Here's to the Queensland Poetry Festival 2010

I have returned from the Queensland Poetry Festival refreshed. Thank you to all who steered that beautiful weekend safely into port. It was so well organised! I noticed the unnoticeable, the invisible flow of event into event, only achievable if everything works like clockwork. With a Swiss movement at that. Herding a pack of poets (or is it a 'pride' of poets?) into an intensely enjoyable 3 day event is a miracle, and - while I had my reservations about some of it as poetry - the standard of the performances and the material presented never fell below an acceptable standard. My eyes and ears were opened to the work of a number of poets, some of whom I'd heard of and some I hadn't. Now I'm trying to read the stack of books I brought back in some kind of disciplined order But there is no 'order': there is simply impulse followed by impulse. And I am also distracted by some work at this end: can't they see I'm busy reading poetry books??!!

Further direct assessments of what I am reading as I get deeper into them, but now I must go and prepare a workshop for tomorrow. No rest for the ...