Poem by Andrew Lansdown

Rhyme

I sing a rhyme for my daughter

of a teapot short and stout.

She mimes a clumsy kettle,

crooks a handle, points a spout.

The world is wide with danger,

my life is dark with doubt,

but a child commands me sweetly,

‘Come on, Daddy, dance and shout!’

Sometimes I sense my children

have turned my life about.

They top me up with gladness,

tip me over, pour me out.

            © Andrew Lansdown

From Andrew Lansdown's new book, Gestures of Love - 

Gestures of Love: The Fatherhood Poems

Andrew Lansdown

Wombat Books

(Capalaba, Queensland), 2013

136 pages

ISBN: 9781922074706

RRP $14.95

[GO TO "BUY BOOKS" PAGE]

Back cover blurb

Few poets have explored the weight and wonder of fatherhood like Andrew Lansdown.

Over the years he has established a high reputation for his subtle, insightful poems about his wife and children.

Acclaimed poet and critic Geoff Page has observed that “Lansdown has a very sincere and direct way of handling poems about his immediate family which subtly suggests great tenderness without becoming sentimental.” And world-renowned poet Les Murray has claimed that “no one writes of family love with more tenderness than he.”

Now, for the first time, Andrew’s widely-published, award-wining poems celebrating family life are gathered in one collection, Gestures of Love. These fatherhood poems are bound todelight and move all readers—not only parents, but also anyone interested in the joy, grief and quirkiness of the human condition.

2014 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize

Entries are now open for the 2014 ABR Elizabeth Jolley Short Story Prize worth a total of $8000. This year, for the first time, we will be accepting online entries as well as hard-copies. We have also decided to open the Prize so that all writers, not just Australians, are eligible to enter.

Entries must be a single-authored short story of between 2000 and 5000 words, written in English. Stories must not have been previously published or be on offer to other prizes or publications for the duration of the Jolley Prize.

Entry costs AU$15 for current ABR subscribers or AU$20 for non-subscribers. Entrants who are not current ABR subscribers can choose to subscribe to ABR Online when submitting their story for the special combined price of AU$50 for one entry and one year's access to ABR Online.

Entries close at midnight on 1 May 2014. We will be announcing the shortlist and the winner at a special event at the 2014 Melbourne Writers' Festival.

Click here to enter the Jolley Prize Online.

Click here to read our Terms and Conditions.

We will also still be accepting hard-copy entries.
Click here to download a PDF of the entry form.

We also recommend you read our list of Frequently Asked Questions before contacting us with a question about the Jolley Prize.

You may be interested in reading the shortlisted stories from previous years.
More information about all our past winners is available here.

'Gertrude Stein and Companion’ reviewed by Gordon the Optom

 

 

Gertrude Stein and Companion’ reviewed by Gordon the Optom
‘Gertrude Stein and a Companion’ is a beautifully written, award-winning tale by Win Wells. Win (a man) gathered original letters and memorabilia to give an accurate picture of our hero. Presented by Her Infinite Variety Ensemble (HIVE) at the intimate Guild Studio Theatre at 123 Claisebrook Road, on the corner of Somerville, Perth – just across the railway bridge from Claisebrook station. Performances are Tuesday to Saturday nights at 8.00 pm, until 14^th December.
There is a delightful exhibition and collection of paintings and artworks, many for sale, by local artists on display.
The theatre is ‘in the round’ with two rows of chairs around the room’s periphery.
The scene is a dimly lit sitting room in a Parisian flat. It is just after the end of World War ll. In the centre of the room, there is a well-worn wooden table, loaded with pages from old books (set design Annette Orr and Helen Doig, lit by Emma Brown)

       Seated at the table is a proud and deeply satisfied woman, she is the American author and psychologist, Gertrude Stein (Vivienne Glance). Gertrude smiles as she looks fondly at the paintings on the walls, many of them given to her by close friends such as Matisse and Picasso. Into the room walks an infirm woman in widow’s weeds; it is Alice B. Toklas (Shirley Van Sanden), she has a harrowed appearance.
       Alice announces that today is the day that her dearest friend of the last 30 years, Gertrude, has just died. Alice tells us about their happy days together, with very funny interjections and corrections from the outspoken ghost of Gertrude (heard by the audience but not Alice) of her true feelings towards some of her artistic friends and how she almost succumbed to their amorous advances.
       The two companions are perfect for each other; Gertrude is exuberant, filled with drive, whereas Alice is happy to remain in the background, quietly looking after the business.
       After the play’s interval, we jump forward 20 years to 1964 and find frail Alice, now in another flat in Paris, describing Gertrude’s contemporary and experimental style of writing and recalling how her partner’s first books were published.

This is a delightful story, played with total empathy. Vivienne and Shirley are both exceptional scriptwriters and have been nominated and won many awards for their writing skills. They are also amazing, much admired, classical actors, and so the superlative quality of the acting and the emotions exhibited did not come as too much of a surprise.
Director, Helen Doig skilfully managed to keep the loving, light-hearted atmosphere of the script to the front. The flyer mentions how this play shows the need for marriage reform and the updating of gay rights; but although the deep love between the couple is lucid, the script is not pushing a message or screaming for reform, it is a simply, a fabulously constructed, intimate love story superbly performed.
The number of males in the audience was minimal, which is sad, as this is a quality ‘feel good’ play that deserves to be seen by a wide audience. An excellent night at the theatre.

New Yorker cartoon

ICC Test and ODI Teams for 2013

Four countries are represented in the 12-man Test line-up, and South Africa's Steyn earned a place in the ICC Test Team of the Year for the sixth successive year.

It is the fourth year in a row for South Africa's Hashim Amla, while England captain Cook, who is named as the captain, appears in the side for the third straight year.

The ICC Test Team of the Year is (in batting order):

• Alastair Cook (England, captain)
• Cheteshwar Pujara (India)
• Hashim Amla (South Africa)
• Michael Clarke (Australia)
• Michael Hussey (Australia)
• AB de Villiers (South Africa)
• MS Dhoni (India - Wicketkeeper)
• Graeme Swann (England)
• Dale Steyn (South Africa)
• James Anderson (England)
• Vernon Philander (South Africa)
• 12th Man: Ravichandran Ashwin (India)

Seven countries are represented in the 12-man ODI line-up and only one player – Dhoni – finds a place in the side for the sixth consecutive year. 

Aussie Mitch Starc was named in the side after a great year.

The ICC Champions Trophy 2013-winning captain has also been named as the captain, and will lead the side that also includes Sangakkara and Lasith Malinga of Sri Lanka, who were members of the ICC ODI Team of the Year 2012.

ICC ODI Team of the Year (in batting order)

• Tillakaratne Dilshan (Sri Lanka)
• Shikhar Dhawan (India)
• Hashim Amla (South Africa)
• Kumar Sangakkara (Sri Lanka)
• AB de Villiers (South Africa)
• MS Dhoni (India, captain and wicketkeeper)
• Ravindra Jadeja (India)
• Saeed Ajmal (Pakistan)
• Mitchell Starc (Australia)
• James Anderson (England)
• Lasith Malinga (Sri Lanka)
• 12th Man: Mitchell McClenaghan (New Zealand)

Birds Eye teams up with Roger McGough to put stories on plates

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Birds Eye has launched a major new ‘teatime’ campaign designed to inject more fun into family mealtimes for kids and make them less stressful for mums.

The campaign will see the frozen food giant give away over 250,000 kids’ dinner plates  - each containing one of seven short stories by author Roger McGough – through Sainsbury’s and Morrisons over the next three months.

Teatime wasn’t easy for mums and for many it could feel like a daily struggle, said Margaret Jobling, Birds Eye’s marketing director.

“We work hard to create teatime solutions that leave kids full and happy, and the ‘Story on a Plate’ initiative with McGough is designed to arm mums with another tool to create teatimes that are fun and enjoyable for the whole family.”

To support the teatime campaign, Birds Eye is launching two new frozen chicken products aimed at kids’ teatimes: Chicken Space Shapes (Rsp: £2.69 for a 350g pack of 14 shapes) and BBQ Chicken Bites (Rsp: £2.69 for a 335g pack of 16 bites).

Shapes come in stars, moons and rocket shapes and both Shapes and Bites are made from 100% chicken breast meat.

Consumer research with over 2,000 British mums had indicated that half considered teatime to be the most stressful part of the day and 40% admitted they struggled to get their children to the dinner table, according to Birds Eye. Almost one in three (29%) said their child would only eat off their favourite or personal plate. 

McGough holds a CBE for his services to literature and as well as writing children’s books, he helped to write The Beatles’ Yellow Submarine movie. 

from HERE

Poem: I Remember Lucas

On a hot summer’s day

on the driveway of Tom Collins House,

near the path up Melon Hill, an old stained

VW Beetle stood like a wreck awaiting the final ball,

tattooed by time, loved for its every spluttering mile.

The bonnet was up, Lucas was tinkering

and we were talking away, away

from literary gossip, away from farm work’s

lonesome nights in the bush. We talked

against the built-in obsolescence of

modern manufacturing, we shared

the sentimentality we had for old things -

cars, his skateboards, my manual typewriters.

Inside Tom Collins House, Lucas

built and set a possum trap.

He could turn a hand

to more than words, he could

turn an ankle to skateboarding, too.

Where’s he gone now

to tinker and build? Where

is he setting his next narrative?

Now, skaters at the suburban park

leave a space as they hurtle and turn,

police scan traffic

for the patchwork Vee-dub,

and I smile at the possum stain

in our old back shed and think

of Lucas tinkering away.

-        Andrew Burke

-         1^st December, 2013

Cordite LIVE!

Cordite 44.0: GONDWANALAND Now Live Submission to 45: SILENCE still open   Edited by Derek Motion

Cordite 44: GONDWANALAND looks to a place in our pre-history, a time of supercontinents. How do poets connect with or make use of such an idea? Cordite 45: SILENCE submission is still open. Poetry guest-edited by Jan Owen. Stay tuned for submissions information Cordite 46: NO THEME III, guest-edited by Felicity Plunkett, and Cordite 4X.1 MELBOURNE, guest-edited by Michael Farrell.

Issa Haiku

on the high priest's
head...
flies making love

Issa - 1825

.僧正の頭の上や蝿つるむ
sôjô no atama no ue ya hae tsurumu

A wonderful juxtaposition of sacred and profane, big and small, serious and silly.

- David Gerard

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