A year of poetry. And only poetry.
January 1, 2013
I suppose the idea for having a year of reading no prose came to me after listening to someone say ‘nobody reads poetry anymore.’ Apart from being a tad tactless, when the person addressed is a poet, this comment made me think about the comparative weight that the novel gets in society, as opposed to the art form that places language itself at its centre.
Why not see how it would be not to read fiction or non-fiction for a year? Will too much poetry drive me mad? Will that madness be sadly obsessive, or downright Byronic? Or just moronic?
My Year of Living Poetically (thank you Mr Featherstone, novellaist extraordinaire) begins today. Let me clarify; I don’t intend to give up on news or blogs or government forms. I will read articles about poetry.
The Japanese have a form of writing called the haibun, where prose is illuminated by a haiku. I intend to have a year of poetry, illuminated by the occasional book review. Or funding application.
But no novels, no history, no theology for a year. This is my New Year’s Resolution for 2013, amongst more mundane things about haunting the gym and being more tolerant. I’ll be blogging about my efforts and experiences here. In prose, mostly.
We’ll see how this experiment in poetry goes.
Happy New Year!
Über-cool journal makes inexplicable mistake
October 4, 2012
Verity La, a rather stylish and influential on-line journal, has just published an interview with me, conducted by Duncan Felton. I deal with wonders such as buried cars and elephants’ testicles, inter alia. Why not go and have a read?
Also, in my Napoleonic campaign to take over the blogosphere, I have just had four poems published in Eureka Street. Marvel at tales of Albanian bowels, Julia Gillard’s shoe, discarded rubbish and strong language. Comments are always welcome there, too.
First Verity La, tomorrow the world…
Tuesday poem: Sea
September 24, 2012
Sea
It pulls harder than any roping octopus,
Kali’s deep green army of sinuous terror,
bites deeper than haunting white shark,
bloody ghost that gutted brothers before birth.
It throws off surfers, tinnies, yachts and tankers
like a gnarly horse at rodeo, then clowns with us,
pulling down rescuers, spewing out the sodden child.
At stony beaches it applauds itself with each sigh,
the percussive pebbles played by ten thousand hands.
Sometimes, floating, I feel it stroke my back, teasing,
fingering, like a well-schooled lover. It whispers
not yet, I’m not ready, when I’m ready, you’ll go down.
P.S. Cottier
This poem appeared in my first book, The Glass Violin, which can still be ordered from Ginninderra Press. (Go to the ‘About’ page of this blog.)
I am gradually getting back into my routine of coffee and writing, after too many exciting things happening recently. I am on a panel and reading at the Conflux science fiction convention here in Canberra this weekend, speculative poetry being one of my loves. But as this is at the weekend, I don’t see it as breaking my routine.
At heart I am truly a bore. But sometimes a productive one.
More poetry? You want more? Click here and receive a free set of steak knives.*
*Imaginary steak knives in real kitchens.
Sydney twice in two different ways
September 13, 2012
The first was on the Poets Train from Canberra. Four leisurely hours to take in the scenery, to read, to compose a poem (we read out our efforts every hour). Arrival at the beautiful Central Station where we read to ourselves again, and a couple of punters.
The next day we read at The State Library. Here I am doing just that, in a photograph taken by K.A. Rees. (Note the staring into the middle distance):
And that night we read at the Friend in Hand pub in Glebe, where a cockatoo, George, chats to the customers. I chatted to Martin Langford, whose vocabulary is much greater than George’s. (No offence George!)
And in between, I enjoyed all Glebe has to offer. Interesting food, cheaper than in Canberra. The big vegan breakfast at Badde Manors, for example. Lying on a chaise longue that was used as a prop in the film Moulin Rouge, writing a review. Drinking wine. Longing for the ability to stay in that fair city. Sigh. As usual, I found myself looking at real estate agents’ windows, doing very unpoetic calculations.
Then four hours back, dozing and composing on the Sunday.
And today? (That’ll be yesterday by the time I post this.) Up to Sydney again in 23 minutes by plane. Barely up before you’re down; the landscape something to get over rather than through. State Library again, where I was lucky enough to pick up a third prize in the Society of Women Writers poetry competition, judged by Judith Beveridge, for my poem ‘A brief history of fun’. Judith gave a wonderful seminar focussing on sound in poetry, and although her ideas are quite different from mine, I left feeling inspired. There was a haiku/ haibun/tanka reading. There was Mark Tredinnick, although I had to leave his PowerPoint talk early to catch the flight home. A fire siren test provided the ideal moment for slipping out.
Twenty-three minutes
Throwing steel through air
We scorch the sky
Now I’m in pre book-launch mode! Radio interview on Friday on local station ArtSound. But I am haunted by a most beautiful spirit at the moment.
A ghost called Sydney
Lithe warm and lively
Winding me back home
Home that is, to a city I have never lived in. And against whose inducements I must block my ears, and tie myself to the cold mast of common sense.
Also known as Canberra.
I’ll love it again in a few days, but I have to learn to do so again.
Captain’s blog!
August 27, 2012
Yes, this week it’s my turn to edit the Tuesday Poem site; that is, the main poem in the middle. I have chosen a wonderful poem by Canberra poet Sarah Rice.
So click this feather, and be beamed over to New Zealand, to read Sarah’s poem:
PS Cottier 