Between
March 19, 2020
Between
8th March 2020
Women’s T20 final, Melbourne
A perfect night —
the MCG swarming
with yellow and green bees,
flocking and buzzing and singing,
mixed in with an Indian blue.
There, I finally saw
what T20 is good for.
85,000 of us, give or take,
to watch 22 women,
bowling, fielding, swinging.
The cake was iced
as our team lifted the cup.
Then we danced to one Perry —
Ellyse, alas, side-lined,
spectating just like us.
After the fires,
where we couldn’t breathe,
and before the virus
locked so much up,
we sang and yelled and clapped.
Such lively peace between
seeming endless fires,
and a tiny foe, unseen.
PS Cottier
Already it seems like a different world from just on two weeks ago, when I was down in Melbourne for the T20 final. A brilliant performance by the Australian team. Katy Perry and the dancing cricket bats. A packed MCG. And now events with over 100 people are basically banned.
Australia had just had the worst summer in terms of bushfires, and now, looking back, this great night at the MCG seems a moment of poise before we fell over into the world of the virus. So glad that I have the memory of this night! And I can’t wait for ridiculously large crowds to reappear.
Poem for Easter: All the blond Jesuses
March 29, 2018
All the blond Jesuses
You see them wriggle free of windows,
lithe as silver fish, but golden-haired.
These Jesuses, blond sons of blond Marys,
head out the door to play cricket,
with leather and willow in sudden whites.
St Dorothy joins in, and its all fruit
and flowers and UK May, as Jesuses
bloom like jonquils on the soft field.
Sometimes a Jesus will stop for a while,
and an almost-frown appear. He recalls
another day, when he was darker skinned,
darker haired, and his reaching hands
caught iron, not the ball flicked to slip
like an idea. Oranges smile like cut suns.
The stumped Jesus reconciles himself
to this easier gig, amongst teammates
all as blond and as quick as wit itself.
He scampers between wickets, wood kinder
than when he cried, and slumped and died,
before the dark cave, and its inconstant rock.
PS Cottier
This poem has appeared in Verity La and in my short collection Selection Criteria for Death in Triptych Poets Issue 3 (Blemish Books).
It’s an interesting thing that some put more emphasis on the crucifixion than the resurrection; dwelling on pain rather than the triumph of good over evil, or hope, if you prefer. Those two are running through my poem, and I’ll avoid roping in any yellow tape. You can rough up a metaphor too thoroughly.
He is risen indeed!
Tuesday poem: Blood elephant and theatre news
September 26, 2017
Blood elephant
bathes in human river
tusk intact
PS Cottier
Now, next time someone is saying what a beautiful sport surfing is, bear this photo in mind. The person who injured his head (and inadvertently caused the painting of the blood elephant to drain itself onto his shirt) drove two hours home from the coast, with a head injury that required six stitches. Past at least two hospitals.
I think that goes beyond the merely gnarly.
***
In other, less gruesome news, my poem ‘The ineffable boredom of Polonius’ is one of many making up a performance anthology of Canberra poetry, being produced very soon. The play is called Under Sedation: Canberra Verse Remixed, and it will be at the Street Theatre, from September 29 (preview) to October 14. The director (and the person who compiled the anthology) is Adele Chynoweth, and the actors are Ruth Pieloor and Ben Drysdale.
Here is a list of the poets whose work will appear (apologies for any typos):
A.D.Hope (whose work provided the title of the production), Andi and George Band, Greg Appel, Dorothy Auchterloine, Burrows, Michael Byrne, Adrian Caesar, David Campbell, Coda Conduct (Sally Coleman & Erica Mallet), Malcolm Coller, P.S.Cottier, Vesna Cvjeticanin, Michael Dransfield, Chris Endrey & Bec Taylor, Niloofar Fanaiyan, Bela Farkas, Fun Machine, Kevin Gilbert, Paul Hetherington, Suzie Higgie, J.C.Inman, Subhash Jaireth, Aaron Kirby, Victoria McGrath, Mark O’Connor, Lizz Murphy, Omar Musa, Geoff Page, Anita Patel, Sandra Renew, Sarah Rice, Fred Smith Melinda Smith, John Karl Stokes and Monique Suna.
I can’t wait to see the production. Here is the director, Adele Chynoweth, who recently (last night, in fact) launched a book by Sandra Renew at Smiths Alternative. I hope this is the image you remember from this post!
Tuesday poem: Passing Beauty from Boots
August 22, 2017
Passing beauty
It’s moving, just ahead
of the player’s most clever feet.
Every four years, we fill a cup,
then pour it out, a month of dreams.
Was it just last week that Bergkamp
flicked with orange elegance,
side-footing space and time?
No, he is long gone now,
off fielding fifty years.
Others follow. Messy time
melts beauty, remoulds it,
casts it always anew.
It never ages, constantly fired,
as we fade, we watchers,
yesterday’s players, passing.
Twenty sips at the cup
will fill a lifetime;
held safe in keeper’s hands.
PS Cottier
This poem was just republished in Boots:A Selections of Football Poetry 1890-2017, edited by Mark Pirie of New Zealand. As Mark has it up as an sample from the book, I thought I would also republish it here. It was first published in Eureka Street here in Australia.
The book contains poems from New Zealand, England, France and the Netherlands, with New Zealand being the home of most. It is well worth reading for the diversity of approaches: biographical, political, elegiac (mine, for once!) humorous and historical. A lovely present for anyone interested in football.
It can be ordered through Lulu through the publisher’s website (HeadworX Publishers). Boots is an expanded edition of a previous collection first published in 2014.
Tuesday poem: Carrying an injury
June 8, 2015
This is a link to a poem I just had published at Verity La, called ‘Carrying an Injury’. I an settling down for a few weeks watching the World Cup in Canada, so it seems appropriate, although the players in the poem are male. And this is an image of a far less pretty sport than that being played in Canada:
Last week I bought the latest Stephen King novel, Finders Keepers, and read it in the usual feast, all in one sitting. Each new book by Mr King leaves me actually trembling until I hold it, and obsessional until I have finished it. It’s a weird sort of bliss!
I can’t stand the idea that eventually, there will be no more new novels by Stephen King; his Carrie and Cujo and Pennywise will haunt his study like Dickens’s characters, looking for their creator.
Hopefully not for another thirty years! (Though I suppose that might be up to the writer himself…But can anyone believe that Stephen King would voluntarily stop writing?)
Read the works of the other Tuesday Poets around the world by pressing here.
Wednesday 24th June, I am reading poems old and new at Manning Clark House in Canberra at 7.30pm. I think that Mark Tredinnick will be the other reader. More on that later.
PS Cottier 