Tuesday Poem: A short wander through the head of a poet
August 15, 2016
A short wander through the head of a poet
‘I am finding a lot of this poeting business is learning how to hack your own thinking.’ (SB Wright)
Axing myself near every day
with nouns like blades
or is that the verbs,
sneaking and executing
behind my weary back?
Adverbs are the worst,
obviously, and I try
to expel them from thought.
Does a bear? Does a bear?
It doesn’t work, naturally.
My head is a jungle
of the old Tarzan sort,
and even a cunning machete
won’t clear a way,
despite avid hacking,
and the sticky tape I use
to reattach feckless fingers.
I will staple a handy volume
to my brow, perhaps
one that tells how
to write truth slant,
like Dickinson E,
and to be picaresque,
and appropriately Byronic.
A coupling that, of itself,
will cause sparks to leap
as if one were to jump start
an elderly ute gone bad.
Now, where are my cables?
Is this an Allen key
I see before me?
Statbadgers of the world unite!
Pick up your tongues like sticks,
and lick the befuddlement of brains
from cracked and gnarly windows.
P.S. Cottier
SB Wright is a poet who, this year, is detailing the process of writing and learning more about poetry at his blog. It is well worth a look. He is far more honest about the struggle involved in writing than many of us, particularly when it comes to how he manages a ‘real job’ (my words) while trying to write. He posts actual numbers, written by helpful Statbadgers for those who like that type of thing.
Occasionally he also posts one of the results of these struggles, aka a poem, and he frequently directs you to poems by others, or books and talks about poetics. (Poetics is like choreography, but involves people who are a lot more clumsy.)
SB Wright is not plagued by adverbs in his poetry, incidentally. That was poetic licence.
Tuesday Poem: (ute-ku)
February 2, 2015
Back of purple ute —
‘Jesus lives here’
holytray or holycab?
P.S. Cottier
I had a vivid image of Jesus balancing on the back of a tray going round a corner, perhaps holding onto a piece of rope, a little like a tethered kelpie. When he faces the back window of the ute, he can read the sticker saying that he lives there, which would become fairly unfunny quite quickly.
Mary hears about the ute surfing idea and is less than impressed
For those who would like to write lots of tiny poems, here’s a link to poet SB Wright’s site which has some information about Post-it note poetry. I am proud to say that the ute-ku is my own invention.
For those of you benighted enough not to know what a ‘ute’ is, it is Australian for utility vehicle. The phrase ‘pick-up truck’ is a crude attempt to achieve a similar effect.
Really short poems rarely appear on the blogs of Tuesday Poets. But perhaps there will be another one this week. Press this link and find out.
***
And if you go here you will find another poem, written in old style English 5/7/5 haiku, about the merits (or limitations) of flash fiction. It is part of the 200th edition of AntipodeanSF. There is also the reprint of a story (a suspiciously prose-poemy story) that was published at AntiSF some time ago.:
The artwork is by “DasWortgewand”, whose real name is Reimund Bertrams. The editor of the journal, Ion Newcombe, just sent this through! Very cool.
So who is in it?
May 22, 2014
I thought people might be interested to know who is in The Stars Like Sand: Australian Speculative Poetry. So here is the full list:
David Adès, Zoë Anderson, Jude Aquilina, Emilie Zoey Baker, Catherine Bateson, Eric Beach, Judith Beveridge, Jenny Blackford, Peter Boyle, John Le Gay Brereton, Sara Bruxner, joanne burns, Michael Byrne, Caroline Caddy, me, Mike Crowl, Victor J. Daley, Luke Davies, C.J. Dennis, Jake Dennis, Benjamin Dodds, Joe Dolce, Michael Dransfield, Diane Fahey, Mary Hannay Foott, Carolyn Gerrish, Kevin Gillam, Alan Gould, John Grey, Lesbian Harford, Dimitra Harvey, Ron Heard, Eliza-Jane Henry-Jones, Matt Hetherington, Paul Hetherington, Dorothy Hewett, Marilyn Humbert, Lisa Jacobson, John Jenkins, Jill Jones, Raphael Kabo, Melinda Kallasmae, S.K. Kelen, Earl Livings, Chris Lynch, Emily Manger, Catherine Martin, M.F. McAuliffe, Victoria McGrath, Jo Mills, Peter Minter, Lizz Murphy, Les Murray, Jan Napier, John Shaw Neilson, Barry O’Donahue, Jan Owen, Moya Pacey, Andrew Barton Paterson, Simon Petrie, Dorothy Porter, Craig Powell, David P. Reiter, Philip Salom, Janeen Samuel, Miro Sandev, Tim Sinclair, Alex Skovron, Melinda Smith, J. Brunton Stephens, Alan Stewart, John Tranter, John Upton, Rod Usher, Susan Waddell, Rob Walker, Chris Wallace-Crabbe, Samuel Wagan Watson, Mercedes Webb-Pullman, Les Wicks, Sean Williams, SB Wright.
Rapt, I am, to unwrap such a group. Lovely pagefellows to lie between such covers:
I am really looking forward to the launches now. I’ll post the invitation posters again soon, just in case the list has inspired you to come along and hear some of that group read at either of the launches. (I copied the list by hand and eye, just to refamiliarise myself, so please excuse any typos, which are not in the book!)
PS Cottier 