From Frank Parker's work-in-progress

Language


older than we are

invented only this morning

all houses, all landscapes

marry those sounds

we call our friends

and read poems to them


- Frank Parker
poet and editor from Tucson, Arizona

For more of his work-in-progress, and even a biog detail or two, go to http://frankshome.org/WinPo.html

The Oxonian Review » Strongholds of the Imagination

Hill should walk it in, but it has a vexed history of late, has it not!

The Oxonian Review » Strongholds of the Imagination

Cover Image for New & Revised 'Mother Waits for Father Late' - on the horizon now from Picaro Press

Archive photo of my family, with grandparents at one table and my siblings at the table in the foreground. If you look closely, that is little Andrew standing up at the far table.

Final adjustments just done, so some copies will be in the mail tomorrow. After Easter I'll be hawking it around for $15 a copy. It is slightly different than the 1992 FACP version - I have flicked some poems and replaced them with more recently written ones which are thematically appropriate.

There's no mention of it yet on the Picaro site, but here is their website, just for your interest: http://www.picaropress.com

Wise Words from Woody Guthrie

“Life has got a habit of not standing hitched. You got to ride it like you find it. You got to change with it. If a day goes by that don't change some of your old notions for new ones, that is just about like trying to milk a dead cow.” Woody Guthrie, American song writer and folksinger.

Becoming Post Avant by Steven Waling

Steven Waling at Brandoshot at http://stevenwaling.blogspot.com/ is quietioning why he ended up linked on Ron Silliman's blog with a wonderful piece entitled Becoming Post-Avant. Take a look at it - it is entertaining and, to my mind, relevant.

A taste:

Becoming Post Avant

4. It was a pressure in my head that made me finally admit that I was whatever kind of poet it is I think I've become. I had a failing poem that annoyed me so much, as a last resort, I cut it up. Lo! A light came down from heaven illuminating the path I must follow... or something... Rather, I discovered that I didn't have to do the whole thing straight, that going the crooked route was just as interesting.

5. I want to be as clear as possible. But life isn't clear, it comes at you from all kinds of directions at all kinds of speed. And I have to confess that I like, and think that poetry should reflect my experience, rather than try to impose an artificial order on it.

6. How important is the reader? Important enough not to be mollycoddled.

Issa Haiku

washing my laundry
with my clothes on...
summer rain


-Issa, 1821

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

Australian Poetry Centre is 'MAKING SENSE OF IT'

We all have our own perception of life, our own way of engaging with it or experiencing it. We depend on our senses to help us form an impression, understand our surroundings and act accordingly. But no two people experience the same thing. We are all individual. We all have our own unique way of perceiving the world. How do you perceive yours?

The Australian Poetry Centre is running a poetry competition, seeking poems which show us life from a totally unique perspective, from your own sensory experience, allowing others an insight into your distinctive view of the world - how you feel, observe and encounter it.

The top five poems selected will be (with the poets permission) recorded, performed and released on our poetry podcast (in partnership radio station 3RRR), Nothing Rhymes with RRR, and be published on the Australian Poetry Centre’s website. The poet who wins first prize will also receive one free Australian Poetry Centre Membership and the opportunity to read his/her poem at our public event on the night of May 7th, Dreaming in Auslan, at the Wheeler Centre (176 Little Lonsdale St, Melbourne), 7:30pm, where all winners will be announced. If you cannot attend the evening, we can provide a speaker or established poet to read or present your work for you.

Click here for more details about how to enter http://www.australianpoetrycentre.org.au/?page_id=899

Ron Silliman's take on US politics today

. What is government but ourselves? It’s the institutionalization of our collective being in order to accomplish some things we agree need to be done. Stop signs for example. Police for another. Schools for a third. Government may not work well, it may be bloated, sclerotic, bureaucratic. But it is ourselves. We have nobody else to blame.

- Just part of a rich posting by Ron Silliman on his blog today. This is a post worth reading, a personal statement about the politics of USAmerica today. Go to http://ronsilliman.blogspot.com/ for lots lots more.

STORM

Heaviest downpour in fifty years
floods the dry gutters, brittle leaves
block the down pipes
and rain backs up to flow down
inside glass of sliding doors
and kitchen windows. Once, only
the wealthiest of homeowners
had water sculptures
like these – my humour
proves water soluble
as towels prove no levee
and we walk barefoot
as beachcombers, room to
room, turning off
fridge, fans, computers, TV,
lamps, safety switched now
from light to dark. We’re lucky.
The coastline was hit worst,
universities and hospitals
pitted and torn, traffic beached
on its own islands, libraries
swimming in mud
and knee deep waters.

*
the morning after …

Excited news on social networks
of vehicles pitted like golfballs,
mudslides into luxury city apartments,
Premier declaring the storm
a Natural Disaster – keeping his shoes
clean by walking the driest paths –
TV news reporting the reportage
of Facebook users, folded in
narrative PoMo style,
furry footage and hysterical audio.

Not so much excitement in this town
since last footy season. Men climbing
walls onto rooftops, sealing skylights,
ants at their nest; schools mopping up,
preparing doorstop lessons on
Climate Change and Nature’s Fury.

*

The Bassendean Shopping Centre –
Proudly Hawaiian – copped
a bucketing. Coles supermarket
ceiling fell in; the Vietnamese
fruit and veg shop, Australia Post
and The Centre Café all
flooded to kneehigh level.
Yellow jacketed workmen swarm
the roof, wasps at their nest,
and the Indian trolley man compares
disaster stories with the woman
with a fag in her mouth and
a gallery of tats on
every exposed surface.
‘Fuckin' hell, what’d you do then?!’
Magic Happens yesterday
replaced by Shit Happens
today. That’s the way it is.
Spare a thought for those who
sleep in doorways and under bridges
as state emergency volunteers race by
to plug up damaged domiciles
and insurance assessors take snaps
and key in their findings.

Adventures Among Ants with Mark Moffett

“Ants are Earth’s most ubiquitous creatures,” Moffett writes. “A single hectare in the Amazon basin contains more ants than the entire human population of New York City, and that’s just counting the ants on the ground—twice as many live in the treetops.” His book includes marauder ants, army ants, weaver ants, slavemaker ants, leafcutter ants, and Argentine ants—the last of which have been hitchhiking from continent to continent to form supercolonies that threaten to conquer every other kind of ant. “Like a starfish that succeeds in prying open a clam through persistent application of pressure,” Moffett writes, “these ordinary-looking imperialists wear down nasty rivals and prey many times their weight in wars of attrition staged over hours, days, weeks, and even years.” According to Atwood, “This monoculture of ants is bad news,” for both the conquered ants and the landscape as we know it: as the Argentine ants expand their turf, they spread “their farmed aphids all over everything, including, very possibly, your rose bushes.” For more about Moffett’s discoveries, see http://www.adventuresamongants.com/Adventures_Among_Ants/Home.html

—Eve Bowen

Having a bad day? Then consider these events ...

In a hospital's Intensive Care Unit, patients always died in the same bed, on Sunday morning, at about 11:00 am , regardless of their medical condition. This puzzled the doctors and some even thought it had something to do with the super natural. No one could solve the mystery as to why the deaths occurred around 11:00 AM Sunday, so a worldwide team of experts was assembled to investigate the cause of the incidents. The next Sunday morning, a few minutes before 11:00 AM all of the doctors and nurses nervously waited outside the ward to see for themselves what the terrible phenomenon was all about. Some were holding wooden crosses, prayer books, and other holy objects to ward off the evil spirits.. Just when the clock struck 11:00 , Pookie Johnson , the part-time Sunday sweeper, entered the ward and unplugged the life support system so he could use the vacuum cleaner.

Still Having a Bad Day????

The average cost of rehabilitating a seal after the Exxon Valdez Oil spill in Alaska was $80,000.00. At a special ceremony, two of the most expensively saved animals were being released back into the wild amid cheers and applause from onlookers. A minute later, in full view, a killer whale ate them both.


Still think you are having a Bad Day????


A woman came home to find her husband in the kitchen shaking frantically, almost in a dancing frenzy, with some kind of wire running from his waist towards the electric kettle. Intending to jolt him away from the deadly current, she whacked him with a handy plank of wood, breaking his arm in two places. Up to that moment, he had been happily listening to his Walkman.


Are Ya OK Now? - No?


Two animal rights defenders were protesting the cruelty of sending pigs to a slaughterhouse in Bonn , Germany .. Suddenly, all two thousand pigs broke loose and escaped through a broken fence, stampeding madly.. The two helpless protesters were trampled to death.


What?!? STILL having a Bad Day????


Iraqi terrorist Khay Rahnajet did not pay enough postage on a letter bomb. It came back with 'Return to Sender' stamped on it. Forgetting it was the bomb, he opened it and was blown to bits. God is Good!


There now, Feeling Better?

Meet the Poetry Generator

from the Poetry Generator at http://www.languageisavirus.com/automatic_poetry_generator.html

So tiny under the wind

Totally damp under the vapors
I command grotesque devils under the tomb
We Reach! The Knight is done
We are hot in the mud
We swallow red wraiths behind the dreamscape
Crazy! The fun is good
So tiny under the wind
I smear desirous tentacles over the earth
Dig it! The pleasure will die
flickering altered
never meeting
any wind that blows
In whose eyes
such a man
stop for a while
and miss his turning


If a poem is enjoyable - and that one is awful - does it matter who wrote it? Should we bother putting our names to poems or just send them out into the world from the fabled makar, Anon? I know my ego wouldn't let me do that - and yet there are times when I wish I had! Dreadful poems which my name attached, sit in someone's bookshelf or bottom drawer - it is a pain. But that pain is relieved when a reader volunteers praise for a poem - or even a line in a poem! Ah, ego - it is my ego that is starving in a garret while I overeat in the kitchen.

Charles Olson says ...

whatever you have to say, leave
the roots on, let them
dangle
And the dirt
just to make clear
where they came from

The Cat section of 'Jubilate Agno' by Christopher Smart

For I will consider my Cat Jeoffry.

For he is the servant of the Living God duly and daily serving him.

For at the first glance of the glory of God in the East he worships in his way.

For is this done by wreathing his body seven times round with elegant quickness.

For then he leaps up to catch the musk, which is the blessing of God upon his prayer.

For he rolls upon prank to work it in.

For having done duty and received blessing he begins to consider himself.

For this he performs in ten degrees.

For first he looks upon his fore-paws to see if they are clean.

For secondly he kicks up behind to clear away there.

For thirdly he works it upon stretch with the fore paws extended.

For fourthly he sharpens his paws by wood.

For fifthly he washes himself.

For Sixthly he rolls upon wash.

For Seventhly he fleas himself, that he may not be interrupted upon the beat.

For Eighthly he rubs himself against a post.

For Ninthly he looks up for his instructions.

For Tenthly he goes in quest of food.

For having consider'd God and himself he will consider his neighbour.

For if he meets another cat he will kiss her in kindness.

For when he takes his prey he plays with it to give it chance.

For one mouse in seven escapes by his dallying.

For when his day's work is done his business more properly begins.

For he keeps the Lord's watch in the night against the adversary.

For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes.

For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life

For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him.

For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

For the Cherub Cat is a term of the Angel Tiger.

For he has the subtlety and hissing of a serpent, which in goodness he suppresses.

For he will not do destruction, if he is well-fed, neither will he spit without provocation.

For he purrs in thankfulness, when God tells him he's a good Cat.

For he is an instrument for the children to learn benevolence upon.

For every house is incompleat without him and a blessing is lacking in the spirit.

For the Lord commanded Moses concerning the cats at the departure of the Children of Israel from Egypt.

For every family had one cat at least in the bag.

For the English Cats are the best in Europe.

For he is the cleanest in the use of his fore-paws of any quadrupede.

For the dexterity of his defence is an instance of the love of God to him exceedingly.

For he is the quickest to his mark of any creature.

For he is tenacious of his point.

For he is a mixture of gravity and waggery.

For he knows that God is his Saviour.

For there is nothing sweeter than his peace when at rest.

For there is nothing brisker than his life when in motion.

For he is of the Lord's poor and so indeed is he called by benevolence perpetually -- Poor Jeoffry! poor Jeoffry! the rat has bit thy throat.

For I bless the name of the Lord Jesus that Jeoffry is better.

For the divine spirit comes about his body to sustain it in compleat cat.

For his tongue is exceeding pure so that it has in purity what it wants in musick.

For he is docile and can learn certain things.

For he can set up with gravity which is patience upon approbation.

For he can fetch and carry, which is patience in employment.

For he can jump over a stick which is patience upon proof positive.

For he can spraggle upon waggle at the word of command.

For he can jump from an eminence into his master's bosom.

For he can catch the cork and toss it again.

For he is hated by the hypocrite and miser.

For the former is affraid of detection.

For the latter refuses the charge.

For he camels his back to bear the first notion of business.

For he is good to think on, if a man would express himself neatly.

For he made a great figure in Egypt for his signal services.

For he killed the Icneumon-rat very pernicious by land.

For his ears are so acute that they sting again.

For from this proceeds the passing quickness of his attention.

For by stroaking of him I have found out electricity.

For I perceived God's light about him both wax and fire.

For the Electrical fire is the spiritual substance, which God sends from heaven to sustain the bodies both of man and beast.

For God has blessed him in the variety of his movements.

For, tho he cannot fly, he is an excellent clamberer.

For his motions upon the face of the earth are more than any other quadrupede.

For he can tread to all the measures upon the musick.

For he can swim for life.

For he can creep.


Jubilate Agno (Latin, "Rejoice in the Lamb") is a religious poem by Christopher Smart, and was written between 1759 and 1763, during Smart's confinement for insanity in St. Luke's Hospital, Bethnal Green, London.

Jimmy Pike, Desert psuchedelis, installation at Gallery Artisan.
22 February – 28 March 2010

Jimmy Pike's designs are vivid, dynamic and groundbreaking in their use of non-traditional colours. In collaboration with the company Desert Designs, they exploded onto an international stage via high-fashion garments, textiles and furnishings. Desert Psychedelic, curated by Kirsten Fitzpatrick for artisan in partnership with Desert Designs, features Pike's original prints, textile lengths and the garments produced from his fabric designs. Australian Catholic University, Brisbane.

East Kimberley Painting Revisited - Sydney
3 March – 2 April 2010

The East Kimberley Painting Revisited exhibition showcases the work of Rover Thomas, Freddie Timms, Rusty Peters and Jack Britten (an Art Month event). Rover Thomas was the doyen of the painting movement that emerged in the eastern Kimberley region around 1980, focused on the Aboriginal community of Warmun adjacent to the township of Turkey Creek. Jack Britten is renowned for his paintings of Purnululu (the Bungle Bungles) and his use of rich ochres often mixed with dark red bloodwood resin. Freddie Timms' large canvases, such as Frog Hollow trace the features of his land; its black and red soils, water holes, creeks and hills. Rusty Peters' canvases are visually close to those of Rover Thomas and the Turkey Creek artists but he has also found inspiration outside the aboriginal community.

Bravo, Penguin!

Take a look at this marketing statement from Penguin - it's about the cleverest copywriting I've seen since I stopped writing it! Apparently it was originally 'in house' but now they have used it for marketing purposes. Brilliant.

http://gizmodo.com/5495434/mind+bending-video-proves-that-one-publisher-gets-it

WebGeek wanted by BAM Creative

BAM Creative is looking for a super talent in web design. They talk another language, so if you understand their ad, apply immediately. Check out their site at http://www.bam.com.au

Doug Barbour at 70 - A celebration in JACKET

My Canadian friend Doug Barbour is poet, lecturer and editor - a moving force in Canadian poetry. So it is a great pleasure to see him celebrated in the highly prestigious pages of JACKET Magazine.

Take a look http://jacketmagazine.com/39/barbour-intro.shtml

'Howl' in the new Penguin range? Yes!

For news of 75 new Penguins, including Ginsberg, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ee7KzOviNsw

Les Murray talking to Image magazine

I have just enjoyed a longish interview with Les Murrray, a mucn-misunderstood Australian poet and thinker. Please take a few minutes to read the interview in full at http://poems.com/special_features/prose/essay_murray.php or http://imagejournal.org/

Image: You gave a lecture in Rotterdam about ten years ago called "A Defense of Poetry," in which you talked about poems and "poemes." Has that been published anywhere?

LM: It's in a book of essays called A Working Forest. My idea was that in any human creation there's going to be a participation of the dream mind as well as the logical, daylight waking mind. And there's probably also going to be some kind of participation of the body. They're all going to be enacted in some way. And the more vigorously and simultaneously they're enacted, the closer the approach to the condition of poetry.
Everybody's got a few magical things in their lives. They can talk about them as if they were rational and logical, but in fact their heart is poetry. What's the poem of your life? Well, one of them is your marriage, quite often. One of them is your favorite hobby, or hobbies. And a few other things. Your political affiliation and dreams in that direction. There usually won't be too many. There'll be a few small ones, and a couple big ones. That's the standard equipment of a human soul. I call them poemes. It's a word derived from the same sort of language as "morpheme" and "grapheme" and "phoneme" and so on.

Image: What are your dreams in the direction of politics?

LM: Haven't got any, that's the trouble. I don't believe in politics. I don't think it ever does much good. Even at the best of times, you don't get much out of politicians. Ideology and Hollywood have superseded them, reduced them to obedience.

The Whitmore Press/Poetry Idol Manuscript Prize

The Whitmore Press - publisher of chapbooks, recently established by writers, Barry Hill, Paul Kane (US) and Brendan Ryan - is now seeking emerging writers to publish. Entry is $10 and the winner will receive a chapbook (32 pages) contract.

A shortlist of ten poets will be considered for publication in the Paradise Anthology and four poets will be invited to perform at the 2010 Poetry Idol final at BMW Edge as part of the Melbourne Writers Festival competing for $2000 first prize. For guidelines visit http://www.paradiseanthology.com

I've been enjoying the wit of John Forbes today ...

My heart has me under house arrest - slight exaggeration, but almost - so I've been watching The Sopranos episode after episode, and early in the morning and now in the evening reading John Forbes. I seem to think John would've like being on the bill with Tony Soprano ...

Right after John's death, his family and friends helped Brandl & Schlesinger publish one of the handsomest little volumes of Australian poetry ever, Damaged Glamour. It has everything going for it in book design - great cover, good paper - a kind of cream stock - and enough 'white space' to let the poems breath on the page. It is short at 60 printed pages, but as with John Forbes other collections, it is dripping with wit and erudition stated in a mix of popular culture diction and elevated thought.

Here's an example from that collection of John's hard-won unselfconscious style:

Anti-Romantic

You meet your daemon &
respond with contempt

for all depth & poetry
driven by love and breath

self-conscious bitterness
is best, besides lust or a

detached disgust — as
long as there’s nothing

hysterical about it Art
& life both require this

but your attitude like
inspiration disappears,

leaves you ugly & stranded,
the moment you admire it


There is a wealth of material on and about John Forbes and his poetry at Jacket magazine, http://jacketmagazine.com/03/index.shtml

It starts with this introduction:

Editor’s note: This issue of Jacket is dedicated to the memory of John Forbes, who died suddenly at his home in Melbourne on 23 January 1998. He was a subtle, ironic and brilliant poet, wholly dedicated to his art. In this issue: some poems by John, some photos, Gig Ryan’s eulogy, a review of his last book, and some poems by his friends. — J.T. (John Tranter, founder and long time original editor)[END]

I am amazed that it is twelve years since his death. If you don't know John Forbes poetry, order a book today - you will read it for years to come.

USA Stamps celebrate Abstract Expressionism - who'd have ever thunk it!!

Recently I showed the great new Australian stamps celebrating our contemporary writers - I showed Peter Carey and Tim Winton, two of my favourites. Now here are a couple of my favourite USA artists, Jackson Pollock and Adolph Gottlieb. Another favourite in the series, but not illustrated, is Mark Rothko. Well, maybe it took a while but at least they're here, ready to be enjoyed by every person who still receives snail mail.

Read more at http://artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/11/the-works-of-10-abstract-expressionists-for-less-than-5/

C'mon, Aussie, c'mon!

The Australian cricket team in England, 1878

The history of the Australian cricket team is rich and diverse. Together with the English cricket team, it participated in the first Test match in 1877. A highlight of Australia's early history was the 1882 Test match against England at The Oval. In this match Fred Spofforth took 7/44 in the game's fourth innings to save the match by preventing England from making their 85-run target. After this match The Sporting Times, a major newspaper in London at the time, printed a mock obituary in which the death of English cricket was proclaimed and the announcement made that "the body was cremated and the ashes taken to Australia." This was the start of the famous Ashes series in which every two years Australia and England play a number of Test matches to decide the holder of the Ashes. To this day, the contest is one of the fiercest rivalries in sport.

Full story at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_cricket_team

ABC Writing for Radio Residencies

From the ABC website -

"Seeking:

The Ian Reed Foundation is offering two residencies for Australian writers who want to explore the creative possibilities and challenges of writing a performance work for radio.

We're looking for fresh ideas and terrific writing—and a convincing demonstration that your idea will work in the medium of sound.

We're looking for ideas that can be developed as radio drama, but you don't have to be a playwright. We welcome proposals from poets, essayists, journalists, novelists, dramatists, songwriters or creators in any other form who have an idea with potential to exploit the radio medium."

All information, plus forms and some ideas, at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/airplay/ianreed/default.htm

Best Australian Poetry 2010 - deadline 30 July

Black Inc are now accepting poems for The Best Australian Poetry 2010.

Send 1-3 poems to:

Robert Adamson, c/o Black Inc,
Level 5, 289 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, Victoria 3000.
Deadline 30 July.

Get off your butt and do it before you forget ...

Poetry in ACTION in Canberra

By Kate Evans at http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2010/03/11/2842500.htm

The poems are on display inside around 100 buses on Canberra's busiest routes.

Bus journeys around Canberra will be little more literary than usual over the next few months.

The ACT Government hopes to instil in commuters an appreciation for poetry, decorating inside ACTION buses with musings on subjects as diverse as disapproval, possums, and the pluses of buses themselves.

It is the fourth year of Poetry in ACTION in the ACT, with six poems by four local poets chosen to grace the walls of around 100 buses on Canberra's busiest routes.

Some poems reference Canberra, extolling the National Library and Commonwealth Bridge, while others deal with more universal themes like aging and separation.

The idea originated in London nearly 25 years ago with Poems on the Underground, and has since spread to Dublin, New York, Paris, Stuttgart, Barcelona, Athens, Moscow, St Petersburg and Shanghai, as well as Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney.

ACT Chief Minister Jon Stanhope says the project aims to increase people's exposure to poetry, as well as provide a forum for local poets.

"I think poetry as an art-form is not perhaps as appreciated as it once was," he said.

But he says the bus-riding community has responded well to the poems.

"I've always been surprised in terms of my role as Minister of the Arts, [at] the number of poets in the ACT and the very high level of interest and support for poetry in the ACT," he said.

"At a community level that's reflected through the very strong feedback we get from patrons of ACTION buses to the poems."

Long-listed poets from the ACT Poetry Prize's David Campbell Award were commissioned to write short poems specifically for display in the Territory's buses.

The final six chosen were written by Danijela Kambaskovic-Sawers, Moya Pacey, Geoff Page and Maggie Shapley.

A larf from The New Yorker

Cartoon from the Issue of March 15, 2010 : The New Yorker
http://www.newyorker.com

Australians - Avid readers of Poetry!

It's all about books and reading.

A major survey of how the nation engages with the arts has revealed 85 per cent of Australians are avid readers of poetry and literature but when it comes to actually creating art, visual arts has the biggest number of participants.

Full article at http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/australians-are-avid-readers-of-poetry-new-survey-reveals/story-e6frg8n6-1225835650127

Read Melaleuca mag's latest issue - March 2010

3 poems at Melaleuca for your viewing https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&pid=gmail&attid=0.1&thid=1273295d503e19ea&mt=application%2Fpdf&url=https%3A%2F%2Fmail.google.com%2Fmail%2F%3Fui%3D2%26ik%3D643d83fbce%26view%3Datt%26th%3D1273295d503e19ea%26attid%3D0.1%26disp%3Dattd%26realattid%3Df_g6g58cxo0%26zw&sig=AHIEtbTMQZj50aTUjHi-gJYM8XpThKNF2A&pli=1

Thanks, Phillip Ellis, editor.

Creative Connections Artwork & Poetry now up online

Artist: Millie D'Rozario

{poem)

This hieroglyph is
History drying.
Only emotion endures.
We are on the
Cutting room floor
Unspooling as they edit
The evening news.


Andrew Burke
See an amazing variety of paintings and poetic responses at http://www.creativeconnectionsaape.net.au/pages/2009artworksandpoems.html

Pomo Oz Book Launch - Niall Lucy

In Pomo Oz, Niall Lucy pits his humour and intellect against the conservative power brokers, championing the notion that free thought, not free trade, is the basis of democracy.

Lucy is one of Australia’s leading thinkers on Derrida & postmodernism, so if you’re sick of hearing people bang on about the evils of the postmodern (when they obviously have no idea what they're going on about) come along!

Or if you think postmodernism is less a philosophy than an excuse for a bit of moral relativism? Come along too.

Let’s see how much slippage we can squeeze between the signifier & the signified.


Launched by John Kinsella
at Planet Books
on Wednesday 10th March 6.30pm
rsvp to admin@fremantlepress.com.au
(or just drop by, we’ll squeeze you in)

Ain't it the truth ...

An Image of John Keats

... here is a remarkable photograph of Keats' life mask by artist Benjamin Haydon.

This photograph, and others like it, can be found in Joanna Kane's book, The Somnambulists: Photographic Portraits From Before Photography (Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2008). Using traditional and digital techniques, Kane photographed life and death masks from the late 18th/early 19th centuries, and created portraits like this one that almost seem ready to speak.

from http://thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/the_best_american_poetry/2010/02/an-image-of-john-keats.html

New Australian Postage Stamps celebrate Writers

Australia Post have released a series of standard priced stamps (55 cents) depicting contemporary Australian authors. I present you with two of my favourites, Peter Carey and Tim Winton. Next time you rip open an envelope, pause a moment to see who is on the stamp.

Do other countries do this? If so, I'd like to hear about it. Try the comments panel or email me at burkeandre at gmail dot com

The First Alphabet? Maybe.

"THE first intrepid explorers to brave the 7-metre crawl through a perilously narrow tunnel leading to the Chauvet caves in southern France were rewarded with magnificent artwork to rival any modern composition. Stretching a full 3 metres in height, the paintings depict a troupe of majestic horses in deep colours, above a pair of boisterous rhinos in the midst of a fight. To the left, they found the beautiful rendering of a herd of prehistoric cows. "The horse heads just seem to leap out of the wall towards you," says Jean Clottes, former director of scientific research at the caves and one of the few people to see the paintings with his own eyes."

Read the entire article at New Scientist's website http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20527481.200-the-writing-on-the-cave-wall.html

Propel Youth Arts WA . What's On : ZINE MAKING WORKSHOP

If you are 12 to 25 years old, this may grab your fancy. Make your own Zine for FREE.

Propel Youth Arts WA . What's On : ZINE MAKING WORKSHOP