Sunday, June 30, 2013

'Notes for the Translators' Launch - Hear Australian poets reading!

This is just to remind you about the three launches of Notes for the Translators which are happening in the next two weeks.



launch in Wagga Wagga -- at Charles Sturt University -- ASAL Conference
at 1 pm on Thursday 4th July

launch in Sydney -- at the Friend in Hand pub (upstairs as usual) - 58 Cowper St Glebe --
at 7 pm on Monday 8th July
 
launch in Newcastle -- Theatre Lane Hotel 189 Hunter Street Newcastle (at the western end of Hunter Street Mall)
at 7.30 pm on Monday 15th July

 

so far, the following people will be reading at the launches:

Wagga Wagga - Thursday 4th July
Jill Jones 
Corey Wakeling 
Toby Fitch
Andrew Burke 
Michael Farrell 


Sydney - Monday 8th July 
Joanne Burns
Anna Couani
Brook Emery
Richard Tipping
Eileen Chong
Beth Spencer 
Andy Kissane 
Richard James Allen
Cecilia White
David Musgrave 
Alex Skovron
Alan Wearne
Toby Fitch
Pam Brown
Claine Kelly
Billy Marshall-Stoneking
Rae Desmond Jones
Mark Roberts 
Margaret Bradstock 

Newcastle - Monday 15th July 
David Musgrave
Jean Kent 
Beth Spencer 
Jan Dean 
Brian Purcell
Mark Tredinnick



Please tell your friends and supporters and poetry lovers. Publicize widely!

Saturday, June 29, 2013

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

2013 Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize by Island

3rd July Launch of OUTCROP Anthology - in Wagga Wagga


You're invited to the launch of 'Outcrop', a new anthology which collects contemporary radical Australian poetry of land. Curated by Corey Wakeling and Jeremy Balius'Outcrop' transcribes innovative and significant poetical approaches to land at the crossroads of ecology and language.

'Outcrop' will be launched in partnership with the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) 2013 Conference, as well as Booranga Writers Centre, at Charles Sturt University in Wagga Wagga.

Held in July, the conference’s theme this year is ‘Country’ with a focus on topics which include the reimagining of the antipodes, discussing notions of country, region and location in literature, the sacred and the profane in country and the interaction between the cosmopolitan and the rural.

The 'Outcrop' collection, rather than an exhaustive survey, represents a diversity of contemporary Australian radical poetic perspectives. These range from land in content and syntax, to voice, ecology, gesture and land of the body. These are poetic experiments with landscape and geopolitics, exemplars of radical visions of land.

The launch will feature readings from Michael Farrell, Fiona Hile, Keri Glastonbury, Duncan Hose, Jill Jones, Astrid Lorange and Tim Wright, with a short introduction by Outcrop co-editor Corey Wakeling.

Where: ASAL 2013, Booranga Writers Centre, Charles Sturt University

When: 5pm - 6:30pm, Wednesday 3 July

Tickling the Ivories ...


For music fans, have a read of this from The New York Review of Books

Tuesday, June 25, 2013

7 Authors Address Failure

• Diana Athill: 'It is possible to make use of failure, and forget it'
• Margaret Atwood: 'Get back on the horse that threw you'
• Julian Barnes: 'Success to one person can be failure to another'
• Ann Enright: 'Failure is what writers do. It is built in'
• Howard Jacobson: 'You have to see failure as an opportunity'
• Will Self: 'People say my writing is dreadful and pretentious'
• Lionel Shriver: 'No one wants to buy a book about disappointment'

Read all about it HERE. (or above ...)

New Government Australia/Asia Art Awards

Australian Government | Department of Regional Australia, Local Government, Arts and Sports | Office for the Arts
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Art & culture stories | August 2011
 

June, 2013

 
Arts Minister Tony Burke has announced new awards to celebrate the important role Australian artists and arts organisations play in enhancing our relationship with Asian countries.
The Australian Arts in Asia Awards opened for applications on Monday 17 June and will recognise, celebrate and promote the significant number of Australian artists engaging in Asia, contributing to stronger, deeper and broader cultural links with Asian nations.
Awards are open to nominations in 14 categories:
• Partnerships
• Philanthropy
• Indigenous
• Community engagement
• Innovation
• Individual artist
• Small to medium arts organisations
• Major arts organisations
• Visual art
• Literature
• Dance
• Theatre
• Music
• Digital and film
 

Diary

  • Nominations for the Awards close at 5pm on Sunday 30 June 2013.
  • Winners will be announced at a showcase gala event in Sydney on
    Thursday 1 August 2013
 

In this issue

aboriginal artwork
 

Australian Arts in Asia Awards guidelines


Find out if you’re eligible for an Award and more information about how to apply.
Read the Awards guidelines
aboriginal artwork
 

Nominate today!


Eligible artists, arts organisations and collecting institutions can nominate themselves for the awards, or be nominated by a third party.
Submit a nomination

Saturday, June 22, 2013

"Sister Smile: Singer. Rebel. Feminist. Lover. Nun"


Josephus Dolce: I accidentally stumbled onto a great dvd this afternoon [22/06/2013]. The story of 'Soeur Sourire' - the Singing Nun. Some of you my age will remember her world wide number one hit song 'Dominique'. The title of this dvd is 'Sister Smile', the way the American media referred to her. Something compelled me to go down to Dixons second-hand dvd shop today and there it was. I have a long history with Jeannine Deckers, the 'Singing Nun'. 'Dominique' was one of the first songs that went in deep and turned a switch when I was a teenager, an unlikely world hit, sung in French, by a Dominican nun! Go figure. I was a straight A student in French in years 11 and 12 so maybe that had something to do with it but I think it was her tender voice that really stung me. In any case, some years ago, I discovered the incredible story around this woman. Art student as a young girl, off to the convent as a teenager, sudden out-of-the-blue pop star, left the convent, moved in with a woman companion, rebelled against the Church with 'The Golden Pill' - a song glorifying birth control as coming from God for the liberation of women - finally hunted down by the tax department, and in despair, and joy it seems from this film, she and her partner Annie Pescher, committed suicide together in a loving pact.

I was in negotiations to help with an English translation of her life story a decade ago with a Belgian publisher and writer but the wheels fell off of that one. A few years ago, I wrote a new set of lyrics to her massive number one hit 'Dominique' and this was published as a poem in 'Etchings 11- Three Chords and the Truth' last month. But other than that, I forgot about it. Now I discover this amazing movie and it all comes back. Here is the cover of the dvd. I don't know if you can find it. It was an accident that I did. Also, here are the lyrics to my biographic-variation of her beautiful song, sung to the original melody. 


DOMINIQUE
(to the tune of Dominique)

" Dominique, nique, nique
s'en allait tout simplement
routier pauvre et chantant
en tous chemins, en tous lieux
elle ne parle que du bon Dieu,
elle ne parle que du bon Dieu." 

Jeanine Deckers

Dominique, nique, nique . . . 
sang that voice we knew so well 
her story here I'll tell 
such a sweet and sad refrain 
Jeanine Deckers was her name,
Jeanine Deckers was her name.

Born in Belgium in the fifties 
with a manner shy and hushed 
as a young girl at an art school 
held the watercolour brush.

She renounced all possessions 
to the convent she did go 
until the world saw Soeur Sourire 
on the Ed Sullivan Show.

Then in nineteen sixty-three 
Dominique was number one 
to her Order she donated 
all the profits from the song.

She won a Grammy award 
for the year's best gospel song 
she was called a one-hit wonder 
she was called The Singing Nun.

Sudden fame took her by the hand 
led her into the deep 
so uncomfortable performing 
tranquillizers helped her sleep.

Soon she left her convent tunic 
for modern clothes again 
and met dear Annie Pescher 
who became her lifelong friend.

She criticized the Church 
in a protest voice so bold 
when she wrote The Golden Pill 
praising God for birth control.

Jeanine built a school in Belgium 
where autistic kids could go 
but the tax department closed it 
for a claim they said she owed.

Then in nineteen eighty-five 
times were destitute and black 
Jeanine Decker and Annie Pescher 
made their suicidal pact.

Dominique, nique, nique . . . 
sang that voice we knew so well 
her story here I'll tell 
such a sweet and sad refrain 
Jeanine Deckers was her name,
Jeanine Deckers was her name.

- Josephus Dolce, 2013

Murray Jennings on 6IX Afternoons


Back when I was just a young man, I worked as a copywriter at Radio Station 6IX. I had one friend on staff there when I joined: poet, author and musicologist, Murray Jennings. I think I won the job mainly because I could type! Oh, the stories we could tell! But of course we won't, will we. However, I did think many people might like to see a timeless ad from way back in 1968 ... It's a hoot, isn't it!


Friday, June 21, 2013

7 Foods for Better Sleep - a tip for insomniacs

Many people of my acquaintance have trouble sleeping at night, so here I proffer a small list of foods said to help you nod off (to sleep, not to die!).  

1 Oatmeal
2 Chickpeas
3 Bananas
4 Seeds and Nuts
5 Warm milk and honey
6 Potatoes
7 Relaxing tea

The full story is at 

Thursday, June 20, 2013

poets and poetry

"To a gentleman publisher of the nineteenth century—the only kind likely to be found then—publishing houses today would appear downright Martian. From the newly forged corporate realms of the past decades to tiny independent outposts scattered around the nation, the publishing trade has undergone formerly inconceivable changes. Walt Whitman, who published his own masterpiece Leaves of Grass in several editions (and is known to have written glowing reviews of it under various pseudonyms), would be delighted with the many opportunities for personal publishing appearing with the advent of print-on-demand and e-book technology. Likewise, it is not impossible to imagine Emily Dickinson posting poems on her own website, perhaps anonymously. Here at Bold Type we embrace these changes, and hope to harness the power of technology to bring poetry to a wider audience.

"Bold Type offers exclusive interviews, archival and contemporary recordings, poems, and short essays written by our Poetry Editor, Ernest HilbertBold Type, one of the most widely read literary magazines in the world, also publishes emerging poets from independent presses around America. Check back each month for new poets, and explore the rest of the site for more exciting fiction and non-fiction from some of today's best writers."


'Unhoused' now to be Unhoused!

Regime Books

Just a Reminder

Book Launch! > Unhoused > Poems by Chris Palazzolo

Join Regime Books and Perth writer and poet Chris Palazzolo for the launch of his new collection of poetry, Unhoused.

Yes, free drinks, something to eat, and a performance of one of Chris's poems accompanied by the classical music of celebrated composer Chris Boyder...not to be missed!!!

 
TO BE LAUNCHED BY PETER JEFFERY OAM

When: 6.30pm, Tuesday 25 June 2013
Where: Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA) Bar and Cafe, Perth Cultural Centre

Readings and a Special Performance of 'A Life in Music'
Poem by Chris Palazzolo, Music by Chris Boyder

Wednesday, June 19, 2013


Great review at artshub! Congratulations Regime founders/editors.


By Chrysoula Aiello | Monday June 17 2013


Open the pages of Regime Magazine and you enter, as the publisher’s website claims, ‘the world’s most frivolous of serious literature magazines’. Frivolous it would seem – at least in the second issue’s case – an ascription owing to the editors’ cavalier attitude of running with their good instincts, and, secondly, to the diversity of style and subject allowed entrée in this literary magazine.


There is no trifling when it comes to the quality of the pieces of short story, poetry and performance within. These fiction morsels handpicked by Western Australian-based editors Peter Jeffery OAM, Nathan Hondros, Damon Lockwood and Chris Palazzolo, are sure to satiate any story hunger. Established masters and fresh talent, and Australian and international scribes are all on the magazine’s smorgasbord. The collection of writing in Regime 02 shows the richness of experience that ‘shorts’ have to offer in skilled hands: they can deliver quirky flings, windows of incredible pathos, and render the familiar new.

Geoff Page’s ‘Dear Mum and Dad/I hope you are well’ and ‘Seven Births are Seven Deaths’ softly interrogate the seemingly mundane customs of the child/parent interaction and how they fit into a generational and mortality portrait, respectively from each vantage point of the dichotomy. In ‘Blowie’, a tale of a fishing trip taken by young and old male relatives, Michelle Faye subtly explores the peer pressure that comes with instilling and encouraging tough blokedom, and the volatility and repression it can engender.

Read on HERE


2013 Miles Franklin Award winner

19 June 2013

The Trust Company announces Michelle de Kretser as winner of the 2013 Miles Franklin Literary Award


The Trust Company, as Trustee, and the 2013 judges this afternoon announced Michelle de Kretser as the winner of this year’s Miles Franklin Literary Award for her novel, Questions of Travel at an event held at the National Library of Australia, Canberra.

Read on HERE

Akhmatova: charismatic poet for the ages

As the terrible events mounted in Russia and the suffering of her people grew, Akhmatova’s voice became stronger and more committed to the weakest victims. She lived through the fall of the empire, the October Revolution and two world wars. Akhmatova endured the terror of Stalin and the persecution of her writer-friends who belonged to The Silver Age: Mandelstam died on route to the Gulag, Tsvetaeva hanged herself and Pasternak was persecuted till his death. Akhmatova was officially silenced in 1924, and did not publish again until 1940.
“An entire generation has passed through me as if through a shadow,” she wrote.  Despite her poverty and delicate health, Akhmatova’s generosity and solidarity with her family and friends remained a part of her character.

Oh so much more to read - and hear Anna Akhmatova reading her poetry at http://indrus.in/arts/2013/06/15/anna_akhmatova_a_charismatic_poet_for_the_ages_26129.html

Monday, June 17, 2013

On Writing #3 : rob mclennan


On writing (and not writing)
rob mclennan

I have spent most of the past two decades in daily ritual, waking to immediately sit with notebook, drafts of various works-in-progress, and a mound of reading material. Work comes from the accumulation: the momentums of routine, patience and attention. I do not write in quick bursts but in a succession, even a sequence, of bursts. What I accomplish today is but a segment. Was William Carlos Williams a better poet because he wrote semi-distracted poems onto prescription pads? Was his inattention boiled down to bursts of pure focus?

I attempt to pay attention, but it sometimes overwhelms.

“More things interrupt my work,” Leonard Cohen wrote, slipping into an early poem. Sometimes the interruption is the work itself, requiring a simple break of breath. I step away from my desk to spend a weekend in Toronto, as far away from the comfort of writing as possible. We pack the car and head out, achieving little in the way of work, but a sequence of distracted thoughts.

Some days are Orpheus: I can’t look back, for fear of losing everything.

I attempt to sharpen a book about my late mother, attempt to complete a collection of short stories. I aim for completion somewhere over the next six months; perhaps a year. I am attempting to write about that which I do not yet know.

I sometimes feel in such a hurry I haven’t even time to mention it.

There are days I require to put all aside, and simply read. These are becoming more prominent. These are grounding, rejuvenative.  Distractions that do not take away from the work, but instead become the work.

I sit on the back deck and slip into what I wouldn’t have time for, otherwise. Last summer, the eight-hundred-page Richard Brautigan biography. Currently, recent prose works by Ali Smith and Lynn Crosbie. I sit, ignore the pull of the internet or the telephone. There are the squirrels that bounce up the railings, the silence of neighbourhood cats as they prowl. I ignore the collection of unfinished short stories and yet, through distraction, end up composing six pages of notes into a new short story.

“Don Quixote,” the novel that I perpetually hope to return to, once these other two prose projects are completed. I am thinking about the sketches I’ve made so far on my birth mother. I am sketching her into a shape; amorphous, still.

A decade ago, Margaret Christakos and I discussed the importance of wasting time, hours that allow somehow to sort out what might even follow; what we had each hoped for our growing children. Without wasting time, we might otherwise get nothing done. The same trick applies to composition: years I wrote hours on Greyhound, VIA Rail, Air Canada, simply because there was nothing else I could have done. New ideas came quick, and notebooks filled themselves, between drifts off into sleep.

The balance between focused work and distracted else.

Laundry and dishes and recycling: done. A quick wipe of the kitchen counter. Don’t have to worry about the garbage or changing Lemonade’s litter until tomorrow.

Large fiction projects require a deeper attention, away from the flurry of short reviews, essays, poems, poems and poems. I have to shift my focus, sustained for a series of days that turn into weeks, if anything real is to become accomplished.

I stare into the distance, lost in a flurry of thought. Sometimes I roll a line around in my head, shaping a sharpness of phrase before committing to paper.

I’ve done enough to recognize the need for patience. All in good time.


*
This article originally published by the Ottawa Poetry Newsletter, June 2013
*

Born in Ottawa, Canada’s glorious capital city, rob mclennan [photo credit: Christine McNair] currently lives in Ottawa. The author of more than twenty trade books of poetry, fiction and non-fiction, he won the John Newlove Poetry Award in 2011, and his most recent titles are the poetry collections Songs for little sleep, (Obvious Epiphanies, 2012), grief notes:(BlazeVOX [books], 2012), A (short) history of l. (BuschekBooks, 2011), Glengarry (Talonbooks, 2011) and kate street (Moira, 2011), and a second novel, missing persons (2009). A new work of fiction, The Uncertainty Principle: stories, (Chaudiere Books) will be out sometime this winter. An editor and publisher, he runs above/ground pressChaudiere Books (with Jennifer Mulligan),The Garneau Reviewseventeen seconds: a journal of poetry and poetics and the Ottawa poetry pdf annual ottawater. He spent the 2007-8 academic year in Edmonton as writer-in-residence at the University of Alberta, and regularly posts reviews, essays, interviews and other notices atrobmclennan.blogspot.com

Prime Minister’s Literary Awards

2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards shortlists announced

Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Arts Minister Tony Burke today announced the 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards shortlists.

From children’s books that excel in the art of storytelling through to revealing works of non-fiction and history, the 29 books on the 2013 shortlists represent the breadth and depth of the Australian story and imagination.

Now in their sixth year, the Awards shortlists recognise the best in Australian fiction, poetry, non-fiction, history, young adult and children’s fiction published in 2012.

The 2013 Prime Minister’s Literary Awards shortlists are:

Fiction 
Floundering by Romy Ash
The Chemistry of Tears by Peter Carey
Questions of Travel by Michelle de Kretser
Lost Voices by Christopher Koch
Mateship with Birds by Carrie Tiffany

Poetry 
Burning Rice by Eileen Chong
The Sunlit Zone by Lisa Jacobson
Jam Tree Gully: Poems by John Kinsella
Liquid Nitrogen by Jennifer Maiden
Crimson Crop by Peter Rose

Non-fiction 
Bradman’s War by Malcolm Knox
Uncommon Soldier by Chris Masters
Plein Airs and Graces by Adrian Mitchell
The Australian Moment by George Megalogenis
Bold Palates by Barbara Santich

Prize for Australian History 
The Sex Lives of Australians: A History by Frank Bongiorno
Sandakan by Paul Ham
Gough Whitlam by Jenny Hocking
Farewell, dear people by Ross McMullin
The Censor’s Library by Nicole Moore

Young adult fiction 
Everything left unsaid by Jessica Davidson
The Children of the King by Sonya Hartnett
Grace Beside Me by Sue McPherson
Fog a Dox by Bruce Pascoe
Friday Brown by Vikki Wakefield

Children’s fiction 
Red by Libby Gleeson
Today We Have No Plans by Jane Godwin and illustrated by Anna Walker
What’s the Matter, Aunty May? by Peter Friend and illustrated by Andrew Joyner
The Beginner’s Guide to Revenge by Marianne Musgrove

Read the Prime Minister and Minister’s media release:
http://www.pm.gov.au/press-office/2013-prime-minister%E2%80%99s-literary-awards-shortlists-announced

Happy birthday, Henry Lawson

 
"I look in vain for traces of the fresh and fair and sweet,
in sallow, sunken faces that are drifting through the street.
Drifting on, drifting on, to the scrape of restless feet;
I can sorrow for the owners of the faces in the street."

- Henry Lawson
on his 146th Birthday

(artwork by Cousin Mary)

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Word of the Day for Saturday, June 15, 2013

palinode \PAL-un-nohd\, noun:

1. a poem in which the poet retracts something said in an earlier poem.
2. a recantation.
He writes albas for both sexes, and in the Sonnets repents of his love poetry, writing his palinode, in true medieval fashion.
-- C. S. Lewis, "Donne and Love Poetry," Selected Literary Essays, 1969
"I shall trim their jackets for them, Mrs. Dods, if you can but bring tight evidence of the facts — I will soon bring them to fine and palinode — I will make them repent meddling with your good name."
-- Sir Walter Scott, St. Ronan's Well, 1823
Palinode entered English in the 1600s, and comes from the Greek palinoidia meaning "poetic retraction." It shares the root palin with the word palindrome.

Friday, June 14, 2013

It's a freebie, so enjoy ...


off facebook's Samuel Beckett site:

Think you might be up for a bit of light-yet-highbrow Beckettojoycean amusement and suspense? Try this satirical murder mystery by Stephen Bond. It stars a young Samuel Beckett (huh?) and is based on Bond's half a decade meticulous research into the role of Descartes chez Joyce and Beckett. Bond situates Beckett in Paris in 1930 writing 'Whoroscope,' reading Ulysses, conversing with Joyce, and trying to solve the murder mystery of Jean du Chas for good luck. It's a freebee Kindle, can't go wrong with it. Download it on Amazon (Ulysses 2 Murder in Paris, Steven Bond).

editor: Which Ste(ph)(v)en is which ? :-)


Arts Queensland Poetry Awards - NOW OPEN


Queensland Poetry Festival is delighted to announce that the 2013 Arts Queensland Poetry Awards are now open for submissions. Spread across two categories - single or suite of poems and complete manuscript - the awards are an invaluable opportunity and platform for all poets across Australia.

Arts Queensland Val Vallis Award for Unpublished Poetry

Named in honour of a distinguished Queensland poet, this award is committed to encouraging poets throughout Australia. Now in its 14th year, this prestigious prize for an unpublished poem (or suite of poems) of 100 lines or less comes with a total value of $4,000.
1st Prize: $1,000 + a week at Varuna House + publication in Cordite Poetry Review
2nd Prize: $500 / 3rd Prize: $250
Entry cost: $20
Submissions close 9th July 2013 - visit the QPF website for guidelines and entry forms.

Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize

Named in honour of a distinguished Queensland poet, this prize is committed to encouraging emerging Queensland poets. Now in its 10th year, this prestigious prize for an unpublished poetry manuscript comes with a total value of over $3,000.
1st Prize: $3,000 + a publishing contract with UQP
Entry cost: $20
Submissions close 11th July 2013 - visit the QPF website for guidelines and entry forms.