voicebox
poetry performance event

presents

FAWWA Masterclass poets

Flora Smith

&
Carol Milner


plus open mic

La Tropicana Cafe
177 High street Fremantle.
Thursday August 7th at 7.30 pm.

cost: $5.00/$3.00conc



voiceboxfreo@yahoo.com.au

Ah, this lady stars in a lot of jokes that come over this desk, but I particularly like this one at present.

One man's muse is another man's ...

And what of women poets? Who or what is their Muse? A muscle-bound new-age sensitive guy? Nah. This musing is only for amusing - more serious work awaits without ...


(I went looking for a classical image of a muse, and found the above. She's a backstreet muse, thoroughly unlike the image I was searching for, yet 'grounded and sensual', if they be two of my criteria, as exposed in the next posting ((which, of course, was posted prior to this ... as all good bloggers know.)) )

... and that cover illustration is such a lovely contrast to my portrait photo, with wife Jeanette, up in the coner of my blog >g<

Nurses ARE muses, as you know full well...

Thank you for the rich replies to yesterday's tale, one of which stated: 'Nurses ARE muses, as you know full well...' Yes, they have been good friends to me throughout my life - grounded and sensual. Only as an adult poet (that's often a conflict in terms) have I realised the Muse(s) is not some airy fairy, mythical goddess, but living breathing people who inspire a poet to think beyond the mundane, be it in a highly charged sensual response to the perceived or a heightened awareness of the spiritual. I think it was Robert Graves, of 'White Goddess' fame, who said a poet always must be in love, and for this he had various women other than his wife. Maybe I've got the guy wrong, or the story wrong, but any infatuation with another woman in my writerature tends to lend itself to schoolboyish poems about their breasts and eyes/thighs, and their mock-heroic unobtainableness. Luckily I soon notice this and throw such poetic reveries in the bin. (Perhaps my doctor is a muse: she is middle-aged, mother, caring, well-grounded, and laconic, with a wry Aussie sense of humour. Any doc who'll prescribe salmon for every meal is a friend of mine!)

Speaking of the 'highly charged sensual', among the viagra spam subject headings this morning was this unintentional pun or play on words: Member Listing. Huh! Listing to starboard, perhaps!

I said to my dog this morning ...

I said to my dog this morning, freezing in the backyard at 6.07am, ‘If you eat your own poo, you’ll probably spew!’ It is a basic rhyming couplet, not unusual in the playground, in rap music or in advertising jingles. Yet here I am, 63 years and eleven-twelfths, semi-retired uni lecturer, retired ad land Creative Director – and that’s all I can come up with for my wisdom of the dawn.

So, what’s with the rhyming couplet? I’ve been dropping rhymes on the ears of the unsuspecting since I was a pup – like ‘shave, shower, and smell like a flower’. Painful stuff, but perhaps more pleasurable than my other long-term habit, punning.

Anyway, this is a pre(r)amble without purpose. My main subject here, which I was hoping to segue into nicely but it ain’t gunna happen, is this week’s self-inflected homework. This week, at my Wednesday morning Creative Writing class at Tom Collins House, Swanbourne (10am to Noon. If you’re not busy, drop in) I set homework of writing a narrative situated within a job you have held. As part of the project, we all had to make a short list of our occupations. I listed three – uni lecturer, Creative Director, and rubbish tip scavenger. It took me until this morning, Saturday morning, to realise that I had not listed my raison d’etre: writing poetry. I am a poet. I won’t change the world, I probably won’t win a Pulitzer Prize, but I am a poet. It means the world to me. I am depressed if I’m not writing, and over the moon if some words of mine are graced with printer’s ink.

So, why don’t I list it as an occupation? Poet.

I once put it on a Commonwealth Employment Service form as my occupation when I was about 18 years, annoyed that no-one ever saw it as a valuable act. They told me to be serious. And now I’m neglecting it in a similar vein. (Will the cock crow three times before dawn?) It’s the forces of society, isn’t it: everything is indexed to the Holy Dollar. (The USAmericans even had ‘In God We Trust’ on their dollar at once stage – a holy item.)

Now, to get back on task, my homework should search out an incident in my career as poet and tell that in a narrative style. Yes, I have a few anecdotes, stories I trot out at the drop of a hat in the company of attentive students or at literary parties.

AN EARLY LESSON IN CONCRETE IMAGERY AS A VEHICLE FOR EMOTION IN POETRY

I was a bearded, bongo-playing Beatnik at eighteen years old. Kerouac had supplanted Saint Francis of Assisi as my hero about eighteen months before, and I had consumed as much Beat literature as I could lay my hands on in Perth, the world’s most isolated capital city. It was 1962 and my home town on the west coast of Australia was a country town with pretensions. Contemporary jazz and Beat lit were scarce. Invisible would be closer.

So, my best mate Viv Kitson (poet and surfer) and I decided to hitch to Sydney. Long story short, we arrived in Adelaide, capital of South Australia, and a desert and two days drive away from home. We hit the booze one afternoon, and met up with two other strangers in town: two Scottish folksingers who were travelling the world courtesy of their vocal cords. Amazing. We were in awe of them, their bravery and their stories. But likewise, they liked us, and our crazy claims to be poets. I pulled out my exercise book in which I had painstakingly transposed twenty four of my best poems in copperplate handwriting. It was entitled “24 Poems”.

We yakkety-yakked and drank all afternoon until they had to get ready for a gig at the Catacombs, a folk club in town. We left them and went to a pub to drink more, then wandered through town until opening time for the club.

It was the days of the folk boom, so little imitation Pete Seegers and plastic Bob Dylans vied for the spotlight with out-of-tune Joan Baezs … We were still drinking, cheap wine by this stage, and I was well away. At last, our Scottish friends were announced and got up to sing. They wowed everyone with true whaling songs sung a capella, interspersed with tales of their travels in broad accents. We were so proud to be their friends. All of a sudden I heard my name, Andy, said with an original origin accent.

‘Come on up and treat us to a couple of ya poems, Andy, lad. Come on! Wouldn’t you like a few poems, hey?’ they asked the audience. The audience indicated ‘Yes!’ and I shrank further down into my coat. After some fruitless cajoling, one of the Scottish boys leant forward and grabbed my exercise book out of my hands.

‘Okay, if Andy won’t read his own poems to us, I’ll give ‘em an airing.’

The light was dim, if you can picture it, about one and a half watts I reckon. Smoke filled the room. Scotty started to read my favourite poem which I had read to them that afternoon. It was called ‘This Body, World’, and I was very proud of it. I can’t remember it all but some of it went like this:

My God, a Muse jumped on me
From a Darkness and the World
Did the Big Act with a shuddering
Orgasm. Between the lovelegs of life,
My senses bright – the rain is real!

Etcetera. It was about sixteen lines long (I had studiously avoided such a pedestrian thing as a sonnet).

Scotty began reading: My God, a nurse jumped on me …

Ahh, I lost the rest of the poem, ashamed of his gaping gaff. What would they think! My masterpiece ruined!

… But they loved it. And me. I was a hero, a living poet, just recently returned from the heights of Mount Parnassus.

I learnt a big lesson about poetry that night: use the concrete and not the abstract. Write with images of the five senses and avoid abstract posturing.

I have written a million poems since then, and luckily I have lost ’24 Poems’ along the track, but if you are writing poems, the best way to progress is to keep listening to the reactions of those you respect and trust.

Publishers and authors in book fight: The Australian

Justine Ferrari | July 10, 2008

PUBLISHERS and authors are joining forces to campaign against the proposed lifting of restrictions on booksellers importing books that are also published in Australia.

The Australian Publishers Association and the Australian Society of Authors are organising a grassroots campaign to educate the public that cheap books will come at a cost to the local industry.

APA chief executive Maree McCaskill said yesterday that the two organisations had retained the services of influential lobbyists Hawker Britton to organise the campaign and would meet other industry groups next week to map out a strategy.

The campaign will pitch former NSW premier Bob Carr, now on the board of one of the nation's largest booksellers, Dymocks, against his former chief of staff, Bruce Hawker, the managing director and co-founder of Hawker Britton.

The Council of Australian Governments decided last week to ask the Productivity Commission to review copyright laws restricting the parallel importation of books.

These laws give the Australian copyright owner control over who is allowed to import books subject to the 30-day rule. Under this rule, local publishers must supply a book within 30 days of its publication overseas, otherwise booksellers can import directly from the foreign publisher.

Booksellers and reports by the Productivity Commission and its predecessors argue that lifting the restrictions will result in cheaper books for the consumer.

Authors are joining publishers in opposing the move, with Nick Earls writing to Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan and Queensland's Premier Anna Bligh and Treasurer Andrew Fraser.

"Through the internet and discount outlets, Australians' access to cheaper books has already improved over time, and the cultural cost of allowing parallel imports is simply too great," Earls says.

"It would be a strong disincentive towards the publishing of Australian stories, and to the unearthing and nurturing of new talent."

Dymocks chief executive officer Don Grover said the publishing industry was ignoring global changes, such as the huge rise in people shopping on the internet, where books were exempt from GST, making them even cheaper.

May the Force be with you ...

Photo taken at Bondi during the past week.

Poem for my grandson Quinn

Today
the price of petrol is up again
but you’re not going anywhere:

you lie
snug in your hospital crib,
visitors 3 to 8pm, Mother’s milk

on tap
and a wardrobe mistress to attend to
those messier moments. This

is life
on the outside.
Takes a little getting used to, I’ll admit.

A word in
your shell-like:
always own toys,

shine a light
on skeletons in
or out of the dark,

and make it a habit to sing in the bath.
From history, learn to create
the future.

Now, go forth.
I think you are ready.

Quote of the Day

It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.

Frank Zappa

Tim Winton's Breath

I'd like to quote the whole review here, but I'll be circumspect and only quote from it.

BREATH
Tim Winton
Farrar Straus Giroux
ISBN 978-0374116347
217 pages
$23 [American price]



Reviewed by Carolyn See, who can be reached at www.carolynsee.com [I had trouble getting through there, so good luck]

I used to teach an undergraduate class in Australian literature. It was open to non-English majors and fulfilled a general requirement, so routinely a couple of hundred disaffected youths would crowd into a large classroom and emerge, at the end of the course, as dithering fanatics saving up for plane fare to Australia. They fell dead in love; they loved Peter Carey, Elizabeth Jolley and Thea Astley, but they worshiped Tim Winton. For a while they went around asking each other, "Why don't people know more about this guy? He's the most amazing man in the world!"

And it's true. When Winton was still in his 20s he wrote "Shallows," a dark masterpiece about whaling that ranks with (or above?) "Moby-Dick." His "Cloudstreet" talks about class and caste and love and our inexplicable wish for death and our relationship to the universe. It's the Hope Diamond of novels -- the one that set my students' teeth to chattering. He's produced 11 volumes of novels and short stories, but he lives in western Australia, one of the remotest parts of the world. People don't know about him. They don't know what they're missing.

(...)

"Breath," Winton's latest novel, is stunning in the depth of its audacity. Because, when you think about it, breath is our relationship to the cosmos. We breathe in an iota of the universe, we breathe it out; without it, we die. But then why is there something in us that makes us want to hold our breath as kids until we pass out, or makes us just stop breathing while we're sleeping until our rattled partners shake us awake?

In "Breath," Winton sets up an ancient Australian forest against a beautiful seacoast with plenty of turbulent weather -- there seem always to be storms coming in. All this dwarfs a brutally ordinary little town with a mill where the father of a boy called Pikelet goes every day to risk his life. Pikelet is 11 when the novel begins and spends much of his free time swimming in the river, diving down, holding on to tree roots, holding his breath until he sees stars. That's how he meets Loonie, a year older, who shares the same obsession. Pikelet, little fish; Loonie -- yes, he's crazy as hell. The two swim, dive, goof off, do odd jobs and finally bike out a few miles to the ocean where they meet some surfers.

(...)

This would seem to be a novel about surfing, from fiddling around with your first little Styrofoam board to riding waves that are three stories high and a mile offshore. (...)

Surfing is only the metaphor. ... But "Breath" is about moving out of your depth, getting in over your head, having your soul damaged beyond repair. ... But against all this pointless sorrow, there remains the evanescent beauty of the world, and Winton matches that with limitlessly beautiful prose.

Copyright 2008 Washington Post Writers Group

dishes washed
dog walked
mail retrieved
I can't settle

ah nostalgia
welcome home again
bearing The Whole Earth Catalog
and photos of Li Bai's mountain

my mind is trying to settle
on current concerns
but whirls around
a kite tail in the wind

Of interest to Beckett fans ...

http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-07-09/theater/beckett-texts-for-something/




Quote:
"I must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on." So ends The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett's inscrutable and very nearly unreadable 1953 novel. Irish actor Barry McGovern has taken those words to heart. For 23 years, he's gone on, performing his distillation of The Unnamable and two other Beckett novels, Molloy and Malone Dies.

Creative Connections Opening at Warwick Centro

photos: Tibor with video camera; Val Shields opening the exhibition; Sue Clennell in blue, myself with sheets of paper; Flora Smith reading; Glen Phillips and myself

This afternoon, Maureen Sexton and a team of volunteers put on an exhibition of art from differently abled people from various hostels. This art event is an annual event called Creative Connections - Invited poets responded in recent weeks to individual paintings, and today was the opening of the July exhibition. There will be another exhibition in September for National Poetry Week, complete with booklet marrying the painterly images with the poems that go with them.

The exhibition will run from Thursday 10th July to Saturday 12th July during normal trading hours at Warwick Centro Shopping Complex, Beach Road and Erindale Road, Warwick.
There will be a second exhibition in September.

The aims of the project are:
- to demonstrate through creative pursuits, the diverse abilities
and personalities of people who are differently-abled
- to enable differently-abled people, the community and
community groups to connect with each other.


Here are a couple of my poems which I hope to team up with their images, when I get permission.

ARTWORK NO 28
ARTIST: Michael Hoey


so much depends
upon Nature
dancing

force that through
the green world
pulses

sunlight that licks
the leaves of
grass

bark and low and gobble of
all creatures, great and
small

so much delight in
the garden of our
Earth


ARTWORK NO 50
ARTIST: Katie Bassett


Action! Lights!

yellowness of yolk echoes
yellingness of children
laughter of birds

The painter is painting
Psychedelic jellyfish
Beyond words

we’ve let out
our thoughts
to play

Action! Lights!

Willam Stafford article in The Oregonian

I'm a longtime fan of William Stafford, American poet. His habit of writing every morning inspired me to try to do the same many years ago. I am still an inconstant holder of this habit.

There is a wonderful article on him, entitled Oregon poet William Stafford is hugely popular -- 15 years after his death at The Oregonian, from which I quote a middle paragraph:

'In the [CO]camp, Stafford began a lifelong habit of getting up early to write, responding to the persistent scratching of what Portland poet Judith Barrington calls "the little daily dog eager to be let out." The routine was get up, go for a walk, then write until his wife arose. When his daughter Barbara was young, she decided to get up early and keep her father company. Stafford never let on that she was interrupting him but kept getting up earlier and earlier until she stopped.'

Read the entire article at http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1215226518277170.xml&coll=7&thispage=1

In you're interested in reading and hearing William Stafford, try http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/224

One of my colleagues in China

At Shanxi Normal University, China, they had a Walk of Famous Men. My favourite statue was this lively image of Einstein. Fellow lecturer John Jain took this photo, in 2006. Thanks for its use, John.

2008 CREATIVE CONNECTIONS ART AND POETRY EXHIBITION

Creative Connections and WA Poets Inc bring you the 2008 Creative Connections Art and Poetry Exhibition. This exhibition is supported by Disability Services Commission of WA.

There will be two exhibitions this year.

The first exhibition will be held on Thursday 10th, Friday 11th and Saturday 12th July 2008 at Centro Warwick Shopping Centre, during trading hours. There will be a launch at 3 pm on Thursday 10th, with guest speakers, to coincide with filming by Community Television.

The second exhibition will be held in conjunction with National Poetry Week on Thursday 5th, Friday 6th and Saturday 7th September 2008 at the Galleria Shopping Cente in Morley, during trading hours.

There are 55 Artworks by 30 Artists and 26 Poets are busy writing poetry to the artworks.

2008 Artists:

Jane Gribben

Bristol Hostel

Craig Hockey
Kathy Adair
Katie Bassett
Kristen Cameron
Laurie Coyne
Lisa Bernic
Matthew Bowen
Meryl Harris
Michael Hoey
Robert O'Dwyer
Vivienne Sharp
Wayne Russell

Norwich Hostel

Adrian Chadwick
Barry Tonkin
Cecilia Hynes
Cheryl Ham
Douglas Patching
Mildred D'Rozario
Terry Haynes

Sussex Hostel

Avril-Jo Coppping
Emma Biaisin
Emma Tamblyn
Dennis Goater
Graham Hoffman
Graham McNally
Harry Wheeler
Raymond Thomas
Tony Santoro

Buckthorn Group Home

Julie Dace

2008 Poets:

Tasha Adams
Andrew Burke
Saz Campbell
Coral Carter
Liana Christensen
Dr Sally Clarke
Sue Clennell
Peter Evans
Trisha Kotai Ewers
Jenny de Garis
Kevin Gillam
Peter Jeffery
Paula Jones
Christopher Konrad
Melanie Kwa
Deanne Leber
Mardi May
Julienne Miller
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
Jan Napier
Val Neubecker
Maureen Sexton
Flora Smith
Cathy Szathmary
Bron Thomason
Michael Williams

Video shows Mugabe vote-rigging and more.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2008/jul/04/election.zimbabwe

My daughter Alice and myself

... many moons ago!

John Updike's Book Reviewing rules

Thirty-one years ago, in the introduction to "Picked Up Pieces," his second collection of assorted prose, John Updike laid down his own six rules for reviewing. They are still the single best guide to fairness today:

"My rules," he writes, "shaped intaglio-fashion by youthful traumas at the receiving end of critical opinion, were and are:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending. (How astounded and indignant was I, when innocent, to find reviewers blabbing, and with the sublime inaccuracy of drunken lords reporting on a peasants' revolt, all the turns of my suspenseful and surpriseful narrative! Most ironically, the only readers who approach a book as the author intends, unpolluted by pre-knowledge of the plot, are the detested reviewers themselves. And then, years later, the blessed fool who picks the volume at random from a library shelf.)

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's ouevre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser. Do not accept for review a book you are predisposed to dislike, or committed by friendship to like. Do not imagine yourself a caretaker of any tradition, an enforcer of any party standards, a warrior in an idealogical battle, a corrections officer of any kind. Never, never (John Aldridge, Norman Podhoretz) try to put the author "in his place," making him a pawn in a contest with other reviewers. Review the book, not the reputation. Submit to whatever spell, weak or strong, is being cast. Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end."


Taken from http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/2006/06/reviewing-101-john-updikes-rules.html

li'l poem

in last night's dream
words spoke through
puns and play

words are acts

when you constantly
refer to yourself
i see you constantly
defer to your self

you take rain
out for a walk
you let sun shine in
but you never leave
your self at home

Welcome, Quinn

My eldest son, Miles and his wife Meredith are the proud parents of child number three, Quinn Nathaniel Burke, born June 30th at St John's in Subiaco. All well.

The photos are by Miles, and show Quinn at 1 hour, 5 hours and 8 hours old.

Of course, I am a proud grandparent, too!

Kris Hemensley's Collected Works Bookshop has got a blog

http://www.collectedworks-poetryideas.blogspot.com/

indigo journal needs a voluntary bookkeeper

indigo journal is the new journal of West Australian writing published by W.A.'s vibrant writing group Out of the Asylum.

Out of the Asylum seeks a volunteer bookkeeper to help continue the publication of indigo.


The job entails:

• payment of bills, generation of invoices and banking
• preparation of general ledger
• monthly reconciliation of accounts
• maintenance of subscriber list
• attendance at indigo meetings when required

The job is available for immediate start and Out of the Asylum requires a commitment until the beginning of May 2009.


If you, or someone you know, could be interested in helping out with one of the most exciting literary projects in WA, find out more.

Ring 0407 086 836 or email dwcontac@bigpond.net.au

Poetica - Haiku part two

This from the ABC newsletter:

POETICA
Saturday 28/6/2008 15:00 (3pm)
Thursday repeat 3/7/2008 15:00 (3pm)
Australian Haiku - Part 2, produced by Ron Sims
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/poetica/stories/2008/2267053.htm
In Poetica's two-part feature, program producer Ron Sims asks: what is it about the Haiku that commands so much time and effort in creating a thing so small? The answer reveals a private world of passion, dedication, honesty and wry humour from writers who produce a Haiku a month to those who produce in their hundreds. The Haiku poem is a tiny 'window-on-life' opening up for the reader an often startling vision of the nature of the world... or of their own nature. As the writers explain, the Haiku really 'takes off' when the tiny spark they set up catches alight with a surprising brilliance in the reader's mind.
Peter Holland, Jodie Buzza and Murray Dowsett read a couple of hundred Haiku along with discusssions with Haiku writers across Australia.

PS: I'm in it this week - Please tune in and post a comment here.

Poets on Poetry, perhaps ...

Fresh off the grapevine:


Robert Kennedy, a Sydney based poet, wants to produce a book titled Poets on Poetry. It’s to be a selection of 500 word statements from about 150 published poets throughout Australia; covering areas like, what poetry means, how it works, how you came to poetry and what your hopes for poetry are.

Connected to each poetry statement you can add one short poem only, and a reference to the poet’s books, but only if relevant. Payment is not envisaged at this point.

If you’d like to be involved, write your 500 word poetry statement and attach your poem, then send it by December 1, 2008 - to Robert at rk2000@bigpond.net.au

Groucho Marx said -

"A child of five would understand this. Send someone to fetch a child of five."

Apropos of absolutely nothing ...

New Blog

My son, Charlie, is now travelling in his job with the ICC, so he has started a blog to keep friends and family up to date with his activities. These are just a copuple of snaps from his stay in Port Moresby. You can find his blog at http://beyondtherope.blogspot.com/

Poetica - Haiku in Australia Parts 1 & 2

Poetica is a radio program dedicated to the performance of poetry and ranges freely among contemporary Australian and overseas work as well as drawing on ancient sources and from bi-lingual programs, live readings, studio-based poetry features and on-location recordings.

Scheduled for broadcast on June 21 and 28 is the program, Haiku in Australia, a detailed exploration of this burgeoning poetic form with some of Australia's leading practitioners.

It will please some and surprise many that the seemingly mystical art of 'Haiku writing' is not only alive throughout Australia but is truly flourishing, beguiling and tempting writers across the country from Perth to Brisbane...

In Poetica's two part feature, Peter Holland, Jodie Buzza and Murray Dowsett read a couple of hundred Haiku along with discussions with Haiku writers across Australia.

To listen to the program and for more details visit: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/poetica/


All the above from HaikuOz http://www.haikuoz.org/. Might I just add that Poetica is on Radio National Saturday afternoon at 3pm, and is presented by Mike Ladd, Australian poet and long-time ABC producer. This program researched and recorded, as well as linked, by Ron Sims, intrepid freelance recorder and broadcaster, and sculptor.

Anna Maria Weldon's THE ROOF MILKERS

You are invited to an afternoon of poetry and music

The Roof Milkers
Annamaria Weldon
Sunline Press

To be launched by Kevin Gillam
Saturday June 21st at 4pm
Gallows Gallery, 53 Glyde Street, Mosman Park

RSVP theroofmilkers@yahoo.com.au
tel 9319 2185 or sms 0404 0101 42
Book sales $25 (no credit card facilities)

LEARN TO WRITE

Techniques for writing and editing
taught in a playful manner
by Dr Andrew Burke
a published writer with
over thirty years teaching experience.

Enjoy the camaraderie
and learn in the rooms
of this historic writer's house

10am to Noon
Wednesdays
at Tom Collins House
Wood Street, Swanbourne

$20 per lesson or
$120 for eight weeks

You don't have to be a member of anything or anywhere to join in these fun sessions. All you need is a pen and paper and a desire to practise writing stories and poems.

Indigo irony ... Deadline extended

Due to their own runaway success, the team behind Indigo literary magazine has had to take a breather and restructure - which benefits WA writers coz they've extended the deadline for submissions for Indigo 3 to September.

So all that last minute nervous editing I did on my pieces was unnecessary... Oh, well, it's all a gamble anyway >g<

Go to http://www.indigojournal.org.au/ - and good luck.

Haibun for Sheila Murphy

I've been reading Falling In Love Falling In Love With You Syntax, Selected and New Poems by Sheila E.Murphy, and, like a child unable to sit still due to new stimulation, I've written a contemporary haibun for Sheila. I hasten to add, slowly, that I'm in the early stages of her book, so this influence is from her early work.

Haibun for Sheila Murphy

Reading your book and stirring the porridge is a plaiting: tactile, rhythmic. The dog barks to have such fun, or wants it. Rain primps on our tin roof, veranda dusted off, biddable as Berryman, narcissistic in its newly found pleasure. I eat the porridge, at the mere mention of which a child sings a song of praise. Nobody answers. Cynicism scoffs at such a half-pint hoofer. Limited by language building in rounds, ego is not a dirty word, fitting biorhythmic conflict within multi-veined bladders. And the verb ran away with the noun. Duncan spoke of the swarm of human speech, as, just now, galahs parlez loudly in the tall gums. Just now and still then. Wit and words and oats,

the spelling and grammar check is complete.

Literary Tattoos: Who does your body quote?

http://hubpages.com/hub/Literary-Tattoos-for-People-who-Love-Books

History never repeats / I tell myself before I go to sleep ...

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0823,brief-history-of,457627,9.html

YOUR INVITATION from
ECU & Fremantle Press to the launch of
"Contrary Rhetoric by JOHN KINSELLA"
The Landscape Lectures
TO BE LAUNCHED BY PRO VICE CHANCELLOR
PROFESSOR Brenda CHEREDNICHENKO

Wednesday 11 June at 6pm Edith Cowan University
Mount Lawley Campus, Building 3, Conference Room 3.116
2 Bradford Street Mt Lawley.

RSVP Glen Phillips 93706309

Launch photos of 'Lines in the Sand'

Photos courtesy of Frances Macauley Forde - Thank you!

Rose Van Son and Sarah French, Jeanette and Andrew Burke with Trisha Kotai-Ewers, John Kinsella (with Dorothy Hewett on poster), John Harman and Bruce Russell (holding jacket), Dorothy Macgowan and Shane Macauley, Peter Bibby (scarf) Glen Phillips and William Grono,

Taken off my daughter's Alice's facebook site: Charlie, Miles and Andrew Burke playing cricket at our old Darlington house.

Although ... Miroslav Holub

Although a poem arises when there's nothing else to be done, although a poem is a last attempt at order when one can't stand the disorder any longer,
although poets are most needed when freedom, vitamin C, communications, laws, and hypertension therapy are also most needed,
although to be an artist is to fail and art is fidelity to failure, as Samuel Beckett says,
a poem is not one of the last but of the first things of man.

~ ~ ~
Certainly a poem is only a game.
Certainly a poem exists only at the moment of origin and at the moment of reading. And at best in the shadow-play of memory.
Certainly one can't enter the same poem twice.
Certainly a poet has the impression from the beginning that no purpose exists, as Henry Miller has said.
Certainly art becomes generally acceptable only when it declines into a mechanism and its order becomes a habit.
But in its aimlessness, in its desperate commitment to the word, in its primal order of birth and re-birth, a poem remains the most general guarantee that we can still do something, that we can still do something against emptiness, that we haven't given in but are giving ourselves to something.
The most general gurantee that we are not composed only of facts, of facts which, as Ernst Fischer says, are deeds withered into things.
Provided a poem, which is the poet's modest attempt to put off disintegration for a while, is not regarded as the philosopher's stone, bringing salvation and deliverance to stupefied mankind.
For art doesn't solve problems but only wears them out.
For art is fidelity to failure.
For a poem is when nothing else remains.
Although ...

(formatting shot to pieces by blogger but you get the gist of it)

Miroslav Holub 'Although' (book title as well as poem title) Cape Editions 1970

'Lines In The Sand' on sale now

After obtaining the anthology Lines In The Sand, I realised just how many contributors I left out yesterday. Mea culpa, I should have waited.

Last evening, Grant Stone - Murdoch University librarian, radio show presenter, sometime ABC guest/expert, founder of the Laughter Club, and other activities - launched this well-orchestrated collection of prose and poems by Western Australians. Yes, generations are represented, but the major impact of the collection to me was the maturing of many 'new writers' of yesterday into confident voices with things to say - personal, universal, about history, society and literature itself.

I am moved to see Lesley Dougan writing about her sister Dorothy Hewett, and to read Brian Dibble's piece on Elizabeth Jolley. Well-known names like John Kinsella (who also wrote the foreward)is there alongside Megan McKinlay and Debbie Hills. Hal Colebatch and Shane Macauley are in the mix with BJ Thomason and Nandi Chinna... I just can't name them all, but the general feeling at the Centre for the Book at the State Library last evening was of an extended family, and that feeling is truly in this book as you read it. These people are expressing their lives from the many corners of this community.

People who help this literary community in other ways as well are here as writers, their first love: Amanda Curtin, editor; Roland Leach, teacher and publisher; Frances Macaulay Forde, controller of the Poet's Corner and photographer of poets in public; Trisha Kotai-Ewers, centreplate of the FAWWA; Dennis Haskell, editor and UWA professor - these people put in the hours to help other writers achieve and publish.

Some say, Writing is a lonely business, and it often is, but last evening and in Lines In The Sand anthology, writing has brought an extended family together.

Today, celebrate FAWWA's 70 Years with 'Lines In The Sand'

You are Invited!

At 6:30pm TODAY
the Fellowship of Australian Writers WA anthology
'Lines In The Sand'
will be launched at
the Centre for the Book,
Alexander Library.

This gem includes a healthy cross-section of contemporary Western Australian writers, including Fay Zwicky, Robert Drewe, Glen Phillips, Sarah French, Rachel Petridis, Cecily Scutt, Murray Jennings, Lesley Thomas, Andrew Burke, Kevin Gillam, Georgia Richter, Roland Leach, Anna-Maria Weldon, Cyndie Innes, Lucy Dougan, Steven Dedman, and many others. (I've only seen the contents list once and I'm listing by memory, so forgive me if I've left your favourite author out.)

My suggestion: Buy one at the launch and get all the authors you can find to sign it. It will be worth a bob or two in years to come. In the meantime, you can read it >g<

Ezra Pound's birthplace

A poet's place

At Ezra Pound's former house, now part of The Sun Valley Center for the Arts, a small plaque near the door is all that identifies it as Pound's birthplace. A bookcase containing a life mask of Pound and assorted books are the only items inside that hint at Pound's connection. Pound was likely born in an upstairs bedroom (only the first floor of the house is open to visitors).

The house, simply called The Center, is open to the public from noon to 5 p.m. Wednesday through Friday. Admission is free. Writers' workshops, exhibits, concerts and classes are offered.

The Center is at 341 Second Ave. S. (at the corner of Pine Street and Second Avenue) in Hailey, Idaho. More information: Sun Valley Center for the Arts, www.sunvalleycenter.org or 208-726-9491.

full article at http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/travel/2004430400_tridahopoet25.html

FAWWA Anthology to be launched Thursday

Lines in the Sand will be launched on Thursday 29th May, at 6:30pm, in the Centre for the Book, State Library, Perth, by Grant Stone, Scholarly Resources Librarian, Murdoch University.

RSVP or order your copy from admin@fawwa.org.au

introducing Zimmy

Photos taken on our new Jack Rassell X's 6 week birthday. Off to the vet tomorrow to have her first shots.

Washington Post's Mensa Invitational

Here is the Washington Post's Mensa Invitational, which once again asked readers to take any word from the dictionary, alter it by adding, subtracting, or changing one letter, and supply a new definition.

The winners are:

1. Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period of time.

2. Ignoranus: A person who's both stupid and an asshole.

3. Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.

4. Reintarnation: Coming back to life as a hillbilly.

5. Bozone (n.): The substance surrounding stupid people that stops bright ideas from penetrating.
The bozone layer, unfortunately, shows little sign of breaking down in the near future.

6. Foreploy: Any misrepresentation about yourself for the purpose of getting laid.

7. Giraffiti: Vandalism spray-painted very, very high.

8. Sarchasm: The gulf between the author of sarcastic wit and the person who doesn't get it.

9. Inoculatte: To take coffee intravenously when you are running late.

10. Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.

11. Osteopornosis: A degenerate disease. (This one got extra credit.)

12. Karmageddon: It's when everybody is sending off all these really bad vibes, and then the Earth explodes,
and it's a serious bummer.

13. Decafalon (n.): The grueling event of getting through the day consuming only things that are good for you

14. Glibido: All talk and no action.

15. Dopeler effect: The tendency of stupid ideas to seem smarter when they come at you rapidly.

16. Arachnoleptic fit (n.): The frantic dance performed just after you've accidentally walked through a spider web.

17. Beelzebug (n.): Satan in the form of a mosquito, that gets into your bedroom
at three in the morning and cannot be cast out.

18. Caterpallor (n.): The color you turn after finding half a worm in the fruit you're eating.


=========================================================
The Washington Post also published the winning submissions to its yearly contest, in which readers are asked to supply alternate meanings for common words.

The winners are:

1. coffee, n. the person upon whom one coughs.

2. flabbergasted, adj. appalled by discovering how much weight one has gained.

3. abdicate, v. to give up all hope of ever having a flat stomach.

4. esplanade, v. to attempt an explanation while drunk.

5. willy-nilly, adj. impotent.

6. negligent, adj. absentmindedly answering the door when wearing only a nightgown.

7. lymph, v. to walk with a lisp.

8. gargoyle, n. olive-flavored mouthwash.

9. flatulence, n. emergency vehicle that picks up someone who has been run over by a steamroller.

10. balderdash, n. a rapidly receding hairline.

11. testicle, n. a humorous question on an exam.

12. rectitude, n. the formal, dignified bearing adopted by proctologists.

13. pokemon, n. a Rastafarian proctologist.

14. oyster, n. a person who sprinkles his conversation with Yiddishisms.

15. Frisbeetarianism, n. the belief that, after death, the soul flies up onto the roof and gets stuck there.

16. Circumvent, n. an opening in the front of boxer shorts worn by Jewish men.

You are Invited to John Mateer's Book Launch

Salt Publishing and Inbooks
invite you
to celebrate the publication of

ELSEWHERE
by
JOHN MATEER

Published by Salt

To be launched by
John Kinsella
Wednesday, 28th May, 2008
6.30pm at
Planet Books
636-638 Beaufort Street, Mount Lawley

RSVP by Monday 26th May to
Natalie: marketing@inbooks.com.au

What Is It Anyway? Poetry Daily asks ...

On Tuesday we (Poetry Daily http://www.poems.com/) continue our series of prose features with "What Is It Anyway," from Quote Poet Unquote: Contemporary Quotations on Poets and Poetry, edited by Dennis O'Driscoll, just out from Copper Canyon Press:

"Poetry: three mismatched shoes at the entrance of a dark alley."
—Charles Simic

"Poetry is energy, it is an energy-storing and an energy-releasing device."
—Miroslav Holub

"Poetry is the eroticization of thought—psychic vitality."
—Cal Bedient

"A poem... is the attire of feeling: the literary form where words seem tailor-made for memory or desire."
—Carol Ann Duffy


Please - contribute your own!

Everyday Sitting in Zen

"One's everyday life, in its entirety, should be thought of as a kind of sitting in Zen. Even during formal sitting, one may leave one's seat to attend to something. In my temple at least, such things are allowed. Indeed it's sometimes advisable to walk in Zen for one incense stick's burning, and sit in Zen for the other. A natural thing, after all. One can't sleep all day, so one rises. One can't talk all day, so one engages in zazen. There are no binding rules here."

Bankei (1622-93), quoted from his Sayings and Writings, compiled and edited by Dr D.T.Suzuki as one of the volumes of the Iwanami Library, only part of which is available in English. (Not from the book above which is there for illustrative purposes only - although it looks like a fine book.)

From Sydney Writers Festival site ...Liyarn Ngarn

Wednesday, May 21, 7:30-9:45pm
Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay

Liyarn Ngarn (meaning ‘coming together of the spirit’ in the Yawuru language of the West Kimberley region) is a powerful and important documentary charting renowned British actor Pete Postlethwaite's personal journey with respected songman Archie Roach into Aboriginal Australia. Seen through the eyes of an outsider who is suddenly immersed in the mire of Australian race relations, the film documents a 30 year long mission of indigenous leader and Yawuru man, Patrick Dodson, to bring about a lasting and true reconciliation between indigenous and non-indigenous Australians. This is a culturally significant and moving account of suffering and searching for justice.

Following the screening, Pete Postlethwaite, Patrick Dodson and Archie Roach discuss the road to reconciliation.

Supported by The Horizon Foundation.


Now there's an item I'd like to be at. Check out more at http://www.swf.org.au

Laughter is the Best Medicine

At the risk of losing my 'serious' readership, I would like to share a joke which tickled my fancy this morning. Thank you to my cousin Mary for sending me this.

Solving the Problem

A guy goes to a psychiatrist. "Doc, I keep having these alternating recurring dreams. First I'm a teepee; then I'm a wigwam; then I'm a teepee; then I'm a wigwam. It's driving me crazy. What's wrong with me?"

The doctor replies: "It's very simple. You're two tents."

Pages Cafe Poets Corner Reading TOMORROW

Poets Corner @ Pages Cafe on 2 pm, TOMORROW, Saturday 17th May 2008, with special guests Murry Jennings, Annamaria Weldon, Deanne Leber and Andrew Burke.

Open Mic will be at 4pm, as usual: readers welcome to register with Frances Macaulay Forde on the day.

Pages Cafe is on the ground floor of the State Library in Perth's cultural centre. Easy to get to by train; heaps of parking; walk there if you have to >g<

Please come.

Work Safe! An Aussie ballad

The sun was hot already - it was only 8 o'clock
The cocky took off in his Ute, to go and check his stock.
He drove around the paddocks checking wethers, ewes and lambs,
The float valves in the water troughs, the windmills on the dams.

He stopped and turned a windmill on to fill a water tank
And saw a ewe down in the dam, a few yards from the bank.
"Typical bloody sheep," he thought, "they've got no common sense,
"They won't go through a gateway but they'll jump a bloody fence."

The ewe was stuck down in the mud, he knew without a doubt
She'd stay there 'til she carked it if he didn't get her out.
But when he reached the water's edge, the startled ewe broke free
And in her haste to get away, began a swimming spree.

He reckoned once her fleece was wet, the weight would drag her down
If he didn't rescue her, the stupid sod would drown.
Her style was unimpressive, her survival chances slim
He saw no other option, he would have to take a swim.

He peeled his shirt and singlet off, his trousers, boots and socks
And as he couldn't stand wet clothes, he also shed his jocks.
He jumped into the water and away that cocky swam
He caught up with her, somewhere near the middle of the dam

The ewe was quite evasive, she kept giving him the slip
He tried to grab her sodden fleece but couldn't get a grip.
At last he got her to the bank and stopped to catch his breath
She showed him little gratitude for saving her from death.

She took off like a Bondi tram around the other side
He swore next time he caught that ewe he'd hang her bloody hide.
Then round and round the dam they ran, although he felt quite puffed
He still thought he could run her down, she must be nearly stuffed.

The local stock rep came along, to pay a call that day.
He knew this bloke was on his own, his wife had gone away
He didn't really think he'd get fresh scones for morning tea
But nor was he prepared for what he was about to see.

He rubbed his eyes in disbelief at what came into view
For running down the catchment came this frantic-looking ewe.
And on her heels in hot pursuit and wearing not a stitch
The farmer yelling wildly "Come back here, you lousy bitch!"

The stock rep didn't hang around, he took off in his car
The cocky's reputation has been damaged near and far
So bear in mind the Work Safe rule when next you check your flocks
Spot the hazard, assess the risk, and always wear your jocks!

Anon.

Poet's Corner this Saturday

Poets Corner @ Pages Cafe on 2 pm, Saturday 17th May 2008, with special guests Murry Jennings, Annamaria Weldon, Deanne Leber and Andrew Burke.

Open Mic will be at 4pm, as usual: readers welcome to register with Frances Macaulay Forde on the day.

Pages Cafe is on the ground floor of the State Library in Perth's cultural centre. Easy to get to by train; heaps of parking; walk there if you have to >g<

This photo of Robert Creeley's gravestone, off Ron Silliman's blog. In recent days, I've been playing Creeley reading his poems to Steve Swallow's music. It always saddens me to hear a voice of one once so alive who is now dead, but it is better I suppose than the silence of a gravestone.

Oh No

If you wander far enough
you will come to it
and when you get there
they will give you a place to sit

for yourself only, in a nice chair,
and all your friends will be there
with smiles on their faces
and they will likewise all have places.



Track One on So There, Robert Creeley (poet) and Steve Swallow (composer), with The Cikada Quartet, and Steve Kuhn on piano. Recorded August 25, 2001 at The Make Believe Ballroom, West Shokan, New York. Released by XtraWATT/12 (ECM Records GmbH). More at http://www.ecmrecords.com

You can hear pieces of tracks off this CD at http://www.legalsounds.com/download-mp3/steve-swallow-with-robert-creeley/so-there/sufi-sam-christian/song_807457

New $5,000 poetry prize - the Blake Poetry Prize

From http://www.nswwriterscentre.org.au

The Blake Poetry Prize 2008

$5,000 prize for new national poetry competition on the theme of 'Bliss, blasphemy and belief'

The NSW Writers' Centre is delighted to announce that it is joining the Blake Society, Leichhardt Municipal Council and Wet Ink magazine in sponsoring a new national poetry prize to be known as the Blake Poetry Prize, which calls for entries on the theme of 'Bliss, blasphemy and belief'.

The Chairwoman of the NSW Writers¹ Centre, Máire Sheehan,said: 'The aim of the competition is to give Australian poets another opportunity to achieve national recognition and a financial reward for their efforts.'

This new competition was made possible by the generosity of Leichhardt Municipal Council, which has a strong commitment to supporting the arts, and especially writing through the NSW Writers' Centre.

"This grant of $5,000 continues our longstanding commitment to the NSW Writers' Centre and the development of arts through the written and spoken word," Mayor of Leichhardt Council Cr Alice Murphy said.

The NSW Writers' Centre is pleased to develop this partnership with the Blake Society which awards the annual Blake Prize for Religious Art. Blake Chairman, the Reverend Rod Pattenden, said: 'This exciting new initiative links visual art and literature, and offers new possibilities for poets to explore the nature of spirituality in the twenty-first century.'

Australia's newest literary magazine Wet Ink will join the partnership by providing the judges for the competition and publishing the winner and commended entries in Wet Ink, which is distributed nationally and internationally. Co-managing Editor of Wet Ink, Dominique Wilson, said: 'We are very excited to be part of this important new prize. Wet Ink is dedicated to promoting new writers, and this prize enables us to further support emerging poets through recognising their talents and exposing their work to a broad audience, both within Australia and overseas.'

Download an entry form and conditions at the NSW Writers Centre link above.

Entries close Friday 27 June 2008
Entry fee: $15

Autumn in Perth

Poets Corner @ Pages Cafe 17 May

Note from Frances: If you haven't experienced Poets Corner @ Pages Cafe yet our next event takes place on 17th May 2007 with special guests Andrew Burke, Murry Jennings and Annamaria Weldon.

Open Mic will be at 4pm, as usual: readers welcome to register with me, Frances Macaulay Forde on the day.

Note from Andrew: It starts at 2pm, and Pages Cafe is on the ground floor of the State Library in Perth's cultural centre. Easy to get to by train; heaps of parking; walk there if you have to >g<

Gary Snyder wins Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize

CHICAGO, April 29 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ --- Poet Gary Snyder is the winner of the 2008 Ruth Lilly Poetry Prize. Established in 1986 and presented annually by the Poetry Foundation, the award is one of the most prestigious given to American poets, and at $100,000 it is one of the nation's largest literary awards. Christian Wiman, editor of Poetry magazine and chair of the selection committee, made the announcement today. The prize will be presented at an evening ceremony at the Arts Club of Chicago on Thursday, May 29.

In announcing the award, Wiman said: "Gary Snyder is in essence a contemporary devotional poet, though he is not devoted to any one god or way of being so much as to Being itself. His poetry is a testament to the sacredness of the natural world and our relation to it, and a prophecy of what we stand to lose if we forget that relation."

Help the Homeless

http://www.housesforthehomeless.com.au - with every click on this site, realestate.com.au will donate $1 to Mission Australia.

There are countless people out there who don't have a roof over their head, including families with little kids shivering through our winter nights. So, click away.

Intra View

We keep waiting for something to go wrong
with the seasons. I don't think writers
should tell people what to believe
or how to behave. But something has already
gone wrong with the genres. So I let lots
of fragmentary, sometimes contradictory opinions
- as though they came from a large cast
of different characters - into the poems.
They have all bled into one another. That's
what life is like, after all. Decorum is
no longer observed. Just listen, next time
you take a bus into town. Millions
of different voices, each as important
as your own solitary whining. Isolation
and decline, fatal flaws
and falls, the throes of heroes.


(This text compiled by interweaving a paragraph from The Information by Martin Amis with the paragraph from an interview with John Tranter which I published on Tuesday. All literature is a game, of some seriousness or not.)

Creatrix - WA Poets Inc poetry online e-journal

Creatrix is the new name for our poetry online e-journal, previously known as Fresh Works, which is resuming after a short recess.

Creatrix will be published online in March, June, September and December each year.

To be considered for the June 2008 edition, your poems are to be received by Friday 23rd May 2008. All submissions to be sent by email.

We accept poetry up to 60 lines, or shorter poems preferred, open theme (no more than three poems per poet per issue). There is no guarantee your poem/s will be chosen.

At this stage, publication is for WA Poets Inc member poets only (NB FREE membership). Currently we cannot pay contributors, but your poetry will be showcased. We will accept prize winning or previously published work, with acknowledgements. Send poems as attachments either in .rtf or word .doc files.

Copyright of material in the e-journal remains with the individual contributors and cannot be reproduced or transmitted in any form without written permission from the authors.

The editing team for Creatrix will be Peter Jeffery, Andrew Burke and Maureen Sexton. The next edition will be edited by Maureen Sexton.

Email to The Editor with the words "online submission" in the subject line. The email address is: wapoets@yahoo.com.au.