Tuesday poem and poetry news: Boots and handbags
August 1, 2017
So you like football (the round ball one)? So you like poetry? Well here’s a publication you might find appealling. Boots is an anthology of poems about football, edited by Mark Pirie of New Zealand. I have a couple of football related poems in it, called ‘Passing beauty’ and ‘Side netting’. The first book was published to coincide with the (men’s) World Cup in 2014, and is out in lots of time for the next one in Russia, in an extended form.
I am entering something of a publication frenzy, having several pieces in that mysterious machine known as ‘the works’, which I’ll link to as they appear.
To celebrate this flurry of forthcoming publications, here’s a new poem about handbags, appearing under a photo of my favourite bag, which was made in Russia. (A soft Dalek is no Dalek at all. Discuss.) There is a football reference in the poem, but to a football of a different shape.
After that appalling segue-ing, I hope you enjoy the poem. I read somewhere that each blog post should contain one idea; I’ve certainly stuffed that up today, like a bag that has mistaken itself for a wardrobe.
Twenty ways to keep your essentials to hand
Lucite pillbox flaunting small pearls
Shell shape clutch for pocket Venus
Curious net of cunning gold mesh
Eyebending sequins intricately sewn
Art deco black silk organically clasped
Ten thousand beaded fine French paisley
Quaint cigar box rolls lipsticks and tampons
Roomy Mexican holdall hammock wide
Oval pigskin (and it’s not made by Sherrin)
Faux leopard snarls and real pony kicks
Kawaii Japanese anthromorphic bear
Modest exquisite goldchained calf
Ironic grannysquared seventies repro
Tikis barkclothed for quick souvenirs
Crocodiles taught Parisian accents
Poodle pregnant with pompom coinpurse
Felt dubiously coloured and Etsyfied
Blue papoose flaunts fat fleshy handles
Concertina traincase bakelites makeup
Poet’s tote with slant Dickinson quote
PS Cottier
And because it’s nearly 2017…
December 31, 2016
I feel almost forced to reflect, like a cross between Narcissus and the kid in that eye device in Clockwork Orange.
Achievements:
I leg pressed 200kg, which is pretty damned good.
Lots of publications. Lots!
My chapbook Quick Bright Things came out.
I did more live readings this year.
I was highly commended in many a poetry competition, which is winning’s peculiar cousin, sitting in the corner playing endless games on his device.
Not so achievey:
I spent too much time worrying about the news, and letting it affect me.
My budgie won’t talk.
My canaries won’t sing.
Irresolute:
I don’t do resolutions, partly based on the fact that I heard two very fit people at the gym sneering at those they called ‘the resolutionists’, who join in January and are never seen after February.
But I will continue with the poeting, the gym, and letting the budgie teach me budgie. And this blog will continue as long as blogging is a thing, and Tuesdays exist. Back to Tuesdays after the celebrations end.
Happy New Year, and easy on the Rabbie Burns!
Tuesday poem: Love letters
November 22, 2016
Love letters
I love you poetry because all I need is an old envelope — Telstra or power bill or guff — and a pen
And you wait there hidden between the grains of paper like a wee tiger, pouncing, or a huge poodle, primping
I can write you for everyone, or just for me
And through you I have met clever people, and some even good (and also pricks, but let’s not dwell in embroidery)
Poetry you keep my mind in the top fifteen percent of my generation
And you make me embed my thought in Real Words™ like a bloodbug in a mattress, burrowing
I weep for you when some use your name to produce pungent advertisements for self — ah! the faces I have slapped, the duels I have fought in your name (if only on paper)
You allow me to take a word — say egregious — and handball it back to myself with slicker hands than Hawthorn
And you stretch back and forward as far as music
And you adapt like Galapagos, but quick
Tourniquet and snake, you bite and comfort, and I love you like a convenient maiden aunt loves her old cat, who miraculously survived the pitbull
And you are the very pitbull, and the pitbull’s teeth.
P.S.Cottier
***
And in vaguely related news, I was just highly commended in the Poetry category of the Thunderbolt Prize for Crime Writing, organised by the New England Writers Centre. Very nice. The winner of the poetry prize (which I won last year) was Ian Hood, with a poem called ‘Drowning Satan’, which I look forward to reading. Paul Prenter was commended. All the poems (and stories, etc) will be published soon at the New England Writers Centre website, and I’ll link to that when I can. My poem ‘On average’ was about domestic violence.
The judge was John Foulcher, a fellow Canberran. (Judging was, of course, anonymous.)
P.S. ‘Hawthorn’ in the above, is an Australian Rules football team, who have dominated things over the last five years or so. (Until this year, in fact.) Another helpful guide to Australian culture for benighted foreigners my lovely overseas readers.
P.P.S. Pitbulls are awesome dogs, and are only vicious if abused.
Tuesday poem: The home for ancient memes
October 31, 2016
The home for ancient memes
Where they can haz cheeseburgers all day
Where jokes of nuking each other from space crack
Where everyone fusses over a grumpy cat
Where the cry of Ermahgerd echoes
Where an overly manly man flexes, endlessly
Where sad hipsters say many things
Where planking takes place every evening
Where the X all the Ys, and Y all the Xs
Where ice buckets become challenging
Where smugshrugs shrug smugly
Where seals have awkward moments
Where they debate the colour of a dress
Where they still Netflix and chill
Where…I’d definitely continue, but
Ain’t nobody got time for that
PS Cottier
Discuss the colour of this Tudor, dress-like thing.
New chapbook: Quick bright things
October 3, 2016
Here’s the cover of my new book, Quick bright things: Poems of fantasy and myth. It features an excellent illustration by Paul Summerfield, based on the poem ‘The Laws of Cricket rewritten for the Fairy World’ inside the book. It’s a chapbook, with 28 pages packed full of striking gnomes, somewhat sporty fairies, unpleasant elves, skiving but environmentally responsible goddesses, underachieving ghosts, paisley pitbulls, and similar oddnesses.
I particularly like the see through paper after the front cover (and before the back cover) but you can’t see that here. (A kind of parchment, I think.) It feels great, and adds an appropriate air of mystery to the chapbook. I am celebrating its arrival with a coffee in this photo.
The title, by the way, comes from A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where Lysander says:
And ere a man hath power to say “Behold!”
The jaws of darkness do devour it up:
So quick bright things come to confusion.
The book is available from Ginninderra Press in the Picaro Press imprint. It costs $5 plus postage. Or buy it direct from me if you are in Canberra. I’m thinking about a wee launch for this wee book, although I’ll certainly be selling it at readings before any such potential extravaganza. (The ISBN is 9781760412197, by the way.)
Note that this is not a book intended for really little children, as some of the fantasy creatures are fairly awful. This is my first collection of purely speculative poetry, if we ignore The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry, which I edited with Tim Jones. And that is full of Other People’s Poems. Here is the cover in greater detail:
Overseas (or local) buyers can also contact me via the contact form. This is the best option if you’d like to arrange a signed copy.
