of work that I like to write. Have a look around at the journal, which contains a lot of interesting poetry.
Another newish journal is Mnemosyne: South Coast Women’s Journal which is edited by a group of women from, or living on, the south coast of NSW. I wrote a poem called ‘Going to the Coast’, which was published as part of their ‘Flash Fiction Friday’ initiative. A very lovely journal with a lot of ideas behind it.
If anyone is wondering how the name is pronounced; it’s a bit like Penelope. Which does not rhyme with antelope.
Tuesday poem: (bikes sticks birds)
July 20, 2017
bikes sticks birds
inner city Canberra
feathered bustle
PS Cottier
This beautiful bird was photographed in ‘inner city’ Canberra, a few kilometres from Parliament House. It was walking around a pond, one that was relatively recently created as part of a project to return some of Sullivan’s Creek to a more, um, creek-like state rather than the concrete drain it has been for a while.
In my little book Paths Into Inner Canberra I talk about this effort to recreate a ‘natural’ environment in a little more depth. But it’s great to be able to spot creatures like this heron so near to where I live.
