Rhysling nominations: The King of Eyes
April 7, 2021
Here’s the second poem that I wrote which has been nominated for the Rhysling Awards, run by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association based in the US. This one was nominated in the Long category, and is from my book Monstrous.
The King of Eyes
His crown has fifty-two spikes,
and each boasts an eye
gouged from conquered realms,
or scooped like a four-minute egg
from every defeated pretender.
The eyes look out at courtiers,
at advisers, open and shameless
as any necessary lie.
Crowns parade around heads,
each decoration a soldier,
so there is always an eye,
or a platoon of eyes
upon you, heavy as an official chain.
We lucky, or unlucky, few
often in His Majesty’s presence
have noted that he arranges
the eyes to a distinct pattern,
blue following modest brown,
and every tenth eye is green.
Opalescent eyes, beflecked,
break the pattern near each ear,
as if to drop colourful rumour
direct into the regal brain.
Some say that it is possible
for each crown-eye to wink,
and that such a wink is deadly
as any guillotine, for the flicker
is only bestowed on those
whose own eyes will soon adorn
the King’s most puissant head.
I can not say if this is true,
as I have yet to see an eye
that still sports a gown of lash.
We walk quietly around
the regal panopticon,
just in case the eyes still see,
and the King might catch the
slightest flicker of disloyalty.
Yesterday I noticed an eye
of a near emerald green
that clearly broke the pattern —
and I recognised the glance
of the King’s courtesan,
who was strangely absent
from her stool near the window,
where she often sat, weaving.
I have clutched her in love,
these six months past,
and could not strangle a shudder
to see such beauty displaced.
If the eyes see, they saw me blanch,
at the elevation of her eye
from our shared soft pillow
to mere metallic display.
I am called to a meeting at eight.
My eye, such an average brown,
may yet be raised to the crown.
PS Cottier
Rhysling nominations: ‘Mouthing off’
March 25, 2021
Very happy that two of my poems have been nominated for the Rhysling Awards, which are annual awards for the best speculative poetry published in the previous calendar year. The award is organised by the Science Fiction and Fantasy Poetry Association, based in the United States. Poems are nominated by members of the SFPA (but you can’t nominate your own poems) and published in The Rhysling Anthology. The editor of this year’s anthology is Alessandro Manzetti. Members vote for their favourite poems in two categories. This week’s poem has been nominated in the short category. I think you can guess that the other poem, which I’ll post next week, is in the long category!
Both poems nominated were published in my book Monstrous, Interactive Press, 2020. You can see all of the nominated poems here. Some of them can be read by clicking on the title. Very happy to see at least one other Australian poet there, Jenny Blackford, and Tim Jones, of New Zealand. Go Southern Hemisphere!
Mouthing off
She’s a shark, you know, a tiny one,
armed with milk teeth and coins.
She severs fingers, not legs,
hiding in lawnmowers, which she stops,
until an enquiring hand reaches
to unblock the green-clogged blades.
She strikes, starts the engine,
and the dumb machine gets the blame.
No-one sees her, flying off with the digit —
they mistake her sharp chortle for canaries,
the rattle of a hula hoop of surplus teeth
is heard as a cicada’s solo. She shimmies,
perched on a convenient tree,
and tucks into her well-earned, self-saucing snag.
Delightfully light, she flits on,
gathers a few more teeth, threads them,
bites a few puppies, enjoys the way
that the local pitbulls get the flak.
Her original teeth were removed long ago
in a futile attempt to stop her munching
on fingers, toes, and pets like candy.
She moved into kiddies’ teeth;
a penny there, then a dollar or a Euro.
She enjoys endless, free-market chomping,
glueing a new set every Sunday,
formed from that sweet, calcium-rich bandolier.
If a knife misses carrot
and finds flesh, it is surely
our invisible sprite who abbreviates the hand.
Carpenters have felt a sudden
blunting of their grip as ‘a chisel slipped’,
but the wound is surprisingly multi-edged.
A tiny rose of white thorn-petals removed
the formerly useful pointer, or mere pinkie,
if it was only time for a hasty snack.
Just recently, she has diversified,
depositing a few teeth into the ears
of the children who put them under pillows,
investing in her profession’s future.
They dream of fingers. They dream of wings.
PS Cottier
Monstrous shortlisting
September 25, 2020
Very happy that Monstrous has been shortlisted for the Society of Women Writers NSW Book Awards, in the Poetry Category. Here is the full shortlist:
POETRY – JUDGED BY MARGARET BRADSTOCK
P.S. Cottier Monstrous
Tricia Dearborn Autobiochemistry
Pip Griffin Margaret Caro
Colleen Keating Desert Patterns
Colleen Keating Hildegard of Bingen
The gnome is murderously happy…
Zoom launch of Monstrous
August 5, 2020
Last Sunday was the Zoom launch of Monstrous, my new collection of horror poems. Thank you to the publisher, David Reiter for organising the launch, and to Tim Jones for the launch speech. Also thanks to those who attended, and those who helped with the book, especially Kaaron Warren for the Introduction. If you would like to have a look, the launch is now up on YouTube.
The book is available as a paperback or e-book at many on-line retailers, from the publisher, or, for those in Canberra, direct from me, or at Book Lore in Lyneham.
Monstrous arrival
June 4, 2020
My new poetry collection just arrived from the publishers, Interactive Press. As the title would suggest, it deals with some horrible creatures, from a re-working of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, to killer garden gnomes, to sharks that eat suns, to aliens on a nineteenth-century lunar voyage. There’s also the dubious future of the game of cricket. There’s some disturbing stuff, and some humour too.
You can read more about the book here. And it can be ordered here. The print version is postage free to Australia and New Zealand, for a limited time.
Thank you to Kaaron Warren for the Introduction, and to Andrew Galan for providing a blurb. Also to Zoe Hartland for the suitably freaky gnome, and Geoffrey Dunn for the author photo.
I will be launching it sometime in Canberra (and possibly elsewhere), when gatherings become a little more feasible, and I hear that an on-line event for all IP books published this month will be held. David Reiter, the publisher, is organising that.
Of course I wish that the May launch could have occurred, but the book has won through, in all its manic strangeness. I can’t wait to read some of the poems aloud to an actual gathering!
PS Cottier 