Rejections to Acceptance: Revising poems for publication

Calling all Poets!

Take advantage of the expertise of our current Writer-in-Residence, Bronwyn Lovell, in an interactive workshop this Saturday 26 April, 1-4pm. Includes tea, coffee and individual critique.

This workshop is for emerging poets who are ready to send their poems out into the world, but are having trouble finding places to welcome them.

Participants will learn how to self-edit their poems and review their writing objectively. They will be shown various checks they can perform to judge whether or not a poem is working to its full potential, and strategies they can implement to improve those poems that might otherwise not progress beyond a publisher’s slush pile.

Poets will also receive advice about literary publications and competitions that are available for them to submit their work to on local, national and international platforms; and which ones might prove a suitable fit for their own poetry style, themes and aspirations.

Participants are requested to bring along two or three poems they have written that they would like to improve in view of future publication. EMAIL THESE THROUGH TODAY OR TOMORROW AND BRONWYN CAN READ THROUGH BEFORE THE WORKSHOP. These should ideally be poems that participants feel comfortable sharing and analysing together with other members of the group. Time pending, Bronwyn will be able to offer individual feedback to each poet.

Reply email or phone 9294 1872 to book. $30 members, $45 non-members.

Kind regards

Shannon Coyle    

Coordinator

Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers’ Centre

http://www.kspf.iinet.net.au

11 Old York Road

Greenmount WA 6056

PH: (08) 9294 1872

Monday - Tuesday 9-5pm

Wednesday - Friday 9-4.30pm

Poetry reading by Les Murray AO

with an introduction by Sue Butler, Editor, The Macquarie Dictionary

We are delighted to welcome Les Murray back to Fisher Library for readings from his collections of poetry.

Les is engaged at the moment reading the proofs of the American edition of hisCollected Works, to be published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. He says that the most he has to do is put in a comma that he should have put in years ago. Unlike Oscar Wilde who had the reverse difficulty – he struggled all morning taking a comma out and then in the afternoon put it back in again – Les thinks that the comma should always have been there, so as the afternoon wears on he will still leave it in. He agrees with Wilde however in general principle. A Murray dictum is: “When a book has reached this stage you do as little as possible because you will just end up ‘over-egging the pudding’.”

Les is heading off in May for a reading tour of Germany accompanied by his Swedish translator. He reads the English and she reads the German – although occasionally they swap. Her English has an American accent and Les’s German, according to one of his listeners, has improved. Then he presses on for more readings in London.

Les will read some old favourites and a number of new poems from a book in the making.

All are invited to attend this free event and light refreshments will be provided. This is a popular event and seats are limited so book early to avoid disappointment.

When: Tuesday 29 April 2014
Time: 5.30 for 6pm
Where: Exhibition Space, Level 2 Fisher Library
FULLY BOOKED.
If you have registered your attendance and are unable to attend please let us know via
E library.rsvp@sydney.edu.au or
T 9114 0866

Peter Porter Poetry Prize 2014

             

Australian Book Review is delighted to announce the four poems  shortlisted for the 2014 Peter Porter Poetry Prize, now in its tenth year. They are:

‘Absence’ by Elizabeth Allen
‘Scenes from the Olivet Discourse’ by Nathan Curnow
‘VFGA  ’ by Paul Kane
‘Arrival Platform Humlet’ by Jessica L. Wilkinson

The winner will receive $4,000; the other poets will each receive $500. Our judges – Lisa Gorton (Poetry Editor of ABR) and Felicity Plunkett – chose the quartet from almost 700 poems.

The winner will be announced at a special ceremony at Boyd on Wednesday, 7 May (6 pm). Three of our poets will read their works (Paul Kane, based in the United States, has a very good excuse).

If it’s anything like last year’s Porter ceremony, when Kevin Brophy and Jessica L. Wilkinson herself gave a bravura reading of Dan Disney’s daunting shortlisted poem, ‘Procedures in Aesthetics’, it will be a hoot.

This is a free event but bookings are essential: rsvp@australianbookreview.com.au

PREVIOUS WINNERS

Stephen Edgar (2005)

Judith Bishop (2006)

Alex Skovron (2007)

Ross Clark (2008)

Tracy Ryan (2009)

Anthony Lawrence (2010)

Judith Bishop (2011) and Tony Lintermans (2011)

Michael Farrell (2012)

John A. Scott (2013
)

Ahsahta Press 2014 Chapbook Contest

Just a gentle reminder . . . 

Ahsahta Press invites you to submit your chapbook to the 2014 Chapbook Contest. This year's judge is Susan Briante. The deadline for the competition is April 30. Get your submissions in now!

Find complete details at our submission manager page.

Susan Briante is the author of two books of poetry: Utopia Minus (Ahsahta Press 2011) and Pioneers in the Study of Motion (Ahsahta Press 2007). Of her most recent collection, Publisher’s Weekly writes: “this book finds an urgent language for the world in which we live.” Briante also writes essays on documentary poetics as well as on the relationship between place and cultural memory. Some of these can be found in Creative Non-Fiction, Rethinking History, Jacket and The Believer. A translator, Briante lived in Mexico City from 1991-1997 working for the magazines Artes de México and Mandorla. She has received grants and awards from the Atlantic Monthly, the MacDowell Colony, the Academy of American Poets, and the US-Mexico Fund for Culture. She is finishing work on a new collection of poems, The Market Wonders, inspired by the current economic crisis.

Happy Ishtar

paper wasp's Haiku Submission

Submissions are now open for paper wasp’s June/Winter issue of contemporary and experimental haiku. 

It is an issue in which poets can spread their wings, be different, be daring or even … just relieved that at long last all those experiments in the bottom drawer might find a home.

The deadline for the experimental and contemporary haiku June/Winter issue is 1 May 2014.

Email: ksamuelowicz@optusnet.com.au

Postal: paper wasp, 14 Fig Tree Pocket Rd, Chapel Hill, Qld 4069, Australia

.

Anne Elvey and Mark Tredinnick INVITATION BOOK LAUNCH

Issa Haiku

potato leaf--
a rice bowl's worth
of dew!

- Issa 1813

.芋の葉や親碗程の露の玉
imo no ha ya oya wan hodo no tsuyu no tama

5 Points where Jazz and Poetry meet - from Blog SUPREME

by PAMELA ESPELAND

Structured and free, sonic and rhythmic, poems and jazz music seem like natural partners. 

For National Poetry Month and Jazz Appreciation Month, here are some notable collisions between the two.

Hear it, love it, dance to it! http://www.npr.org/blogs/ablogsupreme/

Jayne Cortez tells it like it is.

Ghazal - by Maulana Hasrat Mohani

Ghazal

By Maulana Hasrat Mohani

Silently, silently, crying day and night – I still remember
All those days of our love – I still remember 

With a thousand worries and even more fondness
I felt that first spark of love – I still remember 

At our first meeting when I was instantly taken
By the shy way you bit your finger – I still remember 

The time I yanked aside the curtain
And you hid behind your scarf – I still remember 

In the heat of the afternoon you tiptoed barefoot
Across the terrace and called to me – I still remember

Dodging every stranger’s glance and everyone’s wishes
You stole away at night – I still remember

That evening when the mere thought of separating
Made the tears pass from your eyes to mine – I still remember

And the place where you came to meet me, secretly, so secretly
And so long ago – but I still remember

At the moment of our parting, you said goodbye
With your lips dry and trembling – I still remember 

In spite of all your claims of piety, Hasrat,
That time of desire – I still remember

Translation from the UrduBy Hamida Banu Chopra, Nasreen Chopra, and Zack Rogow

Full essay on how the team translated this ghazal is HERE

Witty!