Sunday, December 11, 2022

Saturday, November 26, 2022

Abbey Lincoln: Throw It Away

Book launch for LUCY DOUGAN

Lucy Dougan at Crow Books Lisa Collyer Poet Yesterday at 11:59 · Poets, family, and friends gathered last night for a warm and genuinely heartfelt launch and speech by Josephine Wilson for Lucy Dougan's latest masterpiece, Monster Field published by Giramondo Publishing and available at Crow Books and all good bookstores.

Friday, November 25, 2022

from DICTIONARY.COM THE oLDEST wORDS IN ENGLISH

worm Let’s end with one to smile at. Worm comes from the Old English wyrm, which is related to the Latin word vermis (“worm”), as found in such words as vermiculture and … vermicilli! (Think about it.) Language proves we’ve had a way to talk about these rather innocuous, low-profile creatures for a long, long time. But, while worm could refer to the long-bodied wrigglers, it also could mean “dragon”

Tuesday, November 15, 2022

Galway Kinnell says ...

"It’s the poet's job to figure out what's happening within oneself, to figure out the connection between the self and the world, and to get it down in words that have a certain shape, that have a chance of lasting." - Galway Kinnell

Monday, November 07, 2022

Poem

金魚草 金魚草 在童年的花園中 搖擺 一直在我 如舊的頭腦中 在這兒折斷 - Andrew Burke

Saturday, November 05, 2022

Gertrude Stein says ...

"When the parliament was invented by England long ago it was mostly done to keep the king from spending too much money." - Gertrude Stein More about Money

Tuesday, October 04, 2022

The Buster Keaton Cure

 

Charles Simic
The Buster Keaton Cure

“Every few years I take a look at Buster Keaton’s films, and recently, being thoroughly depressed by our wars and our politics, I watched a dozen of his shorts to cheer myself up.”

Friday, September 30, 2022

Sunday, September 25, 2022

HART CRANE

 My current thinking is prompted by Hart Crane who said: 

"The writing of a poem is not - as the writing of a chemical equation is - intended to describe anything; instead, the poem is the chemical reaction itself."

Thursday, September 22, 2022

Thursday, September 15, 2022

Natalie Goldberg's definition of Poetry

 

Over many decades, when I’ve been teaching writing, I have used a great list of famous poets who have described poetry, never quite nailing its essence. Today, while throwing out books to the op shop, I came across Natalie Goldberg’s WILD MIND. Page 203 held a great surprise – another definition:

  Poetry is a dumb Buddha who thinks a donkey is as important as a diamond. 

Wow, this reader’s mind is in a turmoil of images which collide and clutter in the neural junkshop. It doesn’t tell me ; it delights me.

Sunday, September 11, 2022

ART IMPULSE by Andrew Burke

 




One of my favourite artists

was born before language

and I understand what s/he

was communicating:

five clay streaks on

a cave wall. Now the Tv

would feast on the arts channel

exploring which school of art

s/he creates in, what

string of influences s/he had,

the materials s/he chose

and the palette of the diaspora.

I ask, ‘Why did you stop at five?’

S/he puts up her hand in answer.

 

Published in The Australian 2022,

Lisa Gorton wrote in her poem Grafitti:

An arm’s length of wall permits any depth

of meditative calm or your money back.

I read it on the Internet,

I saw the streaks on my screen.

 

*

 

Why I wrote this poem

is the same impulse s/he had.

Sunday, August 28, 2022

LAKE MOON by Murray Jennings

(from the novel ‘All Our Christmases’)


I have no idea what bird that is which scuds,

a silhouette along the silver-pink surface.

You need to hear a call, but it’s nearly night

and they don’t.


It’s not quite a lake, although there’s been more rain.

The frogs sound resigned to the season change,

the grasses, reeds and marshes

are fed again by the winter creek

from the foothills

where cashed-up people spend the weekends

scraping barnacles from boats

and vacuuming driveways.


Across the water, distant shadows are absorbed

and suburban lights flick on for the News.

I have no boat, no house, no complaints.

For me, nothing taints this swamp

this winter silence

an old bed

a shed roof almost leakproof

a lake moon

rates to pay soon.



PS: The novel is for sale at Crow Books and New Edition

Friday, August 26, 2022

OUT THERE by Colin Young

Out there ground imprisoned by drought

longs to escape in rain. Tussocks of spinifex

inject the sky through needles.

The law of agony has sentenced

the thorny devil to wander its scorching hell.

Look over the nearest rocks and watch the sun

gloat over ants’ nests trying to reach the clouds.

Why bother to expel breath here? Better to conserve

every drop of sweat for the long haul,

for the trudge over dune-oceans, and twisted logs

sunk to the bottom of a lost water-hole.

And that dingo hobbles, hesitant,

toward nowhere, fur ruffled by hints

of wind, teeth drooling for food,

without finding a companion anywhere.

 

Wednesday, August 24, 2022

PEACH by Jan Napier

Peach

Peach pits are poisonous This is not a mistake.

Brenna Twohy.


we eat of life as if a ripened peach.

I wipe my chin, protest that I have had little


of this though on the cracked blue and white

plate only a single slice remains.


look, you nod. can mirrors have intruders?

hair is hoarfrost, face a windfall, hands aftershocks.


the sun is low. there are clouds. shivering begins.

on kitchen china, discarded skin, that last piece.


it is late, you say, for sweetness. crush the kernel.

tell the secret of the seed as you leave me.


head in hands. the pause between seconds.

I open my throat.

plate only a single slice remains.

Monday, August 22, 2022

THIS COULD BE ENOUGH - Gail Willems


I’m a catabolic woman

Stimulating

Dangerous


I want a slow    hand

across my sagging    breasts

spiralling    nipples

tummy rolls    thighs    love handles

a wet tongue that adores

the many craters of my hot     skin

me vivid with    desire

shouting

nonsense as lust unravels


This landscape 

sticky with you

won’t be enough


Years later

maybe sooner

Reality sneaks in

This could be enough


Wednesday, August 17, 2022

ABALONE FISHING

 

ABOLONE FISHING

 

John walked out

            on ankle-high surf

babbling on the reef

            finding its way

through the sharp rocky surface

 

I followed behind

            nervous in my old tennis shoes

walking gingerly

            tyre lever in hand

hunting for abalone.

 

John knows how. He’d been

            around the world

working on merchant ships

            telling tales of the high seas

and the low dives in port cities.

 

I’d been in boarding school

            for much of his travels,

anchored to declining verbs

            and translating Caesar.

He told us about the tough whores

            of Marseilles while I was

taking a Burmese girl from

            a Catholic boarding school

for a hamburger and coffee.

 

“Here you go, here’s some,”

            as he bent to the reef

hacking at stones  as

            the sun glittered off

the Indian Ocean.

 

 

 

-        17/08/2022

Tuesday, July 26, 2022

 There's poetry in everything. It's in how you read it. Take, for example, the text below:


20 is a pronic number. 20 is a tetrahedral number as 1, 4, 10, 20. 20 is the basis for vigesimal number systems. 20 is the third composite number to be the product of a squared prime and a prime, and also the second member of the (2 )q family in this form.20 is the smallest primitive

Friday, July 15, 2022

 

OLD NOTES DRAFT 2

 

 

I am drained of much

and live in echoes,

bones brittle

and heart

flawed.

 

Yet I can laugh

and play

with dialog

with the shopkeeper

and the old woman

who sits outside

on the padded seat

of her walking frame.

 

Tradesmen bounce

out of their 

utilities and trucks

to buy a choc milk

and meaty pies.

 

She sips her coffee

silently in a 

meditation on

their exhaust.

 

 

 

Andrew BURKE

15/07/2022

Monday, May 30, 2022

Eileen Myles Interview: A Poem Says 'I Want'


What a great interview! I have learnt so much about her - but also about poet as a 'career'. 

Saturday, May 07, 2022

Thursday, April 28, 2022

NEW & SELECTED Review in WESTERLY

 A book review about my NEW & SELECTED POEMS out from Walleah Press.


Thank you Editors of Westerly and Jackson who is a fine poet herself. 



Tuesday, April 05, 2022

Saturday, January 01, 2022