Reflections (it must be December) and a Tuesday poem
December 7, 2015
So as the year drags its poxy old carcass towards December, waiting to be reborn, I thought I’d have a bit of a think on what I’ve done this year in terms of writing. If that is likely to bore the intellectual beeves from your brain’s corral, please scroll down to the end, where there be a poem.
Firstly, the list is not all settled as the anthology edited by Tim Jones and myself has been nominated for the poetry category in the ACT Publishing Awards, run by the ACT Writers Centre.
The awards are to be given out in the lovely old building that is now the Gorman Arts Centre, on the 17th, as people sip wine and nibble on cheese. Or, in some people’s cases, spurn cheese and guzzle wine. I’ll update on those results.
Here’s some other stuff I did this year. Some future publications (accepted but not announced) do not appear:
P.S. Cottier’s stuff in 2015
Poem ‘Canberra’ accepted for Capitals anthology, edited Abhay K. To be published in 2015. Now 2016.
Poems ‘Lord A of Yarralumla’, ‘Bike ride at night’, ‘A good end’ and ‘The smell of heaven’ published in Eureka Street, Volume 25 No 2, 9th February 2015. ‘A good end’ also published in Global Pulse, ‘edited in Rome, produced in Thailand’.
Poem ‘A lively discussion over the merits of flash fiction’ published Antipodean SF, issue 200, February 2015, along with reprint of ‘Prickly Green’. Recording of latter on radio show, March 2015.
Shortlisted Thiel Grant for online writing, March 2015 for proposal to write weekly piece on Frankenstein and Mary Shelley.
Report on Banjo Paterson Festival for Australian Poetry website, March 2015. (I performed a poem at the competition in Orange in February.)
Reading, Folk Dance Association of ACT, March 2015.
Poems ‘Cockatoos’ ‘All the blond Jesuses’ ‘The chicken in Autumn’ ‘A gecko in Canberra’ published in The House is Not Quiet and The World is Not Calm: Poetry from Canberra, edited Geoff Page and Kit Kelen, China, 2015.
Poem ‘After hours in the op shop’ republished in Rhysling Anthology, 2015, USA
Pocket book Paths into Inner Canberra published by Ginninderra Press, March 2015 in ‘Pocket Places’ series.
Adelaide Plains Poets Inc Poetry Competition 2014/15 ‘CLIMATE’ theme, awarded second prize for ‘Circular’. Judge Shelley Hansen.
‘Miles and beyond’ published Eye to the Telescope, Issue 16, on ‘Music’ theme, edited Diane Severson Mori, April 2015. (USA)
Tanka ‘without you’ published All You Need is Love, ed Amelia Fielden, April 2015.
‘Fire haiku’ published in Flood, Fire and Drought, ed Hazel Hall et al May 2015
Poem ‘The fruit of her hands’ published Midnight Echo, no 11, edited Kaaron Warren, April 2015. Also column on poetry, called ‘Writing with the Left Hand: P.S. Cottier discusses the sinister side of poetry’.
Article; ‘Crafty poet seeks words’ in ACTWrite, May 2015 (How I write)
Article ‘Literary competitions: Better than the pokies?’ (retitled ‘An accountant of dreams’) Overland Blog, May 2015
MS ‘ “Impressed upon me even more deeply”; Reflections of the monster’ judged to be ‘outstanding’ by Amy Hilhorst, work & tumble’s letter press chapbook competition, June 2015
Reading, Manning Clark House, June 2015 (30 minutes)
Highly commended inaugural Interstellar poetry award, June 2015 for ‘We are all working our way up, towards the birds’
Poem ‘Carrying an injury’ Verity La, June 2015
Poem ‘Route 9’ awarded third prize Australian Catholic University Poetry Prize 2015 on theme Peace Tolerance and Understanding, judged Kevin Hart and published in book of theme name, August 2015.
‘Shellac’ republished in Dwarf Stars Anthology, USA, 2015, edited John Amen.
Book Review Timelord Dreaming by David P Reiter published SMH 1-7 (on-line) Canberra Times 1-8 (print)
‘Soft-sacks for total relaxation’ (story) published Antipodean SF, August 2015. Also recorded for radio show. Broadcast November 7.
Book Review Growing Older Without Feeling Old: On Vitality and Ageing by Rudi Westendorp published The CT, August 8 2015
Two poems ‘The rules of cricket rewritten for the fairy world’ and ‘All the ships of the world’ published Eureka Street, Volume 25 No 15, 10 August 2015
‘At the Lifeline Bookfair’ Canberra Times, 19 September 2015
First Place Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing, New England Writers Centre, 2015, published Armidale Express and the NEWC website. Judge Les Murray.
Highly Commended FAWQ Poetry Competition, November 2015 ‘The sounds of dying’
‘Secondary ghosts’ published Australian Poetry Journal, Volume 5 Issue 2, November 2015, edited Michael Sharkey.
‘A hard poem to market’ published Cordite ‘Toil’ edition (52) edited Carol Jenkins, 1 November 2015
‘Remembering Laika’ published in A Quiet Shelter There: An Anthology to Benefit Homeless Animals, ed Gerri Lean, Hadley Rille Books (US)
Solo reading/discussion Smith’s Alternative, November 2, 2015. That Poetry Thing That Is On At Smith’s Every Other Monday.
Poem ‘Three ways to look at crochet’ accepted for The Canberra Times, September 2016 (!)
***
I feel I’ve been quite busy this year, and I am particularly pleased with the wee book Paths Into Inner Canberra, which combines prose and poetry. On the other hand, I should be sending out full length manuscripts here and there, but just want to write more individual poems at the moment.
I’ve been doing a few readings, and did my first solo one at Smith’s in November. I particularly enjoyed being interviewed by Norm de Plume (Josh Inman) who is back in Canberra after defecting to Sydney.
Sydernee and Melbourne are both easier places to be a poet, it seems to me, (cos bigger and nearer to more publishers) and harder, in that it is easier to slip into anonymity there (cos bigger and more poets). But definitely, those of us in the provinces need to be a little noisier to be noticed and acknowledged, I think. Hard for the shy and retiring! Or those who find Facebook and Twitter unbearable, anyway, such as your constant blogger.
Here’s a wee poem after all this egregious seeveeing. (Which is like emceeing but even more ego driven.) About climate change and monsters, which are frequent companions in my work this year:
Full stomp
It’s coming —
stomp! stomp! stomp!
down the roads of your town
or city or village or Tokyo style
megalopolis. Or isle now all swamp —
splash splash splash splash!
Roaring and slapping buildings
like the cheeks
of a thousand hysterical women
in chap rich 50s Westerns.
Stomp stomp stomp stomp stomp!
It is silver as a can,
silver as the idea of an automobile
before we (forget Tokyo)
realised that petrol had a price. Or gas,
as the Americans say —
fart fart stomp fart fart.
Godzilla on steroids
(for we shall use Japan when it suits us)
it turns its awful face towards us!
The face seems so familiar!
It breathes out the thick air
of a million hangovers!
Its cheeks have warts like silver hubcaps,
flung onto the highways of its cheeks!
I am the Anthroposaurus, it says.
Look upon me and weep!
Its voice is as subtle as its step,
subtle as this poem’s drear
stompification.
(Full stomp.)
P.S. Cottier
oral hygiene and the dragon
In many ways, this blog is my favourite creation, and thanks to all my readers for being part of it.
Belated Tuesday Poem: Missing Melbourne
September 2, 2015
Missing Melbourne
Alleys don’t exist here. Canberra has no use
for backways streets, for furtive lanes.
Lies are a different matter, but those
architectural commas, those cobbled
night-cart ways have no place amongst
paradise refined into
quintessence of tedium.
I love my new home’s cockatoos,
their hats of lairy scorn, their satire;
sound-beakers of heavy metal
poured into pure blue air.
But I dip my memory’s lid
to the Brunswick park
with forty tail-flagged dogs,
smaller than some Canberra backyards.
So much oomph, so much poo,
and bocce, like a kiss thrown
against the deeper green,
speaking of a bigger world
of coincidence and trust.
P.S. Cottier
Not Canberra
I have changed. I no longer miss Melbourne in the way I did when I wrote that poem, about 10 years ago. When I visit Melbourne now, it does not feel like a return home, but a trip to ‘somewhere else’. Even the maps in my mind of how to find things are fading.
When I first came to Canberra I searched for a centre in vain. Now I am enamoured of the space and sky here; a change just beginning in the poem, I think. If I had stayed in Melbourne, I don’t think I would be writing so much poetry, as I had more Things to Do; more distractions. Of course, I have now become more involved in Canberra’s cultural life, but I think the move from Melbourne drove me into my own head a little more than staying would have.
Please don’t misunderstand me. Poetry can be written in a truly urban environment as much as in Canberra’s semi-whateverness. I get truly sick of the fervent rural trend in much contemporary poetry, what I call the Misty Cow School. And last week I felt a retrospective sense of pride to see how many Melburnians ralled against the Border Force* stopping random people to ‘check their papers’. (If they were carrying The Australian, presumably they’d be acceptable…)
But Canberra is my home now, and I feel glad to get off the plane or bus or train here. Zireaux was kind enough to feature a series of my Canberra poems here, with his commentary.
And for further poetry, get on the Poetry Tram. Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets around the world by pressing here.
*Who designed the black uniforms? Or did they just visit a museum of WWII and copy the Nazi uniforms?
Peace, tolerance and understanding
August 28, 2015
…and a very quiet dress bought, appropriately, at a church fete.
Just got back from Melbourne where I was awarded third prize in the Australian Catholic University’s Poetry Prize, on the topic ‘Peace, Tolerance and Understanding’. I wrote an angry, occasionally funny poem on the topic, called ‘Route 9’, which I may post at a later date. I tried to embody the way we judge people by appearances in a narrative poem, so my raving on about clothes is almost relevant. I just saw an article in City News about the awards:
(The City is question in Canberra, not Melbourne.)
First prize was awarded to Kristen Lang, and second prize to Josephine Wilson. The judge was Kevin Hart. A lovely book of the poems was produced by the university, with a cover designed by Chandler Brooks-Smith. I think that producing such a book is a great initiative, as it allows a full exploration of the topic. It is humbling to see how good many of the short-listed poets works are; I particularly like ‘Little Pup’ by Heather Taylor Johnson.
Thank you to Moya Pacey, who took the photo, and who has a very strong and intelligent poem in the book.
Prize winners were asked to read our poems right at the end of proceedings. Because of the Copious Free Wine, my brain resembled my dress by that stage…but I managed.
I will put my $1000 towards a new computer, so I can produce more angry and funny poetry about social justice, politics and perceptions. And read them out wearing really quiet dresses.
Speaking of which (I segue like a devil on speed) I am reading at The Gods on September 8, along with Owen Bullock and Melinda Smith. Hopefully the Anglican Church where I scored that dress will be having an early fete this year. But in the meantime, I’m out to ride my bike in the fresh Canberra air, wearing shabby, comfortable jeans.
Tuesday poem: Winter in Canberra
June 29, 2015
Winter in Canberra
Wet paper mushrooms
thick crop on nature strips
Chronicles sprouting
P.S. Cottier
The Chronicle is a free newspaper distributed to, I believe, every house in Canberra. They are thrown onto nature strips (the Australian name for the grassy area between footpath and road) and there many of them stay. In winter, the plastic wrapping your Chronicle cannot keep out all the water from frost, so they end up as delightful parcels of yellowed, soggy paper. The one above has not yet reached full mushroom.
Some people end up with months of Chronicles covering the grass outside their home. Talk about first world unsightliness! I saw one man, driven mad by the abundant crop his lazy neighbour had grown, throwing them from their nature strip into their driveway, so they would not be able to ignore them any more. He was genuinely angry.
Meanwhile, in the real world…I hear there are places where free newspapers are not distributed! But surely that is just a rumour.
Here I am listening to Judith Crispin say nice things before my reading at Manning Clark House. Despite the photo, the space was packed. There were as many people as the average Canberra nature strip has Chronicles, but they were a lot less soggy. In most cases.
The reading went well; I tried out a lot of new material and I am becoming more confident. Mark Tredinnick was also seemed happy after his reading.
Now I am off to throw around a few newspapers.
Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets around the world by pressing here.
Belated Tuesday poem: (haiku)
June 24, 2015
The scant electric tree
sheds a furred question —
let the answer comfort
dead possum
Poor little guy found under power poles on the way back from my usual café. I think he* was electrocuted, rather than hit by a car, as there is no sign of injury. Some people in Australia hate possums, but I admire them for their ability to live amongst us, running over roofs and reminding us that we aren’t totally divorced from nature.
Off to do a reading soon of nearly all new material. God but I’m prolific! Prolific as a healthy possum with access to unlimited fruit. Which is, I hope, what a possum sees after death.
Other Tuesday poets are more punctual. Read them here.
*I can’t see a pouch, so I assume he.
