New book: V8
September 13, 2022
This is a hand and the cover of my/our new book, called V8, written with most excellent poet Sandra Renew. It’s about cars, utes, motorbikes, bikes, public transport and even the occasional spaceship (well one or two, anyway). Journeys to Russia, through Melbourne, and into the Hindu Kush feature in its pages. It is quite a large poetry book at over 130 pages, and can be ordered here. Ginninderra Press is the publisher, and I really like the cover (and the contents). Thank you to Stephen Matthews.
The process of writing a book with another poet was surprisingly smooth. Sandra and I had noticed that we both write poems about vehicles, so it was an easy step to the idea of having a book on the subject. We will be arranging a launch.
This is the first of two books I will be having published in the next month or so.
Tuesday poem: From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson
August 20, 2012
From a Railway Carriage
Faster than fairies, faster than witches,
Bridges and houses, hedges and ditches;
And charging along like troops in a battle
All through the meadows the horses and cattle:
All of the sights of the hill and the plain
Fly as thick as driving rain;
And ever again, in the wink of an eye,
Painted stations whistle by.
Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,
All by himself and gathering brambles;
Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;
And there is the green for stringing the daisies!
Here is a cart run away in the road
Lumping along with man and load;
And here is a mill, and there is a river:
Each a glimpse and gone for ever!
Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)
From A Child’s Garden of Verses
On 7th September, the Poets Train (aka Poetry in Motion) will be leaving Canberra, bound for Sydney. Now this is not a plan by the burghers of the ACT to rid themselves of the tiresome pox of poetry, but an initiative of Australian Poetry, the relatively new national poetry organisation.
Vers libre: No-one is keeping it on the rails. Hence the lack of rails.
We will be composing poetry on the train. A chapbook of poems will result. Countrylink, the NSW train people, will be donating a return fare to anywhere on their network for the best poem. (How that will be judged is something I do not know. But throwing the other poets off the train seems like a wise precaution.)
In Sydney we will read and/or slam, given our preferences. I think it sounds like fun!
I will give an update on the Poetry Train later on. If you’re interested in joining the train, here is the Countrylink page with the details. (Scroll down). It may already be too late, but possibly not. You will have to book accommodation in Sydney (Fiona McIlroy, the organiser, whose email appears on the Countrylink page, may be able to help with suggestions for reasonably priced places and don’t forget a return fare! Unless you decide to stay in that beautiful, comparatively WARM city.)
In the meantime, the feather below may be pressed in an emergency. Such as if you feel the need for more poems.
PS Cottier 