Freida Hughes shares keepsakes

Freida Hughes, poet and painter, shares some of her prized possessions from her mother, father and brother. See them HERE

Blake Poetry Prize: Exploring the Religious and Spiritual Through Poetry

Presented by the NSW Writers’ Centre and the Blake Society, the $5,000 Prize is named for visionary artist and poet William Blake, and was established to give Australian poets new possibilities to explore religion and spirituality in the twenty-first century. The Prize is blind judged, and more information about the Judges can be found below.

The 2013 Blake Poetry Prize Shortlist

Almost Pause: Pareidolia by Amanda Joy
Appellations by Anthony Lawrence
Ars Moriendi by Chloe Wilson
Grand Final by Jennifer Harrison
Nocturne by Anthony Lawrence
The Pines by Anthony Lawrence
Prayer Quick & Dirty by Lizz Murphy
River Lines by Ross Gillett
The Quality of Light by Christine Paice

The winner and highly commended poems will be announced on Thursday 17 October.

Read the Judges’ comments here.

The 2013 judges

Robert Adamson is one of Australia’s leading poets. He has written 20 books, mostly collections of poetry but also a few autobiographies. His work has been translated into several languages and is internationally published. He won the Blake Poetry Prize in 2011. Adamson on the prize: “Of all the prizes for poetry the Blake is the one, like its namesake, it stands for something more than its generous bounty. It vibrates with Blake’s unique vision”.

Michelle Cahill is the author of two collections of poetry and two chapbooks and the co-editor of Contemporary Asian Australian Poets (Puncher and Wattmann, 2013). She was highly commended in the Blake Poetry Prize, the Wesley Michel Wright Prize and received the Val Vallis Award. She edits Mascara Literary Review. In 2013 she is the CAL/UOW International Poetry Fellow at Kingston University, London.

Eileen Chong is a Sydney poet who was born in Singapore. In 2010 she won the Poets Union Youth Fellowship and was the Australian Poetry Fellow for 2011-2012. Her first collection of poems, Burning Rice, was published in the New Voices Series 2012 by Australian Poetry. The book was highly commended in the Anne Elder Award 2012 and was shortlisted for the Prime Minister’s Literary Awards 2013.

Thanks, Annamaria Weldon.

Perth Poetry Club this SATURDAY 2pm

At the Moon Saturday 28th September 2013: 

Perth Poetry Club presents

Christopher Konrad

2pm, 323 William St Northbridge.

Read our blog to get some background on our magnificent guests.


Poets coming up at Perth Poetry Club:

 5th Oct - Andrew Burke
12th Oct - Mega Open Mike Event!

No Devils in Tasmania!

Photographs as linked as renku verses. Top one is Lyn Reeves, poet, author and publisher, chairing the Women Writers meeting in Hobart last week, with wild-haired guest Ralph Wessman, founder and editor in chief of Walleah Press, and ex-editor of Famous Reporter. I was also a guest, but luckily there are no pics of me! I was dressed for the Antarctic Circle ...

Second photo is an ancient press in the foyer of the Tasmanian Mercury. When you eat at SMOLT, across the square from Hobart Book Shop, you can walk out a side door into that foyer. Nice to see the respect this old beauty receives.

This one, below, is a clan photo: my two nieces and my nephew with me - Amanda, Belinda, Christopher and 'Uncle Andy'. All together in Hobart at the same time - go figure!

Illustration by James Paradiso -

Blind Boy Banjo’s Too Long Blues

Whistlin’ now don’t sing the whole song,
whistlin’ now don’t sing the whole song -
don’t ask me ’bout nothin’, I dunno what’s wrong.

Anudder one married, anudder one gone;
Anudder one married, ‘nudder one gone.
Mixed with bananas, apples don’t last long.

I say, what happens in your head …
Yes, what happens in your fat head
don’t mean what happens in the bed.

De poem’s line breaks, it’s flow and strife -
where de line breaks is flow and strife,
just like livin’ this contrapuntal life.

They say, you gotta hang on to let go,
you know, you gotta hang on to let go -
If you hang on too long, it’s a no-show.

Blind Boy Banjo

for more hijinks go to http://wonderbookofpoetry.org/

Lorikeet Centre's “Open Your Mind “ 2013

POETRY COMPETITION:

Because of the success of the “Open Your Mind “poetry competition last year the Lorikeet Centre will be holding it again for 2013 during Mental Health week. The poet must have had a lived experience of a mental illness or a carer of someone with a mental illness.

Poets may enter two poems but from different themes.

The poems need to be between 4 to 12 lines in length:

Themes:

Celebrate the positive events in your life, as well as the strengths and values that have helped you through more challenging times.

Connecting with others by paying close attention to your close relationships, or by reaching out and making new friends.

Growing: Expanding your horizons and trying something new that creates meaning and purpose for you.

  

Other options:

My well being – be aware, look after your mental health and wellbeing.

Activity: An activity that has assisted you in your mental health recovery.

Please title your poem and which theme you are entering.

There will be three prizes:  $150 for the winning poem, $75 highly commended and $45 commended. Winners also receive a framed certificate.

Awards to the winners will be presented at the Lorikeet Centre 104 Cambridge Street West leederville on Tuesday 8^th October from 10.30am. Platters of food and soft drink served after awards.

After the winners read out their poems and accepted their prizes then everyone who entered may read out their poem. (Voluntary)

Send poems to Ernie Hansen at PO Box 1006 West leederville 6901or email lorikeet@mifwa.org.au

48 Names for Things You Didn't Know Had Names - mental_floss on YouTube ...

New American Writing 31 now up

from Paul Hoover on facebook:

The new issue of New American Writing is now online at our website, featuring Nathaniel Mackey, Husein Barguthi, Andrew Joron, Gillian Conoley, Maxine Chernoff, Claudia Keelan, Nathaniel Tarn, Bin Ramke, Caroline Knox, Donald Revell, Donna de la Perrière, G.C. Waldrep, David Mutschlecner, Hoa Nguyen, John Olson, Maria Baranda, and many more outstanding poets. There's a special section on Mexican poetry edited by Cristina Rivera Garza and a Canadian section edited by rob mclennan: http://www.newamericanwriting.com/

from Melbourne Airport ...

Sitting in a little bar at Melbourne airport, having A grade fish'n'chips, my wife drinking champagne - it's a tough life.  We've suffered a security alarm and a pack of children but all is calm now. People flashing cameras at people going and coming. We're waiting here for hours between flights. I thought I was hallucinating for a moment when I saw a bird fly through at bar stool height. But it was real! A little finch or swallow or somesuch - a small fist of a bird with light tan wings and an inquisitive beak. He perched on the back of a bar stool for a minute but nobody served him. So he flew off, searching for a more favourable barkeep elsewhere. Good luck, mate, we'll be flying too before too long.

Nothing much to say, except see you soon - like, tomorrow when I can download photos etc.

Will somebody please see to those children?! Their crying is driving me bonkers!

Black holes and the beginning of Everything

I'm sitting in Hobart listening to a skyful of fireworks going off, just to welcome tall ships that would have fired cannonshot in their fighting days, and avoiding a footy match which I could care less about. Also, there is a fierce undercurrent of wasted breath going into a poetry scandal or two which I will happily leave to other blogs and sites. Sad, really. But I am as always worried about how it all began - the universe, humanity and everything. To find out, I clicked on

Stephen Hawking's big ideas ... made simple - video animation

Stephen Hawking's big ideas ... made simple - video animation

Otago Daily Times talks to poet Sue Wootton

Philip Somerville talks with writer Sue Wootton, our [Otago Daily Times] new Monday's Poem editor.

It was the obvious question for a leading New Zealand poet: ''What makes a good poem?''''If you poke it with a stick and it moves it's alive,'' Sue Wootton says.

''It's something about condensed energy, and the integration of sound and sense - every poem is its own creature. It has a life.''

A poem is patterned language, but the patterns might be formal or free-form, realistic or abstract. A poem might be humorous, sad, delightful, easily accessible or challenging and obscure.

Poetry, according to Wootton, is a broad church.

Read more at http://www.odt.co.nz/opinion/opinion/273237/every-poem-its-own-creature

Voicebox Monday 23rd - Hagemann, Pattinson & Yasbincek

Guests for September Voicebox are: Helen Hagemann, Neil J (BRiLO) Pattinson and Morgan Yasbincek.

Helen Hagemann – is a Varuna Longlines Award recipient for her first collection Evangelyne & Other Poems and will launch her second collection of Arc & Shadow in October.

Neil J Pattinson is a popcultpoet who performs sizzling social commentary.

Morgan Yasbincek  won the Anne Elder award and the Mary Gilmore award for her first poetry collection,Night Reversing. Morgan has since published two poetry collections and a novel.

At The Fly Trap, The Fly By Night Musicians’ Club, 1 Holdsworth Street, Fremantle.
Doors open 7 pm, poetry begins at 7.30.
There is a bar and tea, coffee, snacks and cake will be available for purchase.

The Fly Trap is a cash only venue.

See Voicebox Fremantle on Facebook, or email voicebox.poets@gmail.com .  

Issa Haiku

rainstorm--
bare-chested with a little
sake cup

1818

.夕立や大肌ぬいで小盃
yûdachi ya ôhadanuide ko sakazuki

In the haiku that immediately follows in his poetic diary, Issa draws a similar cloudburst scene with the phrase, "drink up! drink up!" (nome nome to).

from 

David Gerard via yahoogroups.com

__._,_.___

ABC Radio National News, Competitions and Events

Are you RN's wildcard? Have you got something to say, scream, howl, whisper or sing about? If so, you could be RN's Wildcard in theAustralian Poetry Slam National Finals on Sunday 13 October at theSydney Opera House. One RN listener will skip the State based competition and go straight into National Finals. Can't keep a secret? Tell RN about it. 360Documentaries is looking for text and audio stories around the theme 'A Secret Revealed' as part of a national storytelling competition. Your story could win you a professional audio recorder or an iPad mini and the chance to get your story on the radio. If you need some inspiration this week's Life Matters is all about revealing secrets! There's a song for that! The ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions (CHE) and the ABC will be launching My Life as a Playlist , a major project produced by ABC Arts this Monday, 16 September 2013. Presented by Robbie Buck, host of The Inside Sleeve , My Life as a Playlist is an interactive website where you can curate a personal soundtrack to your life. Over five weeks users will have the opportunity to create music playlists for five major life events: births, childhood, falling in love, heartbreak, weddings and funerals. Go to the RN homepage for details and as a prelude to the launch, tune into The Music Show this Saturday 14 September as Jane Davidson and Sandra Garrido from CHE will be discussing the research project. Weekend Arts at Brisbane Festival Weekend Arts is out in Brisbane again this weekend, this time doing a special broadcast from the Brisbane Festival this Saturday 14 September. Between 12.00-1.00pm stars of international avant-garde circus Gerry Connolly (La Soiree) and Felicity Simpson (Circoulumbia) will share tales of life under the Big Top. Presenter Sarah Kanowski will also be speaking with Debbie Allen, director of the headline show 'Freeze Frame', Festival Director Noel Staunton, and director of the independent theatre program, David Berthold. RN listeners in Brisbane are invited to join Sarah at the Festival Stage at the South Bank Cultural Forecourt in from the Queensland Performing Arts Centre. The event will then be broadcast on Weekend Arts on RN at 2.00-3.00pm. Win a trip to the Boomerang Festival Tell us in 25 words or less your 'boomerang experience': a cultural moment you'd love to return to, and why, and you will be in the running to win a trip for two to Byron Bay including Boomerang Festival tickets, flights, transfers and accommodation in a pre-set up 'Tent Motel' on the festival site. And 16 runners-up will each receive a three-day pass for two people. The competition closes this Sunday 15 September.

TOM COLLINS POETRY PRIZE 2013 & OPEN YOUR MIND Poetry Competition

TOM COLLINS POETRY PRIZE is an annual competition inaugurated by the Fellowship of Australian Writers Western Australia (FAWWA) in 1975 in memory of Australian author Joseph Furphy (1843 – 1912) who wrote as Tom Collins.

First Prize is $1000, Second Prize is $400 and four Highly Commended poems receive $150 each. 

Poems should be no more than 60 lines. 

Closing date is 15 December. 

For any queries visit http://www.fawwa.org.au - email admin@fawwa.org.au or phone 08 9384 4771 

Or you may send a self-addressed stamped envelope to FAWWA, PO Box 6180, Swanbourne WA 6910

Tom Collins House in Swanbourne, Western Australia, once the residence of Joseph Furphy is now the headquarters of the Fellowship of Australian Writers WA branch, Western Australia's state-wide network for writers since 1938.

OPEN YOUR MIND Poetry Competition:

Because of the success of the poetry competition last year with having the “Open Your Mind” poetry book published the Lorikeet Centre will be holding it again for 2013.

 The poems must be the original work by someone with a lived experience of mental illness or the carer of someone with a mental illness, living in Western Australia and written in the last twelve months and not published before.

The poem needs to be between 4 to 12 lines.

You may write two poems but they must be from different themes.

Themes for the poems:

Celebrate the positive events in your life, as well as the strengths and values that have helped you through more challenging times.

Connecting with others by paying close attention to your close relationships, or by reaching out and making new friends.

Growing: Expanding your horizons and trying something new that creates meaning and purpose for you.  

Other options:

My well being – be aware, look after your mental health and wellbeing.

Activity: An activity that has assisted you in your mental health recovery.

 Please state what theme your poem is.

Awards to the winners will be presented at the Lorikeet Centre on Tuesday 8^th October from 10.30am.Winners can read out their poems when presented with their award, followed by other poets. Platters of food and soft drink will be served after awards.

Entries close 27 September 2013.

SEND POEMS TO:

Ernie Hansen at PO Box 1006 West Leederville 6007

or email lorikeet@mifwa.org.au

Paul Kelly Interview on Australian Culture Blog

Paul Kelly: 'The words are never easy. It's still a beast to wrestle' - interview

The Australian singer-songwriter on his new song cycle Conversations with Ghosts, that takes poetry as its inspiration

Read the interview HERE.

Flavorwire for Your Monday: ‘20 Poets on the Meaning of Poetry’ - ok, it's Wednesday ...

from http://www.poetryfoundation.org/harriet/2013/09/flavorwire-for-your-monday-20-poets-on-the-meaning-of-poetry/ - plus many more poets ...

From Carl Sandburg’s “Tentative (First Model): Definitions of Poetry”:

1. Poetry is a projection across silence of cadences arranged to break that silence with definite intentions of echoes, syllables, wave lengths.

2. Poetry is an art practised with the terribly plastic material of human language.

3. Poetry is the report of a nuance between two moments, when people say, ‘Listen!’ and ‘Did you see it’ ‘Did you hear it? What was it?’

4. Poetry is the tracing of the trajectories of a finite sound to the infinite points of its echoes.

5. Poetry is a sequence of dots and dashes, spelling depths, crypts, cross-lights, and moon wisps.

6. Poetry is a puppet-show, where riders of skyrockets and divers of sea fathoms gossip about the sixth sense and the fourth dimension.

7. Poetry is a plan for a slit in the face of a bronze fountain goat and the path of fresh drinking water.

8. Poetry is a slipknot tightened around a time-beat of one thought, two thoughts, and a last interweaving thought there is not yet a number for.

9. Poetry is an echo asking a shadow dancer to be a partner.

10. Poetry is the journal of a sea animal living on land, wanting to fly

Julie McLean at the Dan, Saturday 14th

Originally from Bristol, UK, Julie McLean is based in Torquay, Victoria. 

Shortlisted for the Crashaw (Salt), Whitmore and Press Press prizes and winner of the Geoff Stevens Poetry Prize (UK) in 2013, her debut collection of poetry, ­When I saw Jimi, was launched in 
June by Indigo Dreams Publishing, UK. Poetry and short fiction 
features in leading international journals including The Best Australian Poetry(UQP).


2pm to 5pm, Saturday, 14 September 2013

225 Canning Street, Melbourne

View map · Get directions

Glen Phillips Poetry Prize addition at Peter Cowan Writers Centre

New award announced for the Glen Phillips Poetry Prize! 

The Glen Phillips Poetry Prize will now feature a Judge's Encouragement Award for a poem with a landscape theme that shows originality and potential. The award is in addition to the major prizes for an open theme poem: 1st prize $400, 2nd prize $200, 3rd prize $100 with four x Highly Commended and Commended Certificates.

Entries must be post-marked by the closing date of 27 September 2013.

Entry forms and Rules of Entry are on the Peter Cowan Writers Centre website at:http://www.pcwc.org.au/?news&nid=95

Bukowski manuscripts FREE

I'm not a great Bukowski fan, but this resource site is a wondrous thing for other poets to click and search through for Manuscripts of Charles Bukowski's poems and letters. All free, I might add. Published and unpublished material here. A great spot to w(h)ile away your time.

http://bukowski.net/manuscripts/

Avignon glimpse - poem by Bill Wootton

A diaphanous white curtain
wafts
      as if waved by an unseen hand
revealing
wrought iron balconies
at eye level,
then
    misting
bare linden trees
in the cobbled square below,
    where a girl sits
sunning her legs
on a café chair,
smoking Winstons ferociously
before accepting a question
from one of two young labourers
in shorts and workboots
who has come up
behind her;
waves her hand,
mutters something in French,
stares straight ahead,
exhales,
waits:
un, deux,
    turns,
snatches up her handbag and smokes,
arcs off in their direction.


- Bill Wootton

OzTypewriter celebrates Couples who Typed Together - Charmain Clift and George Johnson, Leonard Cohen and Marianne ...

Oh, lots of great pics and stories of the heroes listed above. A seedbed of memories for us who once wrote our death-defying writerature on the clickety-clack machines. Go see it all now HERE.

From the Belfast Telegraph - Heaney's last words

Nobel laureate and poet Seamus Heaney's last words to his wife were "don't be afraid", one of his son's has revealed at his funeral. - 

more at http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/northern-ireland/poet-heaneys-final-words-revealed-29545139.html

Call for New Asian Short Stories (long deadline, so take notes!)

Professor Kirpal Singh of Singapore Management University and Professor M.A. Quayum of International Islamic University Malaysia will coedit a new collection of Asian short stories.

New and previously unpublished short stories are invited from writers of Asian origin/background or those writing about Asian life, culture and experience.

Submissions should be sent to asianshortstories@gmail.com by 15 July 2014. The edited volume is expected to come out by the end of 2014.

Terms and conditions of entry:
1. Writers must be of Asian origin/background or writing about Asian life, culture and experience.
2. Submission ought to be new, unpublished and not submitted elsewhere.
3. Each author is allowed to submit only one story.
4. Stories must be in English, typed double-spaced in Times New Roman.
5. Stories should not exceed 6000 words in length.
6. Submissions in any other genre are not considered.
7. Writers should include their name and a brief profile (100 words max.) on the cover page of the submission.
8. No submissions will be accepted by post or after the deadline.
9. Successful writers will be contacted on or before 30 September 2014.
10. Further queries about the project should be sent to the email address above.

About the Editors

Kirpal Singh is a renowned poet and academic, and Director of the Wee Kim Wee Centre at the Singapore Management University.

M.A. Quayum is the author, editor or translator of 27 books. He is currently Professor of English at International Islamic University Malaysia and Adjunct Professor in the School of Humanities at Flinders University, Australia.

A cartoon by Edward Steed. For more cartoons from this week's NY issue: http://nyr.kr/14P2TGW

dotdotdash fundraiser

For National Poetry Week this year, WA Poets Inc is working with dotdotdash to raise funds for the publication of their 10th issue. MCed by Steven Finch, performers include:

Annamaria Weldon 

Julie Watts 

Karen Murphy 

Zan Ross 

with more to be announced soon.

Join us at The Fringe Gallery for a wonderful night of poetry. There will be open mic slots available on the night for those that wish to share some of their own poems. 

Where: The Fringe Gallery 

           94 Bawdan Street, Willagee.

When: Friday the 6th of September

          6pm - 8pm 

-- 

WA Poets Inc 
developoing and promoting poets and poetry

PO Box 684
Inglewood WA 6932

wapoets@gmail.com
www.wapoets.net.au

Melaleuca - September Issue out now

Number 51: September 2013 Editor: Phillip A. Ellis
(Click on heading to go to magazine)

Poets: George Fripley, Mike Greenacre, Rory Hudson, Jacqui Merckenschlager, Max Merckenschlager, Simon Reece and Paul Williamson 

All works are copyright by their respective creators, 2013; the arrangement of this collection is copyright by Phillip A. Ellis, 2013.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 Australia License .

You are free to make and pass along copies, so long as you do not charge money or goods for the copy, and as long as this and other issues remain intact.

Submission guidelines: email 2-5 poems, any length, any style, any genre to phillip@phillipaellis.com in the body of a single RTF or DOC attachment. No bios are needed; cover letters are welcome. We accept previously published material and simultaneous submissions; if work is published prior to its appearance in Melaleuca you must advise us accordingly, so that proper attribution can be made.

Strictly Hypothetical :: Because conversation is the greatest adventure sport!

STRICTLY HYPOTHETICAL:

In the spirit of Geoffrey Robertson, “Strictly Hypothetical” is a NEW brand of community dialogue about to hit Perth for a spring season.

Billed as the “thinking person’s night out” they are an hilarious night of live entertainment for the cost of a movie ticket.

Held at Rosie O’Grady’s in Northbridge, each show explores a fictional scenario, based on a real world issue.

Submerged 

7.30pm Thursday 5 September

When the oceans rise, the Islanders of Neknus can no longer squeeze into the few remaining hilltop houses.

Where are they to go and who is responsible? This compelling exploration of climate refugees will have the following amazing panel:

·      Prof. Colleen Hayward AM, Senior Noongar woman + ECU Pro-Vice-Chancellor

·      Prof Janette Hartz-Karp, Curtin University Sustainability Policy (CUSP) Institute WA

·      Prof. Ashley Flair, Anti-Climate Change Scientist (USA)

·      Mr Sami Shah, Pakistan’s first stand up comedian, Sami Shah has been delivering punchlines from the front lines of the War on Terror for 8 years.

·      Senator Scott Ludlam, Australian Greens Senator

Hidden A Gender

7.30pm Thursday 19 September It’s the post-gender world of 2050.

Through a combination of biotechnical and cultural changes, most people no longer identify with a single gender.  

So does that mean the battle of the sexes is over?

Fair Game

7.30pm Thursday 3 October

Is sport the enemy of art in the lucky country?

And can a busload of cultural refugees from Melbourne save Perth’s cultural scene before the curtain falls on it forever?

Radiant

7.30pm Thursday 17 October Newly discovered “Radiant” is the perfect recreational drug:  _blissful highs, no hangover, non toxic, non addictive.  

Should Australia be the first to legalise it?

Tickets are $20 / $15 conc. online and $25  at the door     OR    

$70 / $50 conc. for a season pass to all 4 shows.

You can also like us on Facebook for a chance to win free tickets.

We hope to see you there,

Katrina Bercov

Director – Strictly Hypothetical

Because conversation is the greatest adventure sport!

www.strictlyhypothetical.com.au 

M: 042 532 7454 / katrina73@iinet.net.au