Tuesday poem: (haiku)
October 29, 2013
Germs hitch-hike
drift in pink balloons
star-man’s lungs
Yes, I’m afraid that use of the wonderful Japanese form of the haiku in these pages (if a blog has pages) is an indication of intense busy-ness. As the anthology The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry demands more of my time, my poor blog has been somewhat neglected. My apologies, dear followers!
This wee SF poem thing was first published in the United States, in Scifaikuest, way back in February 2010.
Press this feather and go to New Zealand, where the hub poem is also about explorers, in a sense. And the country not known as South Canada:
My last post!
September 26, 2013
No, not on this blog, dear reader. Still those sobs.
http://www.australianpoetry.org/2013/09/25/pucks-girdle-or-the-web-and-poetry/
If you dare, click that link and read my final post for Australian Poetry on the Wonders of the Web or How I Learnt to Love the Difference Engine.
This blog tends towards the short and sarcastic, so it was fun to be able to write some long pieces elsewhere.
Tuesday Poem: (haiku) by P.S. Cottier
June 25, 2013
Gloves house hunger
moths make gaping mouths
finger tongues speak
Now that’s me, begloved in gloves which never had fingers, at the launch of Poetry in ACTION yesterday, in front of my poem, ‘April mornings’. ACTION stands for ACT Internal Omnibus Network, by the way. I bet you didn’t know that! (And it just occurred to me that some readers won’t know that ACT stands for Australian Capital Territory, which was set up so that Canberra wasn’t in either New South Wales or Victoria. Most of the ACT is national park.)
If you would like to read this poem properly, along with the other nine poems selected to appear on Canberra buses, please press this link, which will take you to a page within the Arts ACT site.
You can also see the short-listed poems, and children’s poems, if you navigate from that page.
It was beyond freezing in Canberra yesterday. Note the loverly weather outside the bus window in the photograph above. It may snow at the weekend, which is positively un-Australian. Next month, though, I am having a handful of days in sunny Wellington…
Click this feather for further poetry frisson from the tropical climes of New Zealand:
Countdown to anthology deadline…
May 17, 2013
Australian poets! If you have been sitting on your elegant bottoms thinking ‘I may submit this excellent poem to an anthology of speculative poetry written by Australians some day,’ well that day is today.
Submissions for The Stars Like Sand close on June 4th, so read the full submission guidelines:
And submit yourself to my tender mercies, and those of my co-editor, Tim Jones.
The poetry semi is about to leave…
We have already received a large number of submissions from Australia and from Australians living in other places. Add yourself to this roll of honour today! And next year you may be reading your work in an Interactive Publications tome.
Fun at Conflux
April 26, 2013
I’m letting the emails pile up and ignoring everything to attend Conflux, the science fiction convention here in Canberra. There was a steampunk high tea yesterday afternoon, which allowed me to don a hat that has graced my wardrobe for some time:
Off with her head!
Today I have attended two panels; one on publishing and one on horror and the body. Tonight I’m doing a poetry reading, so I’ve escaped for lunch and to get my thoughts together. Then back into the fray.
I really admire those who attend everything possible at conventions; I just lack the stamina.
So far it has been a terrific convention. And it gave me an excuse to wear that hat…
UPDATE: We were a small but enthusiastic group of poetry lovers at the reading, so I turned the chairs around and we had a more casual event. Enjoyed it immensely, and assembling all my speculative poetry made me realise that I have enough for a small collection of my poetry in hat field. Sorry. That field.
FURTHER UPDATE:
Heard Sean Williams talk about TM, which existed long before Scotty beamed up Kirk.
Heard Nalo Hopkinson talk about her early writing career.
Attended an interesting panel on appropriating the sacred.
Caught up with various people, including Gillian Polack.
I’m stuffed, to put it in a most non-poetic way. (Although I am not the sort of poet who tends toward the flowery. Unless that flower be a pavement daisy. Yes, you may sneer at that, in a sneery way.)
PS Cottier 