'Dirty H2O' Launch SUNDAY in Darwin

Poet Sandra Therese Thibodeaux with Mulla Mulla's Coral Carter.

Time to celebrate! 

Dirty H2O is ready to appear in the wide world. 

Be at Brown's Mart Darwin CBD 

Sunday June 1 2014.  

6pm until Sandra falls over.

Job Alert: DIRECTOR Melbourne City of Literature Office

Director, Office of the City of Literature Job No.: Melbourne UNESCO Department: Arts and Culture Work type: Permanent (Full Time) Location: Council House 2, 240 Little Collins Street   DIRECTOR Melbourne City of Literature Office Establish and lead a new Melbourne City of Literature Office Reporting to a Steering Committee and based in the Wheeler Centre, the Office will lead, coordinate and promote Melbourne's designation as a City of Literature by UNESCO. The role will be responsible for the strategic marketing, promotion and communications of the UNESCO designation with primary responsibility for running proactive campaigns through the web, other media channels and existing and new stakeholders in order to maintain, build and promote the profile of the Melbourne as a UNESCO City of Literature locally, national and internationally.  The role will work closely with the literary sector to help promote literary activity in the city and state, building brand awareness and patronage of the UNESCO designation with the goal of building the reputation of Melbourne as a cultural literary destination benefitting writers and literary organisations. $80,000 per annum + 9.25% Superannuation Three year contract  Director_Melbourne_City_of_Literature_PD2014_5_30.pdf  The Melbourne City of Literature Office is funded through a three year partnership between the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria, the City of Melbourne and the Wheeler Centre.  **Please note this is not a City of Melbourne position** Applications close 20 June 2014 Advertised: 30 May 2014 Aus. Eastern Standard Time Closing date: 20 Jun 2014 5:00pm Aus. Eastern Standard Time

   

Portraits of Victorian Poets

Don't forget! Nick's exhibition of Victorian poets is on over the weekend and the launch is at 7 Tuesday the 3rd of June. Details below. - Ian McBryde

Lisa Congdon Art + Illustration

from HYPERALLERGIC ...

Artists are often deemed "right-brained" thinkers, but new research suggests it may be the actual structure of the brain that lends creative talent. Continue Reading →

Stop Press! Walleah Press invites you to the launch of ...

Liz McQuilkin's poetry collection 'The Nonchalant Garden'

5:30 for 6:00 pm, Thursday 29th May

Hobart Bookshop, 22 Salamanca Square, Hobart

Launched by Gina Mercer

Free event, all welcome

***********************************************

'The nonchalant blossoming face of a summer garden belies the work going on below its lovely surface. So it is with the poems in Liz McQuilkin's first collection, "The Nonchalant Garden". They flower from her sharp-eyed intelligent noticing, a fine ear, a caring but not uncritical heart, subversive humour, and above all, a life lived reflectively and responsively, taking nothing for granted.'

MAUREEN SCOTT HARRIS

'This collection should be stamped AUTHENTIC! MADE IN TASMANIA! Liz McQuilkin's life-long love of the island permeates her poetry, whether she's writing of domestic circumstances or the natural world. Like Tassie weather itself - thunderclouds, rainbows and clear blue skies - these poems are wonderfully varied, illuminating the complexities of existence with wit and wisdom and grace.'

ISABEL HUGGAN

What are the Best First Lines in music history?

Some tracks and videos before this list at http://thenewdaily.com.au/entertainment/2014/05/23/best-opening-lines-musical-history/

Other artists down the line have chosen to follow [Billie] Holiday’s enigmatic lead:

Prince: “In France a skinny man died of a big disease with a little name.” (Sign O’ The Times)

John Lennon (The Beatles): “I once had a girl, or should I say she once had me.” (Norwegian Wood)

Paul McCartney (The Beatles): “Well she was just 17, you know what I mean.” (I Saw her Standing There)

Neil Young: “The world is turning, hope it don’t turn away” (On The Beach)

Paul Simon (Simon & Garfunkel): “Hello darkness, my old friend.” (The Sound Of Silence)

Leonard Cohen: “We find ourselves on different sides of a line nobody drew.” (Different Sides); “Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free.” (Bird On A Wire)

Bob Dylan: “How many roads must a man walk down before you call him a man?” (Blowin’ In The Wind)

Sam Cooke: “I was born by the river in a little tent and just like the river I’ve been running ever since.” (A Change Is Gonna Come)

Bruce Springsteen: “I stood stone-like at midnight, suspended in my masquerade.” (Growin’ Up); “Fat man sittin’ on a little stool, takes the money from my hand while his eyes take a walk all over you.” (Tunnel Of Love)

Elvis Costello: “I’ve been on tenterhooks ending in dirty looks.” (Pump It Up) 

Barry, Robin & Maurice Gibb (Bee Gees): “You can tell by the way I use my walk I’m a woman’s man – no time to talk.” (Stayin’ Alive)

Jeff Tweedy (Wilco): “I will throw myself underneath the wheels of any train of thought.” (Open Mind)

Others preferred to come straight to the point:

Patti Smith: “Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine.” (Gloria)

Roger Waters (Pink Floyd): “We don’t need no education, we don’t need no thought control.” (Another Brick In The Wall)

Johnny Lydon (The Sex Pistols): “I am an anti-Christ.” (Anarchy in the UK) 

Nick Cave (Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds): “I don’t believe in an interventionist God.” (Into My Arms)

Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails): “I hurt myself today to see if I could feel.” (Hurt)

Pete Townshend (The Who): “People try to put us down just because we get around.” (My Generation)

Bob Marley: “Until the philosophy which holds one race superior and another inferior is finally and permanently discredited and abandoned, everywhere is war.” (War)

Others can be mystical and/or enchanting:

Van Morrison: “We were born before the wind also younger than the sun.” (Into The Mystic); “If I ventured in the slipstream between the viaduct of your dream.” (Astral Weeks)

Bob Dylan: “Ain’t it just like the night to play tricks when you’re tryin’ to be so quiet.” (Visions Of Johanna).

Robert Plant (Led Zeppelin): “There’s a lady who’s sure all that glitters is gold.” (Stairway To Heaven)

Roy Orbison: “A candy-coloured clown they call the sandman tiptoes to my room every night.” (In Dreams)

Paul Simon: “The Mississippi Delta was shining like a national guitar.” (Graceland)

Mick Jagger (The Rolling Stones): “Please allow me to introduce myself I’m a man of wealth and taste.”(Sympathy For The Devil)

Morrissey (The Smiths): “I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour.” (Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now)

Or contemplative and/or humourous:

Neil Young: “Old man look at my life I’m a lot like you were.” (Old Man)

Paul Anka, Claude Francois, Jacques Revaux, Gilles Thibault (Frank Sinatra): “And now the end is near.”(My Way)

Bernie Taupin (Elton John): “It’s a little bit funny this feeling inside.” (Your Song)

Leonard Cohen: “Well my friends are gone and my hair is grey and I ache in the places where I used to play.”(Tower Of Song)

Ryan Adams: “Well I was waitin’ around for somebody to die, nobody did but part of me died, I suppose, from all that waiting (Natural Ghost)

Billy Bragg: “Take the M For Me and the Y for you out of family and it all falls through.” (Take The M For Me)

Frank Porter is an Australian music writer.

Leunig's 'Controlled Crying'

Canberra Poetry Prize - 1st = $15,000

#11 Avant Gaga 10 June at 19:00–22:00

On the second Tuesday of June, the 11th Avant Gaga will take place at 

Sappho Books Cafe & Wine Bar, featuring guest poets 

Louis Armand,Anna Couani, Melinda Bufton, and Rory Dufficy, 

plus an open mic section. Wine, tapas, heaters, chairs, tables, 

umbrellas, courtyard, people, poems, et al., etc. for free.

----------------------------------------

LOUIS ARMAND
is a Sydney-born writer & visual artist who has lived in Prague since 1994. He has published six novels, Cairo (Equus, 2014), Breakfast at Midnight (Equus, 2012), Clair Obscur (Equus, 2011), Menudo (Antigen, 2005), The Garden (Salt, 2001) & Canicule (Equus, 2013). In addition, he is the author of eight collections of poetry–most recently, Indirect Objects (2014) & Letters from Ausland (2011; both from Vagabond), & Synopticon (with John Kinsella; Litteraria, 2012). He is an editor of VLAK magazine. http://atelierlouisarmand.wordpress.com/

ANNA COUANI
lived in Glebe since 1971 in the sculpture street, Queen St, worked as an Art & ESL high school teacher, 20 years in Intensive English Centres in the western suburbs, now teaching ESL in mainstream boys school. Her books include: Italy, The Train, Were all women sex-mad?, The Harbour Breathes, The Western Horizon, Small Wonders. She writes experimental prose & poetry, has published in many magazines & anthologies, and small press publishing such as Magic Sam magazine, Sea Cruise Books, Island in the Sun, Telling Ways (experimental women's writing). Founding member of the Sydney Women Writers Workshop (the No Regrets group), lasted 12 years. Was president of the Sydney Poets Union in the 80s, organised PU poetry readings. Has participated in a collaborative postcard project (visual art) called Elsewhere over the last 3 years. http://seacruise.ath.cx/annacouani/

MELINDA BUFTON
is a Melbourne poet and reviewer, with publications including work in The Age, Rabbit, Cordite, Southerly and Best Australian Poems. In 2013 she completed an Honours thesis on new 'girl' subjectivities in contemporary Australian poetry, and how they relate to their North American cousins of the Gurlesque oeuvre. Her first collection, Girlery, was released by Inken Publisch in early 2014. http://cordite.org.au/author/melindabufton/

RORY DUFFICY
has published poetry and criticism in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian Book Review, Overland, Cordite and elsewhere. He is completing a PHD at the University of Western Sydney.http://cordite.org.au/author/rory-dufficy/

OPEN MIC
Get in early to sign up for the open mic. Put down your name from 7pm. 

10 readers, 2 minutes each, max!

Voicebox Monday night

The WAPI Song Lyric Contest 2014

Deadline for entries is midnight Western Australian time, 

Sunday 13th July 2014 

First prize is $200 cash 

Second and third prizes may be awarded 

at the discretion of the Judging Panel 

The entry fee is $6 for one set of song lyrics. 

There is no limit to the number of entries that can be submitted 

but each entry must be accompanied by an entry form and payment. 

Details and Entry Form can be found at 

http://www.wapoets.net.au/ 

Salut Salon "Wettstreit zu viert" | "Competitive Foursome"

Frank O'Hara's LUNCH POEMS - Live!

June 11, 2014, 8 pm

Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems: A Reading

Frank O’Hara’s Lunch Poems, first published in 1964 by City Lights Books as number nineteen in the Pocket Poets series, is being reprinted in a new 50th anniversary edition. The Poetry Project is hosting a reading of the entire book, with Eileen Myles, Justin Vivian Bond, Peter Schjeldahl, Hettie Jones, David Shapiro, Tony Towle, Michael Lally, Edmund Berrigan, John Godfrey, Trisha Low, Trace Peterson, David Henderson, Patricia Spears Jones, Edwin Torres, Charles North, Karen Weiser, Simone White, Adam Fitzgerald, Vincent Katz, Erica Hunt, Andrew Durbin, John Coletti, Jacqueline Waters, Sharon Mesmer, Vyt Bakaitis, LaTasha N. Nevada Diggs, Arlo Quint, Lisa Jarnot, Lee Ann Brown, Kimberly Lyons, Marcella Durand and more to be announced.

For more information see poetryproject.org.

The Poetry Project

St. Mark’s Church,
131 East 10th Street,
New York, NY  

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Marjorie Bussey's Notebook Page circa 2000

Speculative Fiction Submission for Southerly

2014 NSW Premier's Literary Awards - Poetry

KENNETH SLESSOR PRIZE FOR POETRY

The Mundiad, Justin Clemens (Hunter)

The Stone Garden: poems from Clare, Diane Fahey (Clouds of Magellan)

Boom, Liam Ferney (Grand Parade Poets)

Novelties, Fiona Hile (Hunter)

Ephemeral Waters, Kate Middleton (Giramondo Publishing)

Marionette: A biography of Miss Marion Davies, Jessica Wilkinson

(Vagabond Press)

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/talented-shortlist-for-the-2014-nsw-premiers-literary-awards-20140408-36arp.html#ixzz32A5FlNAm

Dale Barlow at Ellington's

Join us for two nights with one of Australia's leading jazz musicians. 

Dale has been a trail blazer since the late 70's in Sydney and abroad and is regarded 

internationally as one of Australia's true musical greats.

FRIDAY & SATURDAY 7.00pm Dale Barlow (Sydney) Dale is one of Australia's leading Jazz musicians. In 1982 he went to New York, USA, ostensibly to study, but was soon playing and recording with many notable jazz musicians, including Chet Baker, Sonny Rollins, Cedar Walton, Sonny Stitt, Kenny Barron and Gil Evans, as well as pop acts, Bryan Ferry, Style Council and Mental As Anything. In addition to living in New York, Barlow toured with various groups in Europe, Indonesia and Cuba. In 1988 he was named Bicentennial Jazz Musician Of The Year. That same year he led a 10-piece band of top Australian musicians on a tour to the USA. In 1990, he recorded and toured with Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers. Barlow formed and toured with his own groups, and recorded Wizards Of Oz with Paul Grabowsky. From 1992-94 he was voted Jazz Instrumentalist Of The Year. Barlow, with his shaved head and hard bop tenor, became not only a musicians’ favourite, but also a viable commercial property, with popular appearances on television variety and talk shows. In 1993 he toured Australia with Eddie Henderson and Mulgrew Miller and broke attendance records at Sydney’s Basement jazz club with vocalist Margaret Urlich. Barlow was also very much in demand as a sideman, recording with James Morrison, Tommy Emmanuel, Vince Jones and Eva Breckon. He also performed in the classical idiom, playing concerts with the Elektra String Quartet and the Western Australian Symphony Orchestra. In the mid-90s Barlow toured Europe with his quintet, playing tenor, flute and the indigenous didgeridoo. He also performed original material with the percussion ensemble Synergy. As a student of music, Barlow has absorbed many influences but remains an individual stylist, playing with force and elegance, and his commercial success has not negated his creative artistry. Graham Wood - piano, Pete Jeavons - bass and Daniel Susnjar - drums. Click here for tickets Friday and Saturday

The Ellington Jazz Club. 191 Beaufort Street, Perth. WA 

www.ellingtonjazz.com.au

Silver Threads, composed by Jacob Cooper

Two poems from Silver Threads, a six-song cycle composed by Jacob Cooper and released on Nonesuch Records today. For the album text, Cooper commissioned a set of poems inspired by ‘Silver Threads’, a haiku attributed to Japanese poet Matsuo Bashō.

Jar

Time trapped me in this canyon, this dark jar —
jabbed holes in the sky to spare me light and air.
Only, sometimes, even without you here,
there’s beauty: this is night. And those are stars.

Greg Alan Brownderville

*

Antique Windfall

The windfall drags the river / its hem is a broom
in the hen food and mud / the hill is a game show chainsaw edged
in silver threads and never drawing blood /
heaviest the hand that stills the plow /
thistle blur and vesper fruit // the gravity artist hung back
shrugged off his harness carefully / he travelled one month
in front of the circus through equestrian squares and an antique wind
till pollen closed the streets / and I hung seashells
under vagrant bells where his hands often chapped /
in a trellised span of the split green air / the thin blued hills turned back //
the pear boughs brace and blister in gentle scrimshaw
above the shed / it has nothing to do with abundance or ruin
it’s always being done above clovers in the dry creekbed
that still the plow / thistle sheen and a vespertine
is any evening opening // and the earth grew tuned so a certain chord
is always nearly playing

Zach Savich

■

To read Granta 127: Japan, buy or subscribe to the magazine.

Listen to tracks http://www.nonesuch.com/albums/silver-threads

Then and Now: the evolving story of Melbourne's street art

At the turn of the millennium, Melbourne saw an organic, spontaneous blossoming of street art. It manifested in stencils sprayed onto bluestone laneways, in massive paste-up murals adorning railway bridges, and ad-hoc street art happenings in dirty rubble-strewn city spaces. 

Melbourne street artists became both subcultural heroes and public enemies – depending on who you asked. Despite the howls of protests from some, Melbourne's street art came to be one of the city's key cultural calling cards, duly named by Lonely Planet as among its top tourist attractions.

Then and Now, a new show opening on Friday in a derelict Collingwood warehouse space, showcases the work of three of Melbourne's early street art pioneers – Haha, Dlux and Sync – but also reveals where these artists have arrived at in 2014.

Street artists (l-r) Dlux, Haha and Sync. 

Dlux's Hammerhead shark.

Dlux's recent works attempt to capture the "scrawls" of tagging in both surburban and rural settings, incorporating them into often naturalistic landscape work. In one standout piece, a hammerhead shark swims into the deep blue with the darkness of the ocean illustrated by graffiti scrawls the artist collected up in Arnhem Land, where the shark is a totem animal. 

Peppered with welcome nostalgia, Then and Now charts the evolution of the Melbourne street art scene into something able to transcend a purely commercial trajectory, demonstrating how it can connect on the broader canvasses of Australian cultural identity and our natural environment. 

“This is very much a Melbourne thing, because Melbourne is where street art got its momentum in Australia,” says Dlux. “We hope this show will appeal to those who were around when we were first out there making this art, as well as bringing in a new generation. Certainly we wouldn't do this show in a commercial gallery. We wanted to maintain the connection to street art's political and punk roots.”

• Now and Then is at Second Story Studios, Melbourne

Read more HERE.

from UWA Press: The Colonial Journals

BOOK OF THE MONTH THE COLONIAL JOURNALS: AND THE EMERGENCE OF AUSTRALIAN LITERARY CULTURE BY KEN GELDER AND RACHAEL WEAVER ‘Rachael Weaver and Ken Gelder have trawled through the archives of colonial Australia’s journals to reproduce articles, stories, poems and editorials documenting the emergence of Australia’s literary culture … anyone who reads contemporary Australian literature – or, even more so, devours local literary journals – or has an interest in history, will find this book illuminating. ★★★★’                                –Books + Publishing Magazine Colonial Australia produced a vast number of journals and magazines that helped to create an exuberant literary landscape. They were filled with lively contributions by many of the key writers and provocateurs of the day – and of the future, such as Marcus Clarke, Rolf Boldrewood, Ethel Turner and Katharine Susannah Prichard. The Colonial Journals includes 50 colour image plates of the journal covers, including Colonial Monthly, Australian Women’s Magazine and Domestic Journal, Sydney Quarterly Magazine, Cosmos,Bulletin, and New Idea for Australian Women.

Check this title and many other New Releases at http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/

Birthday Reading of Whitman's "Song Of Myself" May 31 6PM

http://poeticslist.chicagoschoolofpoetics.com/2014/05/birthday-reading-of-whitmans-song-of-myself-may-31-6pm/

Celebrate the Birthday of

Walt Whitman

A reading of “Song of Myself”

by local poets & other citizens

at the

Robert Burns Statue,

Washington Park, Albany, NY

Saturday, May 31, 2014

6:00 PM

rain or shine

free

Sign-up to read at the event

(bring chairs, blankets, etc. to sit on)

presented by the Poetry Motel Foundation

& the Hudson Valley Writers Guild

(for information call 518-482-0262)