Westerly Magazine: Hello and Welcome

Westerly Magazine: Hello and Welcome: Hello there, Welcome to the Westerly blog. We have created this page, along with our updated Facebook profile , to allow our readers to ge...

tell it like it is ...

Each day is a little life: every waking and rising a little birth, every fresh morning a little youth, every going to rest and sleep a little death.
Arthur Schopenhauer

Westerly Magazine: Hello and Welcome

Westerly Magazine: Hello and Welcome: Hello there, Welcome to the Westerly blog. We have created this page, along with our updated Facebook profile , to allow our readers to ge...

Poem by Frank Parker

Trashing American English - Eureka Street

Trashing American English - Eureka Street

You betcha bippy, boy! Ha ha, I love the liveliness of English and its many national variations. I'm frightened we'll lose our Aussie turns of phrase to these atrocities from USA through the mass media and contemporary literature. Yet I love jazz and most of my favourite contemporary poets are American (& Irish). Ah, the paradox ... or is it a lexical dichotomy?

RIP Frank Parker

Frank Parker (Oct. 28 1949-Sept. 27, 2011). With Megan Harris and Bronwyn Caveney. A fun guy sadly missed. Poet, editor, blues flutist and very helpful friend. Take a look at some of his work and others he published at http://www.frankshome.org/

from the New Yorker ... the Poet's Lament

Take a gander at Janet Jackson's new poem ...

There's a romping poem by Janet Jackson at her Proximity site - http://www.proximitypoetry.com/Writing/Poems/2011walk/the-right-metaphor.html - with these great lines in it:

If love is a cage
     plan your escape

Cate Marvin interview at The Academy of American Poets

Poets.org: How do you begin a poem?

Cate Marvin: All poems, for me, are rooted in either a title or a line. I fall in love with a phrase I've read somewhere, overheard, or come up with on my own, and can't let it go, ever, until I've done it justice by encrypting it into a poem as a title or a line.
I like to think of poets as moving through the world with their minds poised like nets, intent on capturing scraps of language, resonant images. Thinking as a poet means viewing the world as a poem; thus, the poet is prone to existing in real space and time in a most vulnerable manner. This means being super-observant wherever your physical self takes your mind, as it requires being terribly receptive to light, images, movement, conversations between others, oddities many might be inclined to overlook in newspaper headlines, heatedly intimate conflicts overheard in public places, disingenuous directions offered by advertisements and street signs, etc.
Sometimes a poem comes over me like weather, feels like an itch or impulse. It's a near physical sensation. At that moment, there is nothing else to do but move to the typewriter or computer to pound the thing out.
More often, the poem has lived in my head for a long while, and I've battled with the entire idea of it. It insists on being made. I resist. I try to will it away. It won't go away. This is the Real Poem. The poem not born simply out of anger, or from a fit of lyrical bliss—no, this kind of poem has a real agenda. And it happens to me. When I begin this poem, I must be humble. Because this kind of poem, which usually has a big idea in its back pocket, is prepared to duke it out with me for years until I get it right. (By which I mean, one has to write a great manyvery bad poems to get this kind of poem started.) This kind of poem takes a lot of time. Sitting down. Beginning it again and again. By the point you've started it, it's taken so long to get there, you can't honestly explain to anyone how you began it. It began with you. In you. And it won't quit until you've got it right, by which point it bears no resemblance to the poem you "began."


Read more at http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/22576

‎"Be like melting snow -- wash yourself of yourself." ~Rumi


(Thank you, Fiona.)

Nothing to say - I just like this logo for Jazz Down Under.

Enter the Tom Collins Poetry Prize Now

Tom Collins Poetry Prize is an annual competition inaugurated in 1975 and sponsored by J. Furphy & Sons (Engineers) in memory of Australian author Joseph Furphy (1843 - 1912).

• Opening Date: 1 September
  Closing Date: 15 December (entries must be postmarked by this date to be eligible)
• Number of lines: Maximum 60 lines per poem.
• Prizes: First $1000.00 Second $400.00 4 x Highly Commended $150.00
  4 x Commended (certificate only)
• Entry Fee: $5.00 per poem (maximum of three poems per entrant)
• Entries must be accompanied by the entry form

More information and entry forms at 
Email: admin@fawwa.org.au Tel: +61 8 9384 4771 http://www.fawwa.org.au/oppsandcomps/comps.htm

On Verse: Hipolito on Geoffrey Hill

ON VERSE

Jeffrey Hipolito on Geoffrey Hill’s Clavics

Hill is described as one of the most important poets of our age, without having founded a school or even influenced younger writers. He is hermetic in every sense of the word, and those who appreciate his Manichean, prophetic aesthetic will find in Clavics much of value, and many hard locks to pick.

Mark Noonan on Ben Mazer's A City of Angels 

The challenge for a verse play is to be vigorously two things at once, both poetry and drama. Somewhere, hopefully, the work finds a point where each aspect fuels and reinforces the other. At its most effective moments, Ben Mazer's new verse play achieves this elusive synergy.

ON FICTION

Matthew Duffus on Charles McLeod's American Weather

Avoiding simplistic solutions and a satisfying conclusion makes for a bleak read, and in its skewering of our consumer culture, American Weather fits most comfortably in the dark satiric tradition of Swift and Beckett, or more recently of Brett Easton Ellis.

Third Australian Haiku Anthology - Call for Submissions

It is now five years since the publication of the Second Australian Haiku Anthology (2006). That followed the First Australian Haiku Anthology developed and published on line by John Bird and Janice Bostok in 1999 and subsequently published by paper wasp in 2003. Another edition of work by Australian haiku poets, now so well represented in contests and publications around the world, is timely. Thus, submissions for a third edition are invited from published haiku poets living in Australia or from Australian haiku poets resident overseas.

The deadline for submissions is: 30 September 2011

paper wasp editors/publishers
Katherine Samuelowicz, Jacqui Murray
Supported by AHS

Please submit:
1. a maximum of five, previously published, haiku
2. 12 pt typed
3. clearly marked with your name, postal address and email
4. include full publication details,
5. full details of any contest and/or award any haiku may have won and,
6. a brief personal biography

Email address for entries:
ksamuelowicz@optusnet.com.au

Postal address for entries:
paper wasp
14 Fig Tree Pocket Road
Chapel Hill
Qld 4069
Australia

The publishers hope the anthology will be available for Christmas 2011. The editors/publishers reserve the right to select entries on the basis of merit and space. No correspondence will be entered into.

The Chicago Style Manual - Put a smile on your style dial!

Q. Is it ever proper to put a question mark and an exclamation mark at the end of a sentence in formal writing? This author is giving me a fit with some of her overkill emphases.

A. In formal writing, we allow both marks only in the event that the author was being physically assaulted while writing. Otherwise, no.


There's more at http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/ads/adlandingpage_indiv2.html

American Life in Poetry: Column 339: Potato Soup by Daniel Nyikos

by TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE

People have been learning to cook since our ancient ancestors discovered fire, and most of us learn from somebody who knows how. I love this little poem by Daniel Nyikos of Utah, for its contemporary take on accepting directions from an elder, from two elders in this instance. Potato Soup  I set up my computer and webcam in the kitchen so I can ask my mother’s and aunt’s advice as I cook soup for the first time alone. My mother is in Utah. My aunt is in Hungary. I show the onions to my mother with the webcam. “Cut them smaller,” she advises. “You only need a taste.” I chop potatoes as the onions fry in my pan. When I say I have no paprika to add to the broth, they argue whether it can be called potato soup. My mother says it will be white potato soup, my aunt says potato soup must be red. When I add sliced peppers, I ask many times if I should put the water in now, but they both say to wait until I add the potatoes. I add Polish sausage because I can’t find Hungarian, and I cook it so long the potatoes fall apart. “You’ve made stew,” my mother says when I hold up the whole pot to the camera. They laugh and say I must get married soon. I turn off the computer and eat alone. American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright ©2010 by Daniel Nyikos. Reprinted by permission of Daniel Nyikos. Introduction copyright © 2009 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

You can investigate more of this fruitful site at

http://www.americanlifeinpoetry.org/current.html

Wow, DONALD HALL turns 83!

HAMDEN — How do poets give birthday parties to poets?

They read poetry.

A standing-room only crowd paid homage to Hamden native Donald Hall, a prolific writer of poetry, anthologies, memoirs and children’s books, and many afterward crowded around him for his autograph.

The occasion was the celebration of Hall’s March 2011 honor from President Obama, the National Medal of Art, and his 83rd birthday, which will be Tuesday. His 15th book of poetry, “The Back Chamber,” came out Wednesday.

...

He decided on his life’s work, poetry, when he was 12 or so, influenced by the writings of Edgar Allen Poe and the desire to be desirous of girls.

“I thought it was attractive to be weird,” he added, after taking a seat in front of the room so he could read his poems.

Christine Beck with 83 year old Donald Hall.

Read it all at http://www.ctpostchronicle.com/articles/2011/09/17/life/doc4e74bfe01c138110727519.txt

100 Thousand Poets CAN change things!

"Poets can change things. If they can gather to discuss curriculum and publishing, then they can also get together and discuss how business is being done in their communities, address inequality, racism, war, health care, education."

-- Michael Rothenberg, founder 100 Thousand Poets for Change

On Saturday, September 24, people all over the world will come together to listen to each other sing.

This is true. Literally, seriously true.

In Bhubaneshwar, India, and in Asunción, Paraguay.

In Novi Sad, Serbia. In Nanjing, China. In Canada, Scotland, Botswana, Guatemala, Malawi, Mexico, Iceland.

And at Perth Poetry Club at The Moon Café, Northbridge, from 2 to 4pm, Saturday 24 September, with   PARKBEAR + TINEKE VAN DER EECKEN plus Open Mic, professional sound, helpful bar people and an appreciative audience! People will gather there to read their poems and songs. People will listen with great hope and heart.

Across the globe, there will be 100,000 Poets for Change.

"Literature is the expression of a feeling of deprivation, a recourse against a sense of something missing. But the contrary is also true: language is what makes us human. It is a recourse against the meaningless noise and silence of nature and history."

-- Octavio Paz

Founded by American poet Michael Rothenberg, 100,000 Poets for Change is a one-day global poetry reading. More than 600 events in 450 cities in 95 countries are planned to date, including Australia – and specifically, Perth.

To see more, go to http://www.bigbridge.org/BB15/hundred_k_poets.html

Terrible Typo strikes again ,,,

SUSAN Andersen's latest romance novel is Playing Dirty; an earlier title is Hot and Bothered. Which is probably what her teacher heroine Catherine Macpherson in Baby, I'm Yours was when bounty hunter Sam McKade lost control with her. And lost control means … really letting it all out: ''He stiffened for a moment but then she felt his muscles loosen as he shitted on the ground.'' Oops.


Here's what Andersen had to say on her website: ''I wanted to give you all a head's up on a killer typo in my digital edition of Baby, I'm Yours and apologise for page 293 … Shifted - he SHIFTED!
God, I am so appalled, not to mention horrified that anyone would think that's what I wrote.


I'd really appreciate it if you would forward this to your romance reading friends just in case they bought the e-book, which is on sale for $2.99 at the moment so has likely been selling even better than usual (trust me, usually that's a good thing). Please assure them that I'm on it and it will be fixed asap.''

Arty Bollocks gives you that difficult answer on the Grant Application!

"My work explores the relationship between postmodern discourse and football chants.

With influences as diverse as Kafka and John Cage, new synergies are manufactured from both simple and complex dialogues.

Ever since I was a postgraduate I have been fascinated by the essential unreality of the human condition. What starts out as vision soon becomes finessed into a hegemony of defeat, leaving only a sense of dread and the chance of a new beginning.

As wavering forms become reconfigured through boundaried and repetitive practice, the viewer is left with a summary of the limits of our culture."

- as written by Arty Bollocks - and it is kind-of right! Try out some Arty Bollocks yourself at  

http://www.artybollocks.com/#ab

Robert Adamson wins 2011 BLAKE POETRY PRIZE

Of his work, Via Negativa, The Divine Dark, the 2011 judges (Brook Emery, Bronwyn Lee and Judith  Beveridge) said, "This is a powerful, visually striking, intelligent poem which explores complex ideas associated with negative theology in a humble but resonant way. The poem beautifully manages the movement between the immediacy of the present and difficult concepts such as time, suffering and the existence and nature of the soul; between the trivial ordinariness of the world and the large abstractions; between what can be knowable and precisely observed and what remains unknowable and concealed."

Highly Commended mentions went to Verity Laughton for her work The Fox Man and Todd Turner forFieldwork. The judge's reports are below.

The Fox Man

The Fox Man is a rich and powerful poem in terms of both its language and its issues. It uses the discovery of the body of Lovernius in a peat bog to investigate the nature of ritual sacrifice from the point of view of ‘they’, ‘you’, Lovernius, and the pagan gods. There is a controlled movement between the shocking mechanics of the sacrifice expressed in compressed visceral images, the more contemplative reflections on the meaning of the sacrifice, and an imagining of the aftermath of the sacrifice in which the language, surprisingly but convincingly, becomes sensuous and loving.

Fieldwork

Fieldwork is both an unassuming narrative of an event and of a mind thinking. It wonders about the cycle of birth and death, about the meaning and purpose (or purposelessness) of life, about the incarnate and the transcendent, about evolution and the spirit. It works towards a conclusion which in itself is a question with only an implied answer. The poem is impressive for its understated craft, its precise observation of nature, the rich inventiveness of its colloquial language, and the evocativeness of its sensual imagery.

Fellowship Of Australian Writers (WA) News

Greetings FAWWA Members
 Both Pat and Trisha are off to Turkey and Greece for the next 4 weeks until the 15th October. The office will be kept going through the efforts of volunteers.
 You can follow our trip through this blog:
• Its called TURKISH DELIGHT
• The URL is http://turkey-wildheart.blogspot.com 
• The short URL is http://bit.ly/osmhjp 


FAWWA events which are coming up:
17 September Workshop: Reading the World to write the World with Horst Kornberger 5 - 7pm
18 September Launch of Transgression by Geraldine Wooller at Mattie Furphy House 2pm
24 September Workshop: Swimming Against the Tide in your (TH)inkwell with Andrew Burke 2 -4 pm
25 September Workshop: Environmental Writing: Restoring the Mytho-Poetic Sphere of the Earth 5 - 7pm

22 October Workshop: Words on a cello with Kevin Gillam 2 - 4pm
28 October First session of an 8 week course, Story Medicine with Horst Kornberger 10 - 12 noon
29 October Workshop: B E A T with Liana Joy Christensen2 - 4pm
29 October Annual General Meeting - Announcement of the Winners of the Tom Collins Poetry Prize, starting at 2pm

2 November Sue Woolfe begins her writers residence at Mattie Furphy House, finishing 30th November
5 November Launch of Deadly Beautiful by Liana Joy Christensen at Mattie Furphy House 3.30pm

 We're sure the volunteers would welcome any help you can give them.

 All the very best,

  Pat and Trisha

Cordite Open for Submissions Now

Cordite 37: No Theme! Yes, that's right: they've decided to ditch the whole theme thingo for one issue only - meaning that you can send up to five poems on any theme at all, even if that theme is 'No Theme!' Because poetry wants to be free. Guest poetry editor for this issue will be Alan Wearne. Submissions close at midnight on 30 September 2011 Full details on Cordite's website: http://www.cordite.org.au/submissions

Mags Webster at Perth Poetry Club 2pm this SATURDAY

‘… you’ve scoped me like landscape and I await
the brushstrokes of your breath, the weather of tongues …’
___________‘Strange Vernacular’, The Weather of Tongues

On Saturday 17 September, Perth Poetry Club brings you MAGS WEBSTER, weaver of lyrical landscapes.

At The Moon Cafe, 323 William Street, Northbridge from 2 to 4 pm.

Open mic and professional sound. All welcome.

Kenyon Review Reading Period Begins September 15th

The Kenyon Review will begin accepting submissions through its online submissions site http://kenyonreview.org/krsubmit/submissions/on September 15, 2011 and the submissions period will continue through January 15, 2012. Short fiction, poetry, drama, essays, and translations will be accepted for both the magazine and KROnline from a single pool of submissions.

Haiku - the contemporary view by Modern Haiku

Volume 42.2 Summer 2011 cover art

Deborah Adams, "Western Tiger Swallowtail, Papilio rutulus,Santa Fe, New Mexico, June 2010," digital photograph.


for information on submissions and competitions, background and such, got to Modern Haiku's home page at http://www.modernhaiku.org/

Definitions—what we’re looking for

Haiku is a brief verse that epitomizes a single moment. It uses the juxtaposition of two concrete images, often a universal condition of nature and a particular aspect of human experience, in a way that prompts the reader to make an insightful connection between the two. The best haiku allude to the appropriate season of the year. Good haiku avoid subjectivity; intrusions of the poet’s ego, views, or values; and displays of intellect, wit, and facility with words.

The above is a normative definition, and haiku of various kinds not squaring with this definition can be easily found, even in the pages of our journal.

Senryu is a verse in the haiku form that focuses on human nature. Although Modern Haiku has a best-senryu-of-issue award, separate sections for haiku and senryu have been discontinued because we find it is impossible to draw a sharp line between the two in English-language verse.

The editors of Modern Haiku use the term "haiku" inclusively (and loosely) for both haiku and senyru and consider both for publication on an equal footing.

Haikai is a Japanese term for the popular light verse that flourished in the 16th century in reaction to the elevated Japanese court poetry. The term was especially associated with haikai no renga, a composition of linked verses in haikai style. In English, haikai has now come to signify the whole genre of composition that includes haiku, senryu, haibun, and haiga. In Latin America and Europe haikai (orhaicai, etc.) often means "haiku," the verse as well as the genre.

Hokku is the original name for the Japanese verse form now almost universally called haiku, both in Japan and abroad. Except in specific literary or historical contexts, the term is not used in English.

Haibun is a prose poem that uses embedded haiku to enhance the composition’s overall resonance and effect. Modern Haiku publishes several haibun in each issue. The following principles guide the editors in choosing among haibun submissions: (1) Each verse should be able to stand on it own as a haiku, without reference to the prose; (2) The prose should be composed in haikai style—that is, with an eye to brevity, objectivity, and non-intellectualization; (3) The haiku and the prose should stand in the same relationship to one another as do the two parts of the haiku—that is, one part should not repeat, explain, or continue the other, rather the juxtaposition of the two should lead the reader to experience added insight or resonance. Haibun are generally, but not necessarily, titled.

Haiga is a work combining a graphic image (originally sumi-e, brush painting with black ink) with a haiku in the same relationship as the two parts of a haibun (see above); in particular, the graphic should not merely be an illustration of the haiku, nor the haiku a caption for the image. The best haiga use the same medium for the haiku and the graphic. Photo haiga are very popular these days, but not with our editors. Haiga generally do not need a title. Modern Haiku typically publishes four haiga in each issue in the Poetry Gallery section.

Renku is the modern name for renga (or haikai no renga), a chain of interlocked verses produced by several poets, usually as a sort of literary party game. Modern Haiku does not generally publish renku or other linked-verse forms.

Tanka is the modern name for waka, the traditional courtly poetry of Japan, written in 5–7–5–7–7–syllable groups and often dealing with themes of love, etc.Modern Haiku does not publish tanka.
• • •

Modern Haiku publication policies and considerations—haiku & senryu

Syllable and line count are not vital in contemporary English-language haiku—in particular in our journal. We find, in fact, that few poets are able to write effective haiku in the "traditional" 5–7–5–syllable format.

Titles, notes. English-language haiku generally do not need titles or head notes. If you wish to label your haiku, you should be sure there is a very good reason for doing so and that the title is more than merely a cheat, an extra "fourth line." The same is true of explanatory notes or footnotes: if your verse contains material that needs explanation, it is safe to assume that it is inadequately communicating to its intended audience—i.e., it is a failed haiku.

Dedications. Modern Haiku tries to avoid including a dedication with a haiku on the grounds that it tends to divert attention and sap energy from the haiku.

Locations & dates. Similarly, we try to avoid including a location or date (e.g., a line reading "Aunt Jenny’s backyard, May 1978") with haiku for the same reasons we are suspicious of titles, notes, and dedications.

Foreign languages. Modern Haiku is keen to publish haiku in languages other than English provided that the work was originally composed in the foreign language and that it is accompanied by an English translation (our editors can often help with the translations). Back translations (that is, an author’s original English-language work translated into another language) and translations into third languages are generally not of interest.

Sequences. Modern Haiku welcomes haiku sequences, but we do not generally publish renku, rengay, or other multi-authored linked verse.

In memoriams. Our journal no longer publishes sections of haiku submitted in memory of a recently deceased poet.
And finally, a note on pluralization: in English, "haiku" and related terms taken from Japanese are both singular and plural.

Modern Haiku prose style
We try to present the prose sections of Modern Haiku in standard American English suitable for a well-educated reader. For spelling and usage, we follow Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th edition. We basically follow Modern Language Association (MLA) bibliographic style and refer to The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition.

Payments
Upon acceptance of material submitted by postal mail, Modern Haiku pays an author fee of $1.00 for each haiku or senryu and $2.00 for each haibun, and normally $10.00 for each haiga. Free author copies of the journal are not provided.

For essays and longer reviews the journal pays an $5.00 per printed page or part thereof. Free author copies are not provided, but for prose pieces and haiga a PDF offprint with the published work will be provided by e-mail upon request.

Modern Haiku Gift Fund. The editors have established this Fund to provide subscriptions to the journal to poets in the U.S. and elsewhere who may not be able to afford it on their own. Poets submitting their work to MH may indicate, if they wish, that their author fees should be diverted to the Fund. Nominations for recipients of these free subscriptions are always welcome.

--

West Australian haiku groups can be reached through haikumariwarabiny@gmail.com
http://www.wapoets.net.au/pages/mariwarabinyhaikugroup.html

Getting a kick out of gardening ...

I don't know who shot this or who planted them, but I found it at http://pinterest.com/pin/35155010/
It is so cool.

Orchid Poems by Amanda Joy

Just as it is impossible to show you a real-life image of this book's imaginative cut-corner format, with an orchid on pollen yellow in its peek-a-boo corner, so it is difficult to pin-down the luscious sensuousness of these thoughtful yet erotic poems. Well, yes, that may describe it in part, but it is a poetic you must read and enjoy to fully appreciate.

from Ghost Orchid -

The room is a dense garden of her
smell, soon he will have to say
something, soon she will reach
from under the blanket for his
hand

Lovers of the lovers whispering
agitato in their sleep somewhere
past

Slick twinned legs of the Ghost
Orchid, still one with root
and nectar spur tongued by moths
who wont strive
to outlive themselves

Everyday language? Almost. But lots of wet-lip sss here and that wonderful waltz-like swirl in the rhythm when we say 'agitato' - so physical, so sensual, so musical. This music runs in the sprockets of Amanda's imagery in poem after poem. As Robert Adamson so succinctly says on the blurb, 'each poem [has] static electricity between form and flower crackles and flows ...'

Another tight and strong collection from Mulla Mulla Press the new kid on the poetry publishing block in Australia. You can buy Orchid Poems by Amanda Joy at Indie bookshops around Perth or by mail from http://www.mullamullapress.com

Introducing Alan Summers, a surprise guest today at Perth Poetry Club

Area 17
With Words was founded by Alan Summers to promote the love of words through literature, creative writing, and literacy events & workshops as well as creative team building events.

Re events and workshops for families, children, and schools contact us through our With Words website: http://www.withwords.org.uk/

The Sons of Clovis: Ern Malley, Adoré Floupette and a Secret History of Australian Poetry By David Brooks

Published by UQP, September 2011, RRP $39.95, 384pp +8 pp pic section

The Sons of Clovis is an astounding literary history that will challenge almost everything you think you know about Australia’s most famous literary hoax, the Ern Malley affair, and the motivations of its creators.

More than 20 years in the writing, acclaimed Australian novelist, poet and scholar, David Brooks, has produced what will be the most talked about literary book of 2011.

David Brooks had long harboured suspicions about the Ern Malley Hoax; to his expert eye – as an accomplished poet and scholar of literature – something about the whole affair just didn’t ring true. So when he inadvertently discovered evidence of a precedent for Ern Malley in the Adoré Floupette poetry hoax of 1885, Brooks embarked on a quest to reveal the real story behind Australia’s most famous literary scandal. What he discovered not only challenges every accepted belief about the hoaxers’ motivations and inspiration, but charts the much neglected contribution of the French Symbolist movement to Australian poetry. In the mid 1940s, writers James McAuley and Harold Stewart submitted a series of poems to a magazine of experimental poetry, Angry Penguins,under the fictitious name Ern Malley. They claimed to want to demonstrate their disdain for experimental poetry by writing deliberately bad verse, hastily concocted by lifting lines from whatever came to hand – a dictionary, a report on mosquito breeding grounds, Shakespeare – blended with self-conscious hints at meaning. With the inclusion in their submission of an invented and tragic biography of ‘Ern Malley’ supplied by his fictitious sister ‘Ethel’, the hoax was complete.

In a flurry of excitement, the poems were published in a special edition proclaiming the discovery of an important new Australian voice. When the hoax was exposed, it occupied the front page of newspapers around the nation, and made international headlines. It is still Australia’s best-known and most talked about literary hoax, the inspiration not only of Peter Carey’s My Life as a Fake, but of works by such artists as Sidney Nolan and Gary Shead, and of innumerable poetic tributes around the globe.

The Sons of Clovis is not just a fresh look at the Ern Malley deception. It is also a compelling study of literary hoaxes, both Australian and international, and a wide-ranging journey through literature, culture, philosophy and poetics: how Ern’s French ancestor changed literary history; his Irish and Austrian cousins; Gwen Harwood’s infamous Bulletin sonnets; American poets on the loose in wartime Sydney and Melbourne; Frank O’Hara and James McAuley on the island of Manus, and so much more. Written in an engaging narrative style, this fascinating and revelatory book combines the authority of an academic classic with the narrative tension of a thriller.

Please Note: The correct address for acceptances or not -georgia.holmes@sydney.edu.au

they praise Buddha too--
frogs on a rock
in a row


-Issa, 1822

http://cat.xula.edu/issa/

Best Seller August: BLUE ROSE

from the Publisher's desk:
Congratulations to Andrew Burke for placing first in August after the launch of his terrific title Blue Rose (the haunting story of a runaway teenager who discovers a side of Perth that most of us will never see).

Congratulations too to Andrew’s son Miles Burke for the superb cover design on this book, it’s a credit to him.

BLUE ROSE is available direct from http://etextpress.com/books.htm or from Amazon and Smashwords.

The Australian String Quartet invites the boys back in!

'Limelight ABC Magazine has contributed to my musical education with this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TQN5lep4rYk#!

The ASQ unveils its "new look" lineup... And it's no longer an all-female affair.

The Australian String Quartet has revealed its two newest recruits following an international search that began in March and drew candidates from Germany, Switzerland and Canada. Violinist Kristian Winther and violist Stephen King, two of Australia’s most respected string players, will replace departing members Sophie Rowell and Sally Boud at the start of the 2012 season.

More to read at http://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/Article/271291,meet-the-australian-string-quartets-new-boys.aspx

Submission for Small Poems Only

The Lavender Room Zine-in-a-Matchbox Series has an exciting announcement:

Issue #8 will be a special Bumper Poetry Issue – and we need your poems!!!

If you have a rather small poem (10 lines or under) and would like it to appear in a Golden Stapler nominated zine series (http://goldenstapler.tumblr.com/), then like The Lavender Room (http://www.facebook.com/thelavenderroom) and post your poem on the wall. Submissions need to be in before 31st October.

The Bumper Poetry Issue will be available in December - that's right, just in time for Christmas!

ED: Thanks to Amanda Joy for putting me on to this one.

Some of These Daze | Jacket2

Mimi Gross / Charles Bernstein 9/11 collaboration


Some of These Daze | Jacket2

This is what art is for.

in Today's "West Australian"

Thanks for the mention, Will.

That website, if you couldn't read it, is: http://www.mullamullapress.com/QWERTY

Crikey! The Culture Mulcher goes Poetic - for One Week Only!

http://blogs.crikey.com.au/culture-mulcher/2011/09/05/poetry-week-monday-lufthansa/

Today, John Tranter. Who tomorrow? Nobody asked me, so I take it I'm out, but there will be quality words in a quality order. Take a daily trip to Crikey's Culture Mulcher pages to check it out.

(PS: Tranter is a better looking man than that image! I put it up more as a hoot than anything.)

Vale Janice M Bostok 1942 -2011

Australian haiku poets will be saddened by the death of revered haiku poet Janice M Bostok, Patron of the Australian Haiku Society, editor, teacher, judge and mentor in the haiku field. Janice died peacefully in the Murwillumbah Hospital yesterday afternoon Sunday 4th September. On behalf of the Australian Haiku Society (HaikuOz) may I offer condolences to Janice’s family, and to her haiku colleagues and friends.

Cynthia Rowe
President: The Australian Haiku Society

More information on Janice’s life and her role in the haiku community will be posted soon.

Please submit memorial poems and brief tributes to cynthia.rowe@ozemail.com.au

Poetica for National Poetry Week

The editor and presenter of ABC's Poetica radio program Mike Ladd presents a selection of poems from new publications around Australia, including first books from new authors and collections from well-established poets. There's even a little poetry book from Green's leader Senator Bob Brown.

It's a lively program for 2011 National Poetry Week. Check it out here http://www.abc.net.au/rn/poetica/stories/2011/3286639.htm

Issa Haiku

just as you are
become Buddha!
snake in your hole


-Issa, 1821

http://cat.xula.edu/issa/

'Remains To Be Seen' by HALVARD JOHNSON - Free and Online for you to view now!

Remains To Be Seen is a NEW and expanding collection of poems by HALVARD JOHNSON, free to view and download on your computer through Vida Loca Books.

Here's Hal :: If you'd like to read over my shoulder (or even whisper comments in my ear), please feel free to do so. The collection (new poems and old) draws on many other collections both in print and online over the years.

This is not one of those slender volumes of verse you've heard so much about. It will be as large and various as all outdoors. It will be subject to change, but what isn't?


One of the busiest poets in cyberspace, Hal is founding editor and 'owner' of Truck, a lively poetry magazine online at http://halvard-johnson.blogspot.com/ TRUCK changes editor every month (intentionally!) so you're certain to be entertained no matter what your taste at various times of the year! I'll be in the driver's seat for November, but right now it is Michael Tod Edgerton

2012 USA Poet Stamps

In 2012, the United States Post office will honor ten poets with their likenesses on postage stamps: Elizabeth Bishop, Joseph Brodsky, Gwendolyn Brooks, E. E. Cummings, Robert Hayden, Denise Levertov, Sylvia Plath, Theodore Roethke, Wallace Stevens, and William Carlos Williams. These stamps will be issues as Forever ® Stamps (always equal in value to the current First-Class one-ounce rate).

My Aussie list, in no particular order, would go something like Robert Adamson, Bruce Beaver, Gwen Harwood, John Tranter, Geoff Page, Anthony Lawrence, Dorothy Porter, Bruce Dawe, William Hart-Smith, Frances Webb, Andrew Taylor, Les Murray, Tom Shapcott ... oh, bugger, I've got thirteen without even trying!

What's your list? If you can't send it through 'comments' here, send it to burkeandre(at)gmail.com (Please, leave the songwriters out - I know we have some great ones, but that's a different bag o'tricks.)

Thanks to Adele Kenny at http://adelekenny.blogspot.com/ for the USA list.

2011 WA Spring Poetry Festival rolls on (without me ...)

I been otherwise occupied, so catching up by downloading pics off facebook sites. Stand by>>>

Coral Carter does The Bagwash proud in Perth city; Coral Carter spruiking it up with Kevin Gillam on cello in Perth City Library; Alf Taylor yackin' at Yirra Yaakin; Sign says it all ...

Preparing for Silence after the Poetry Fest!

In case you're wondering what to do after the Poetry Fest is over, take a hint from Phillip Levine who, at 83, has recently been elected as Poet Laureate of USA. He's long been a favourite of mine (I have a few, don't I) but most of the poems I know of his have been about workingclass men and their lives. Here's a nod to 'silence'.

QUOTE

His late poems are full of that tenderness and also of a Hardyesque humbleness in which, while still enthralled by poetry, he hesitates to make too great claims for it. A 1999 poem by Mr. Levine is called “He Would Never Use One Word Where None Would Do” and ends:

Fact is, silence is the perfect water:
unlike rain it falls from no clouds
to wash our minds, to ease our tired eyes,
to give heart to the thin blades of grass
fighting through the concrete for even air
dirtied by our endless stream of words.

UNQUOTE

Lovely. Fact is, silence is the perfect water to wash away any over-indulgence in poetry during the 2011 WA Spring Poetry Festival. It's not over yet, I know, but you have to prepare for separation!