Beijing Gallery

Here is an address to see some pics of my time so far in Beijing - not all are interesting to everybody, but hopefully some will be interesting to some.

Copy and paste this link: http://www.kodakgallery.com.au/pickup.jsp?PID=b1061c9721eedbd2e581bab)

Robert Hass Article

Just something to keep you entertained from Robert Hass, a great American poet.

'One of the poets central to the history of lyric poetry in the European tradition is Quintus Horatius Flaccus, whom we know as Horace. He was born when Rome was emerging as a world power. He fought, as a young man in those turbulent years, in the wars that followed the assassination of Julius Caesar, and wrote most of his poems in the age of Augustus.

With Catullus and Virgil and Ovid, he's one of the four great lyric poets of ancient Rome. For English poets from Shakespeare's time to the end of the 19th century, he was the man. Horace spent most of his life in retirement on a modest farm in the country outside Rome. He wrote immensely civilized, poised, exquisitely polished, and apparently casual poems about the countryside and the Roman seasons, about not living in the Augustan equivalents of the corridors of power and the feeding frenzies of the media and the fevers of the deal. His values were the gentleman farmer's ideals. Balance was what he admired, independence, privacy, friendship, a sensible prosperity, good wine, the fruits of the season.

These are reasons to read him, but the deepest reason is pleasure.'

Read the rest at http://www.english.uiuc.edu/maps/poets/g_l/haas/poetschoice.htm

In Beiijing

Hot and humid, but exciting ... The traffic is crazier than at home, but I'll just have to get used to that - as a pedestrian even. Trying to sort through money, phones, transport, etc. - New country, new processes.

Susiedriving this morning spoke of the 'language of driving' - the car in front is communicating one thing while we are communicating another thing to the vehicle behind us. Etcetera. Just like a paragraph where sentence is constructed on clauses and phrases, punctauted by stops and starts ... We drive with Burroughs cut-up method in Beiijing :-)

Next week, Linfen.

Lee Marvin Readings in Adelaide

Readers & writers: the August readings!


THE
LEE MARVIN READINGS

Mondays: at Gallery de la Catessen

9 Anster St., Adelaide
(off Waymouth at the King William end, near FAD nightclub)

7.30 for 8 PM start

Price $5


6th Reading August 7th
o LEE MARVIN IN A LONELY PLACE

Cath Kenneally
ADEEB KAMAL AD-DEEN Iraq
Rachel Manning
Kate Deller-Evans
Ros Prosser

# # #

7th Reading August 14
o LEE MARVIN IN A MELLOW MOOD

Stephen Lawrence
Jason Sweeney
RACHEL HENNESSY
CAROL LEFEVRE
Linda Marie Walker


# # #

8th Reading August 21
o LEE MARVIN IN A GADDADAVIDA

Moya Costello
Simon Robb
Gail Walker
STEPHEN WHITTINGTON:
John Cage's Overpopulation & Art (1992)
KEN BOLTON: THE CIRCUS


# # #

9th Reading August 28
o LEE MARVIN IN A PURPLE HAZE

RAY LIVERSIDGE (Vic)
Pru La Motte
Cath Kenneally
Francesca Da Rimini
KEN BOLTON: THE CIRCUS

Dress to Express

Great range of t-shirts with literary and other heroes at http://www.reckonwordwide.com/litart.html

Choosing is the hard part.

Chinese silence?

I am in shock. On Wednesday I leave to spend a year in the Peoples Republic of China - I look forwared to it in nearly all respects, except that I hear you can't broadcast a blog from there! I hope this is not so - after all, they now have Google access there, so why block blogs?

I hope it is not so when I get there, but if it is, then I shall be silent here for a year - with a possible month of communications in January for my holidays from teaching when I shall travel.

Standby for more information in coming days.

A Quotable Quote

"The best way to find out about poetry, is to read the poem."
Louis Zukovsky

'The Paris Review' newsletter

THE PARIS REVIEW is pleased to announce that their summer issue, no. 177, is available now—and it's creating quite a stir. You'll see why when you check out what's inside:



* An encounter with a Serbian hit man
* A dispatch from Uganda's front lines
* Peter Carey on the dangers and pleasure of writing novels
* James Tate on finding the ultimate in poetry
* Woody Guthrie’s Coney Island sketchbooks
* Photographic flotsam from New Orleans
* New fiction by Rose Tremain and Daniel Kehlmann
* New poems by Chris Forhan, Debora Greger, and James Tate


Read James Tate on the art of poetry: “The thing that was magic about it was that once you put down one word, you could cross it out. . . . I put down mountain, then I'd go, no—valley. That's better.”

Visit www.theparisreview.org

Word of the Day

Dictonary.com 'Word of the Day' is a great little (free) service. If you don't already get a Word each day, sign up now.

SUBSCRIBING:
Send a blank message to:
join-wordoftheday@lists.lexico.com

Poetry Podcasting

Hear ye! Hear ye! Well, I haven't myself, but thought you may like to: http://www.poetrypodcasting.org/

Black Stockings

They say memory is triggered by smell
but just now Rod Stewart sang
The Way You Look Tonight

and I remember how Kay looked
after school in her college uniform
pleated skirt and white blouse

jiving to a new Elvis 45rpm
after practicing The Way You Look
on her mother’s fine piano

black-stockinged legs still
high-kicking in my pulse,
sexagenarian on heat

'Tinfish' & blue swayed shoes

http://www.tinfishpress.com/

Tinfish always has interesting content (I haven't seen them all, but the ones I've seen) but the philosophy behind the covers is a constant delight to me. They are done by a group of artists in Hawaii and are made from recycled items - cereal boxes, tarpaper, maps, etc. Each one is a work of art in itself.

They always remind me of an occasion when I was being a pretentious producer of a 'young poets' reading' for the Festival of Perth many decades ago. I suggested they (the y'poets) bring something that influenced them to our next rehearsal - meaning a text by another poet. Greg Osborn, very young at the time but wittier than old-man Andrew, brought along the Coco-Pops packet he had eaten breakfast from that morning :-)

Greg died in a carcrash down south aged forty. A great waste. In memoriam I post a poem by Greg, first published in Sandgropers, published 1973, edited by Dorothy Hewett.

blue swayed shoes

stoned to de bones
got no blues
stoned to de bones
got no blues
got no blues
got no shoes

got a smilin head
that can amuse
me n you
if we move
me n you in a trippin groove
buzzin here
buzzin dere
buzzin into de crazy air
tryn to fuse
tryn to fuse
wid a pair
o blue swayed shoes

stoned to de bones
got no blues
stoned to de bones
got some shoes

cos i
found some dere
up in de air
in de blue hue dere
a pair
a pair
a freakin pair
o dem blue swayed shoes

an i
thenk y sky
for bein dere
up in de air
when i was dere
an when i wasn't


Greg Osborn

haiku

swollen with child
she holds hard the sapling
held hard by its roots

The Great Egret

I must get a camera with a proper zoom on it! We have a beautiful neighbour, the Great Egret, who poses quietly but a long way off. Again, as with the Sacred Ibis, I have to go to another site to show you a photo. http://www.birds.cornell.edu/AllAboutBirds/BirdGuide/Great_Egret.html

'The Times They Are A-Changin' Musical

THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN' - a new Broadway musical
conceived, directed and choreographed by Tharp and
set to the music and lyrics of Dylan.

NOW THROUGH JULY 29TH, GET TICKETS BEFORE THE GENERAL PUBLIC WHEN YOU BUY WITH YOUR AMERICAN EXPRESS CARD.

Call 212-307-4100 or visit ticketmaster.com.

Previews begin September 25th on Broadway.

'The bird with the burned arse'

Threskiornis aethiopica, commonly known as 'the Sacred Ibis' are seen in our neighbourhood wetlands as we walk morning or evening near our home in Bassendean, a suburb of Perth in Western Australia. They are also known as inh adn alhungand in Olkola, which means "the bird with the burned ass" because of the black feathers in its tail. I couldn't get close enough to get a decent shot, so I shall borrow one from http://www.geocities.com/athens/delphi/2970/ibis.htm

Homage to McManus

(for Patrick, suggested by Roger)

gmail's made
his poems
thin again
that were
once so
ramblin' fat
now he
notices
the cat
at her snore-
gas-bored
as he
holds hands
over his
mornin' cuppa
she has three
bowls to
his one
oh the
power of love

and now
the post
before
toast -
how strange
the modern
whirled

Writers Rates

It's always a difficult thing when some organisation - often strapped for cash - asks a writer how much for a visit or a workshop or editing or somesuch task. Poets especially are too often taken for granted and asked to appear for very low fees or to publish a poem in an anthology or in a small circulation magazine for nothing or very little.

The Australian Society of Authors is a very professional organisation which helps published authors and those working to be published. They have posted their suggested list of chrages and fees for such functions at http://www.asauthors.org/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=ASP0016/ccms.r?PageID=6054

Thank you, ASA.

Juniper Exhibition @ Gomboc Gallery

FLOOD CREEK
Mixed media
on Belgian linen
122 x 122 cm






Birdsong -
a new exhibition by
ROBERT JUNIPER
at Gomboc Gallery
50 James Road, MIDDLE SWAN
Telephone: + 61 8 9274 3996
Facsimile: +61 8 9274 2665
rm@gomboc-gallery.com.au

Gallery Hours: Wednesday to Sunday
10.00am to 5.00pm

See great examples from the exhibition at http://www.gomboc-gallery.com.au/exhibitions/current_exhibition.htm

Happy Birthday, Marcel Proust!

'Love is space and time measured by the heart'. Marcel Proust - born July 10th 1871.

More information at http://www.library.uiuc.edu/kolbp/proust.html

Just back from the dentist ...

Calling for Essays on 'Poets and Philosophers'

This is a last-minute call for essays for a feature tentatively titled
"Poets and Philosophers" which will appear in Fulcrum 5.

The issue is almost ready to go to press, which means we would need to
see the work near-immediately.

Please query by email first if you have something you think may fit.

Best,

Philip Nikolayev & Katia Kapovich, eds.
FULCRUM: AN ANNUAL OF
POETRY AND AESTHETICS
334 Harvard Street, Suite D-2
Cambridge, MA 02139, USA
phone 617-864-7874
e-mail editor@fulcrumpoetry.com

Anna Akhmatova - on stage!

Prickly Pear Ensemble

presents


THE SHIPS PASS QUIETLY

by John Aitken

A powerful play about a great poet struggling against censorship and oppression,

The Ships Pass Quietly presents the life of Anna Akhmatova as well as her work against a backdrop of music by Dmitri Shostakovich
and the atmosphere of old Leningrad.

Image by Crispin Chan

Condemned as “half nun, half harlot” by Russian revolutionaries, the turbulent life of the celebrated poet Anna Akhmatova comes under scrutiny in Western Australian playwright, John Aitken’s new play, The Ships Pass Quietly presented at The Blue Room from July 19.

Akhmatova was one of the greatest Russian lyric poets of the Twentieth Century, but after the revolution she fell out of favour. Her husband was shot and later her son was imprisoned to secure her silence. Her poetry was seen as so subversive that friends would have to memorise her words in the dead of night. Then Akhmatova would burn the evidence.

The Ships Pass Quietly presents the life of Anna Akhmatova as well as her work, against the backdrop of old Leningrad, two world wars and the music of her friend, Dimitri Shostakovich, whose 100th anniversary is celebrated this year. An interesting historical footnote suggests that the world of music owes a great debt to Akhmatova who during the Second World War smuggled the manuscript of Shostakovich’s great 7th Symphony (the Leningrad) in her suitcase.

Performed by Vivienne Glance as Anna Akhmatova,
with Irene Jarzabek, Craig Fong and Ethan Tomas.

Directed by John Aitken.

Preview – Wed 19th July – tickets: $10
Opening Night – Thurs 20th July – then Tues to Sat until August 5thAll performances at 8.00 pm

Tickets - $20 / $15 concessions
Cheap Tuesdays – all tickets $10

Bookings: 9227 7005 or www.pacs.org.au
The Blue Room Theatre
53 James Street, Northbridge.

Eunoia - notice something about that word?

I like games in language - when they lead to something. Here's a brilliant book of gamed writerature by Christian Bok entitled Eunioa: the smallest word in English with all the vowels present. He made a project from it. Take a look at http://www.chbooks.com/archives/online_books/eunoia/text.html

Next stop - Linfen

From August, my wife and I will be travelling to Linfen in China to visit her daughter, son-in-law and grand-daughter. This is a satellite photo of the 'village' (600 000 people!.

'Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.'

I've loved that sentence for some time. It's a hard relationship to be in love with language - she keeps changing and wearing different masks to the ball.
The following schematic is easily followed and is courtesy of Wikepedia, as is the following text:

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search

Approximate X-Bar representation of "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously." See Phrase structure rules."Colorless green ideas sleep furiously" is a sentence composed by Noam Chomsky in 1957 as an example of a sentence whose grammar is correct but whose meaning is nonsensical. It was used to show inadequacy of the then-popular probabilistic models of grammar, and the need for more structured models.

The full passage says:

(1) Colorless green ideas sleep furiously.
(2) Furiously sleep ideas green colorless.
It is fair to assume that neither sentence (1) nor (2) (nor indeed any part of these sentences) had ever occurred in an English discourse. Hence, in any statistical model for grammaticalness, these sentences will be ruled out on identical grounds as equally `remote' from English. Yet (1), though nonsensical, is grammatical, while (2) is not.

Poet's Interview to View

Mairead Byrne has a keen sense of humour :-) Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lVuwscleO7I

Walking On Water - July Session

Poetry Performance Prose
MONDAY 3 JULY


This month we have a bush poet, a specialist in desire and a guitar
impresario.

Our new first-floor city venue was a great success last month. The next WOW
is on this coming Monday.


Guest performers:

Kel Watkins
Kel reports in from the wheatbelt town of Elsewhere, where the weather is
always fine. His blend of tall stories, stretched truths, outlandish
imagery (dogs rounding up crops of wheat???) have been enjoyed by folk for
over 25 years. His yarns are tailor-made for mature audiences who just love
a good laugh.


Christina Houen
Christina¹s fascination with desire has been the inspiration for her Masters
degree in Creative Arts, her PhD studies and all her other writing. In 2003,
she won the Hal Porter prize for autobiography. Christina will be sharing
some of her prose work with us.


Roy Abbott
Roy is a skilled solo guitarist and played with the Mucky Duck Bush Band for
25 years. He is currently pursuing a solo career and will be singing songs
from his upcoming CD, "Pushing the Pedals."


Open Stage
You know the drill - stick your name on the list and take the stage for a
maximum of five minutes. Poetry, prose and music all welcome.

Where
104B The laneway, Off Murray Street in Perth City.
We're an 8-minute walk from the city rail station, or you can get parking
down on Wellington Street.


Other stuff
Please bring your own drinks. Nibbles are also welcome for sharing. We
supply tea and coffee. Entrance is $5 wages, $3 unwaged.



Any more details, email jane corneshttp://www.iinet.net.au/~jcornes

PoetrySz - demystifying mental illness

Issue 20 of PoetrySz: demystifying mental illness is
now online at http://poetrysz.blogspot.com . It
features work by Japanese cyberpunk writer Kenji
Siratori, Australian poet Christopher Kelen, English
poet Christopher Barnes, and New Zealand expat
singer-songwriter/poet Ben Kemp. Submissions for subsequent issues are welcome. Send
4-6 poems, along with a short bio, in the body of your
email to poetrysz@yahoo.com .

The Emigrant Irish, by Eavan Boland

Like oil lamps, we put them out the back —
of our houses, of our minds. We had lights
better than, newer than and then
a time came, this time and now
we need them. Their dread, makeshift example:
they would have thrived on our necessities.
What they survived we could not even live.
By their lights now it is time to
imagine how they stood there, what they stood with,
that their possessions may become our power:
Cardboard. Iron. Their hardships parceled in them.
Patience. Fortitude. Long-suffering
in the bruise-coloured dusk of the New World.
And all the old songs. And nothing to lose.


Eavan Boland is Irish, and the Bella Mabury and Eloise Mabury Knapp Professor in Humanities at Stanford University where she directs the creative writing program. She has published nine volumes of poetry.

Just a thought

"Leisure is necessary to any form of civilization
higher than that of ants, apes, Kipling and his
cousin Stan Baldwin."
--Ezra Pound

How To Read Poetry To An Audience

This site has some practical tips on how to read poetry to an audience. It is mainly aimed at poets reading their own material, but I am certain performers, actors and teachers could also benefit from this text: http://poetry.about.com/od/livepoetry/ht/howgivereading.htm

Horatio!

My sister, Frankie Macmillan, has lived out of Australia most of her adult life, and now lives in Berkshire, with four dogs and this wonderful bird, Horatio.
This splendid character lives in a large silver cage in her spacious kitchen. He talks, dances and hangs upside down from his roof at the slightest provocation.

A Great Romantic Shot

My son Charlie and his bride Becky
shot at Auckland Castle
in May 2006
by Alan Mason

Lee Marvin Readings in Adelaide

3rd Reading June 19
o LEE MARVIN SHOOTS HIS FOOT

Nicholas Jose
MIKE LADD
Teri Hoskin
Andrea Jorss
MOYA COSTELLO

THE LEE MARVIN READINGS

Mondays
at Gallery de la Catessen

9 Anster St., Adelaide
(off Waymouth at the King William end, near FAD nightclub)

7.30 for 8 PM start

Price $5

All aboard 'The Drunken Boat'!

The Spring/Summer issue of The Drunken Boat is now
online at http://www.thedrunkenboat.com including:

An interview with Australian poet, Jill Jones,
including her sonnet series "Traverse" and a
collaborative project with the photographer Annette
Willis "Breath, the hours."

A feature of modern Chinese poetry, edited by Inara
Cedrins with an introduction by Michael Day, a
chapbook of newly translated poems by Xi Chuan and an
essay on Xi Chuan's poetry by Maghiel van Crevel, and
a chapbook of poems in the manner of Men Jaio by
Christopher Kelen, as well as work from :

Zhai Yongming
Chen Dongdong
Yu Jian
Duoduo
Sun Wenbo
Ouyang Jianghe
Wang Xiaoni
Yin Lichuan
Yang Qian
Li Sen
Li Nan
Han Dong
Wang Jiaxin

In Tibet

Woeser
Meizhuo

Minorities in China

Yidam Tsering
Baitao
Shama
Luruo Diji
Jimu Langge

Chinese poets abroad

Bei Dao
Ha Jin
Xue Di
Stephen Shu-Ning Liu
Arthur Sze
Timothy Liu

in Taiwan

Chen Kehua
Chen Li
Hsia Yü
Hung Hung

in Macao

Christopher Kelen
Papa Osmubal
Yao Feng
Jenny Oliveros Lao
Agnes Lam Iok Fong
Agnes Vong Lai Ieng

in Hong Kong

P.K. Leung
Louise Shew Wan Ho
Alan Jefferies
Timothy Kaiser

in Singapore

Felix Cheong Seng Fei
Gilbert Koh
Yong Shu Hoong
Alvin Pang
Robert Yeo
Eddie Tay
Toh Hsien Min
Cyril Wong
Arthur Yap

Translated by Michael Day, Maghiel van Crevel, d
dayton, Huichun (Amy) Liang, Steven Schroeder, Yangdon
Dhondup, Simon Patton, Alison Mara Friedman, Wang Hao,
Andrea Lingenfelter, Tsui-hua Huang, Mike O'Conner,
Inara Cedrins, and Christine Tsui-hua Huang.

Poems from Greece by Adrianne Kalfopoulou, a chapbook
"Anachronistic Night's Dream" by Gail Wronsky with her
essay
"One Woman's Jonesing for Wonder," Poems by Dzvinia
Orlowsky
with an introduction, Poems from _The Artist as Alice:
From a Photographer's Life_ with an introduction "On
Writing The Artist as Alice: From a Photographer's
Life"

Best,

Rebecca Seiferle
www.thedrunkenboat.com
tdbeditor@yahoo.com

John Olsen's painting

John Olsen's 'Self-Portrait on an Afternoon Walk - from
http://www.timolsengallery.com/about_us/html/

Sharon Brogan and I trading Snaps

Sharon Brogan wrote the following poem as a 'snap' for poetryetc last Wednesday:


I am stubborn, sulky
and sullen, caught
in a thorned net
of dreams --

too many children
in need of rescue,
too many villians
smug, and famously

unpunished. I am
a glass jar, filled
with judgement
and despair --

even as a rainbow
circles the sun;
even as the aspen
sings and shimmers

in the wind. I refuse
to take pleasure.
I will not listen.
I will not see.


--
~ Sharon Bragon =^..^=

http://www.sbpoet.com
http://sb.chatango.com/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbmontana/


To which I replied:


I am open to
suggestion, free
in a life of
comfort and choices,

my children so
secure and active,
villains locked away
in the jug, silenced

forever. I am
a strong breeze, filling
sails of laughter
and life --

a rainbow around
the sun, a white gum
by the river
as it shimmers

in response. I delight
in taking pleasure.
I hear the city
whispering and see
the ocean lapping.

Cy Twombly 'Wilder Shores of Love'

I found this great painting by Cy Twombly as the result of some research I was doing into Ken Bolton's new book, 'At The Flash & At The Baci' (Wakefield Press, 2006). Ken is attached in some way with the Experimental Art Foundation in Adelaide, and is very knowledgeable about art - for he is an art historian, I believe.

This painting accessed from http://artchive.com/artchive/T/twombly/twombly_wilder.jpg.html

Fuel Prices

Words on the Move

Peter Howard is an English poet I've known via email and the Net for sometime. Over at Frank's Place (an internet site full of contemporary poetry by various bods) I came across this 'active' poem by Peter - see what you think: http://frankshome.org/likesmoke.html

a list of lively links

* Sleepingfish http://sleepingfish.net/0875/Olson_Starlings.htm

* Sentence: A Journal of Prose Poetics http://www.firewheel-editions.org/sentence/current.htm

* The Absinthe Literary Review http://www.absinthe-literary-review.com/archives/olson.htm

* Bewildering Stories http://www.bewilderingstories.com/issue138/new_neighbors.html

* First Intensity http://homepage.mac.com/firstintensity/

* Knock http://www.knockjournal.org/issues/index.html

* New American Writing http://www.newamericanwriting.com/20/

* The Raven Chronicles http://www.ravenchronicles.org/

* Wandering Hermit http://www.wanderinghermit.com/

* Bird Dog http://www.birddogmagazine.com/issue1.htm

* Call: Review http://www.callreview.net/currentissue.html


I managed to uplift most of this list from an email I received promoting the new book by John Olson, entitled The Night I Dropped Shakespeare on the Cat : http://calamaripress.com/Olson_Shakespeare_Cat.htm

One-Way Traffic - by Miles Burke

This photo by my son Miles. Some days it just feels like that.

A Parody

From the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, John F. Bramfeld's prayer parody (January 12, 1995):

Oh great, but not necessarily superior, being who dwells beyond this plane of existence and who is accessible only through prayer, meditation or crystals, we salute you without thereby acknowledging that you are entitled to greater respect than that accorded any other endangered species.

We hope to pass through your place of existence at some point on our psychic journey to the same exalted status as marine mammals or even snail darters.

Moreover, to the extent your design for the universe coincides with the U.S. Constitution and includes low-cost access to cable, we ask you to provide us our minimum daily requirement of essential vitamins and nutrients consistent with FDA guidelines, and when judging us be duly mindful of our status as victim, which provides full justification for what might appear on superficial examination to be felonious. In the same vein, we will endeavor to excuse and forgive those who have transgressed against us, with the possible exception of our parents, teachers, policemen and clergy about whom we have just resurrected disturbing memories. We ask all of this in the name of your prophet ___________. (Here on alternating weeks substitute names drawn from the consensus of the class. Some suggestions for early in the year: L. Ron Hubbard, Ayatollah Khomeini, Patricia Ireland, Mike Wallace.)

Ruby Street

Ruby Street

Poetry For Sale

The following pamphlets are now available from the Phantom Rooster Press:

Patrick McManus: CEMENT AND WATER (illustrated by Judy Prince)

Judy Prince: POEMS (illustrated by the author)

£3 (including UK p&P)

Overseas orders, please contact the publisher to arrange terms.

robin.hamilton2@btinternet.com

Cheques to:

Robin Hamilton,
69 Rydal Ave.,
Loughborough,
LE11 3RU


PS: For those in the know, there are a number of Vile Boris poems included, plus one by Judy to the famous feline. Drawings are delightful, too.

More photos of Live Poets

Robin Hamilton, Andrew Burke, Patrick McManus


Roger Day, who organised us all to be a part of May's CB1 reading in Cambridge. (With Helen in the background.)


Robin Hamilton, poet and publisher (& bon vivant)

P'etcers in Cambridge

Myself (standing) Patrick McManus, Janet, and Robin Hamilton at CB1 23 May 2006
















Robin Hamilton (in the denim jacket), (maybe) Roger Day (in the darkness), myself, Patrick and Janet at CB1 same night

Introducing ...

Introducing my new daughter-in-law, Becky (Rebecca) who married my son Charlie at Auckland Castle, County Durham, on Saturday 21 May 2006.

'The Work of the Wind' by S.J.Litherland

Jackie and Joanna at The Shakespeare

Jackie Litherland and Joanna Boulter at The Shakespeare in Durham before Colpitts Poetry Society reading in May. Jackie went on to launch her new book The Work Of The Wind, published by Flambard Press Poetry, at Colpitts on Friday, 26 May. For more info, look up http://www.flambardpress.co.uk and http://www.inpressbooks.co.uk

Poetry Reading in Durham at Colpitts

On Friday, 12 May 2006, Paul Summers and I read at Colpitts Poetry Society, Allington House, 4 North Bailey, Durham. He is the fellow in the middle, with his girlfriend and a German friend. The program described his poetry as 'perfect pieces of sea glass, polished, sparkling, illuminating the ordinary'.

It was a great night, with Paul and I doing twenty minute performances separated by a very social interval. The only weird thing was the way they turned out the lights when I started to read! I had to lean over and read standing up sideways and holding my manuscript and books under a table lamp :-) Paul is a wanderer as performer, and found being anchored to the lamp rather difficult ... He's a Northumbian 'lad' with a cheeky and cheery persona which comes through in his poetry and his performance.

I really enjoyed Colpitts and am sad to hear their funding has been withdrawn - after a healthy stint of 31 years as a poetry venue in Durham.

S.J.Litherland, known to friends as Jackie, read from her new collection The Work of the Wind (Flambard 2006) on Friday 26 May, 2006. But by that stage I was half way home to Perth by Qantas, so I can only recommend the book - if you can lay your hands on it. Maybe Google can help ...

WOW Readings Monday

Jane Cornes has kept alive the Walking On Water literary readings - and this week it opens at a new venue. Not only is it difficult to find such a venue in Perth, but when you find it it can be hard to find such a venue in Perth !!


I'll let Jane's latest email tell you the story:

Hope to see you there. Don¹t forget: Monday 5 June, 7.30 sharp. $5 waged/ $3
unwaged; open readings; three nice invited guests (poet piano accordionist
ross bolleter/musician simon nield/novelist felicity young).
Also we'll supply tea and coffee but feel free to bring drinks.
Chrs
J[ane]

Ahhh, the mud map refuses to be exposed in this medium. I'll hunt up a description ...

Here it is, courtesy of Jane Cornes:

WOW AT THE LANEWAY, PERTH CITY, MONDAY 4 JUNE 2006, 7.30-10pm

OPEN READINGS

PLUSThree fantastic performers:

Ross Bolleter
Ross is perhaps best known for his work with ruined pianos, which he rescues
and then plays. Tonight, however, he'll be sharing some of his poetry and
playing the piano accordion. Very exciting.

Simon Nield
Simon is one of my [JC's] favourite guitarists. He is a well-travelled performer
and an accomplished songwriter. Simon will share some of his original music
with us.

Our emerging writer is Felicity Young, a fine local writer who will read
from work in progress.

WOW's NEW HOME is in the city, near the corner of Murray and Pier streets.

It's an easy place to find but a difficult one to explain, so bear with me.

From the corner of Pier and Murray, walk towards the city on Murray. To your
right, opposite Miss Maud's, there's a laneway on which runs down to
Wellington Street.

There's a florist on one corner of the laneway and the Pier Street carpark
on the other. Just down the laneway a little is the Ambar nightclub. Walk
down past the nightclub until you come to the blue building on the left, no.
104B.

WOW is on the first floor, in a custom-built theatre with black curtains.
All very gothic and lovely.

Coffee and tea provided, but please feel free to bring nibbles and drinks
(and something to drink from).

We'll start at 7.30 sharp, with the usual open readers first.

Looking forward to seeing you there.




jane cornes
http://www.iinet.net.au/~jcornes

Stanley Kunitz

Stanley Kunitz (1905 - 2006) RIP

Stanley Kunitz died on Sunday, aged one hundred. I won't give you all the life story and the eulogies from the major papers - you can easily google them - but here are some quotes from Stanley Kunitz in a Paris Review interview to celebrate the life of a great modern poet:

“A poem has secrets that the poet knows nothing of.”

“From the beginning I was a subjective poet in contradiction to the dogma propounded by Eliot and his disciples that objectivity, impersonality, was the goal of art.”

“I want the energy to be concentrated in my nouns and verbs...”

“The poem in the head is always perfect. Resistance starts when you try to convert it to language.”

“Unless craft is second nature, it means nothing. Craft can point the way... but it's not to be confused with an art of transformation, the magical performance.”

“Bob Dylan couldn't have existed if Dylan Thomas hadn't existed before him.”

“Often a poem is a dream, but I don't necessarily say it is.”

“I've tried to squeeze the water out of my poems.”

“I like to use a word in a poem with its whole history dragging like a chain behind it. And then we go over the sound.”

Historic Durham Cathedral

This photo from the continuous webfeed from the Physics Dept of Durham University of the historic Durham Cathedral - recently voted the 'most popular building in Britain'. The locals brag about it daily! (Today's actual image is grey and overcast, so I went to the archives for a more interesting shot :-)

Durham County Cricket Club

Reading tomorrow night in Durham City

Colpitts Poetry Society invites you along to hear Australian poet Andrew Burke read at Alington House, 4 North Bailey, Durham City, May 12 at 8pm.

Andrew's attractive book Whispering Gallery will be available for purchase.

Peter Minter's new book through SALT

Great cover. 'Blue Grass' ... I haven't seen the book yet myself but I guarantee it won't be anything short of interesting :-)

Angel Of The North - on the road to Newcastle

I'd like to see this one fly!

Angel Of The North

I'm on the road - and seeing giant angels! I wonder did Jack K see Angels too - or boddhisatvas? This giant sculpture is on the way to Newcastle from where I am staying in Durham.Some of the locals are divided in their appreciation of the Angel - but I thought it looked quite majestic up close.

Congratulations, Jill Jones (& Cordite message)

The May issue:
JILL JONES
http://australia.poetryinternational.org/cwolk/view/27990


Congratulations, Jill!


Also...


Cordite Poetry Review seeks submissions of poetry for its 24th issue, on the theme of COMMON WEALTH. Please note the following:

1. Send email submissions only to cordite@cordite.org.au with "Common Wealth" in the subject line;
2. Please send up to five unpublished poems;
3. Include a biography;

Read our submission guidelines for further details:

http://www.cordite.org.au/submit.html

SUBMISSIONS FOR THIS ISSUE CLOSE ON MAY 31 2006.

Cordite's guest poetry editor for this issue is Claire Gaskin.

Thanks to the funding of the Australia Council for the Arts, we are able to offer the following rates of payment for Australian contributors:

POEMS: $60
REVIEWS: $50
FEATURE ARTICLES: $100
AUDIO: $30

Poneme Questions & Answer Poems

Over at the poetry email-list, Poneme, we have been playing with Question and Answer poems. Here's one from Kristin Hannaford, Heather Matthew and Tim Thorne: (Ahh, see below: this one is Kristin and Heather's whereas the next version was Tim 'cutting in' like at the old school dance ...)
Wintering



who came between?



in the end your offer was nothing, really

it was the idea of you I liked



are we repeating?



a sense that this gesture is always the same

look at our hands

if we wait here long enough it will happen again

how could they find it?



I didn’t understand it then either


do we doubt that which we see?



skin deep, a mirage

glass always a distortion

your voice accusing stop assuming

will there be a crisis?



only if we run out wine


if there is will I be safe?



you are laughing now

above the quiet drift of our lives



crystals are forming in the honey


when will the hours fade?



a turning in the outsideness of weather

vegetables thickening root


is this truly the time of yellow?

the wattle is flowering


Join us at http://lists.receptacle.org/mailman/listinfo/poneme

NEWS FLASH!

Andrew I just looked at your blog....

the one you have put up is Heather Matthew's question's Kristin Hannaford's answers But I am flattered you like it!

This one - see below - is Tim Thorne's answers and Heather Matthew's questions. Two different poems...... same questions Ahhhh. I hear the penny dropping on the tiles...... Cheers Kristin

who came between?
deep green shades of the other people.
are we repeating?
only the unimportant things.
how could they find it?
in a dry place - sand, hand or heart.
do we doubt that which we see?
no, but we used to.
will there be a crisis?
a crisis of plums at their height.
if there is will I be safe?
with fruit you will always be safe.
when will the hours fade?
in the imperceptible gap before the skin bends.
is this truly the time of yellow?
yes, but keep it a secret.

The earliest photo of me

Here I am at a backyard dinner with my family - including my grandparents over from Melbourne - That's me, trying to see through the back of a chair. And that's my mother standing up at the end of the table. Presumably my father was behind the camera.

More of the Burke family and others at http://www.flickr.com/photos/milesb/

Thanks to my son Miles for putting it all together.

Poem by Jill Jones

Here's a poem from my friend, Jill Jones, who blogs from Sydney at Ruby Street http://rubystreet.blogspot.com/




Walk to the falls

A different smell, the wood
but this is all breath words
and root, closer darker solitude.
Water spreads falling beads
down my skin, chased sun.
Sky is high and fleet again
covered, sudden, gone
all this space atom sung.
Not bound by fog plumes
I’d slip or bend too close.
High above cloud drums
a portion of universe.

Reflect green wet stone.
Or my thought lose its worm.

'Bookworm' Beijing

Checkout Bookworm, Beijing, http://www.beijingbookworm.com/

Sebastian Barker - Crossing the Tees

London Magazine editor Sebastian reads from his new Smokestack collection The Erotics of God. It is a series of visionary meditations on the theology of desire, the lineaments of the sublime and the beautiful, the mortal and the divine. Sebastian Barker stands in the tradition which includes Patrick Kavanagh, William Blake and The Song of Songs.

‘A brilliant and original voice.’ (Harold Pinter)
‘A genuine and delicate poet.’ (John Heath-Stubbs)


Here's what they said about me:

... and Andrew Burke -

Australian poet and playwright Andrew Burke calls in on his UK reading tour to read from his recent books Knock On Wood, Whispering Gallery and Pushing At Silence. Succinct and quirky tales of small-town life in Western Australia.


Sam’s Place, 144 Linthorpe Road, Middlesbrough.
7.30pm. Tickets £2.
Supported by Middlesbrough Council.

CROSSING THE TEES


I don't know about 'small town life' - Perth is up to about 1.3 million souls nowadays - but that's an attractive image and just might attract people :-) And I do have a few 'small town poems' - about Toodyay, Kununurra, Albany, Denmark ...

A pic stolen from my son's blog

Photo by Miles Burke : Driving at Night

News! Drop in if you are nearby

CROSSING THE TEES
Live Poetry in Middlesbrough

A new season of regular poetry-readings featuring writers and publishers from Teesside, the North East and well beyond.


24 May
Sebastian Barker
and Andrew Burke


Sam’s Place, 144 Linthorpe Road, Middlesbrough.
7.30pm. Tickets £2.
Supported by Middlesbrough Council.

Post-narratology for Fathers

First Step (a descending poem)

‘Forty two and he died! Forty two!’
I’m telling a drunk
first day in detox
about my father

but I’m talking
about me, feeling
sorry for myself again

He says, ‘Me too,
me too.’

'beat' poem before dawn

sitting at my desk
an hour before dawn
I surf in
a sea of papers
typed and scribbled on
the cat sleeps behind me
in case I move
maybe to somewhere more
interesting like
the fridge

meditation book
lit theory texts
Dexter Gordon poster
framed photo of
Dylan and Muhammad Ali
- the poet and the dancer –
awake most of the night
I sit here unconcentrating
mind empty
as a busker’s bowl

Australian/NZ Writers Email List 'Poneme'

Poneme is a list of Australian, New Zealand and other nationality writers who swap ideas, information and play collaborative games at times ... You would be very welcome to join in: http://lists.grouse.net.au/mailman/listinfo/poneme

Gillespie's Double Ton!

'Dizzy' Gillespie as

nightwatchman

scores a double ton



and it strikes me (again)

how language is

bound to place and time.



I walk out

in the cool of evening

to hear birds



sledging each other

at Silly-Mid-Lake

Third Bird and Square Beak.

Go, Dizzy!

'Dizzy' Gillespie - Australia's bowler who has returned from out in the cold - scored a remarkable ton today in the Second Test against Bangladesh. He went in last evening as 'night watchman' and scored with his usual care throughout today to end up with 104 runs.

But it wasn't all plain sailing: along the way there was a mix up with captain Ricky 'Punter' Ponting being run-out in his 50s. Dizzy was at the other end, not watching what his partner was doing.

USA Top Ten Poets

“The Top Ten Poets,” a listing based on hits at the Academy of American Poets. The ten are, in this order:

1. Langston Hughes

2. Emily Dickinson

3. Robert Frost

4. Walt Whitman

5. E.E. Cummings

6. Sylvia Plath

7. Maya Angelou

8. Dylan Thomas

9. Shel Silverstein

10. William Carlos Williams


Ha! I wonder what the equivalent Top Ten Australian Poets would be :-) Would the Auslit site compile such a list? It's not very Aussie, is it, measuring things like that. & poetry ain't footy, is it - no 'ladder' fluctuating during the season. But, if you'd like to post your Top Ten Ozpoets, I'll try to make enuff sense of it to publish a Top Ten in a coupla weeks or a week's time.

Meanjin Novella Competition

I don't know why I'm telling you this coz I want to win it, but Meanjin (literary quarterly out of Uni of Melbourne) is staging a Novella Competition. Very short to my mind - more like a short story competition - but you can read all the rules and get the entry form at http://www.readings.com.au/bookweb/html/novella-competition.pdf

At The Flash and At The Baci

Ken Bolton's New Book

a deeply serious—& flip, & gauche, & witty & almost self-cancelling—consciousness at work. – Lyn McCredden

At the Flash & At the Baci is a super-sized collection of Ken Bolton’s work drawn, for the most part, from the mid 1990s to the present. The poems are remarkable in their ability to take in and hold ‘in conference’ many strands of thought and layerings of experience and to ground them in the immediate and everyday context of the poem’s own making.

These poems were mostly conceived, written and worked on at the establishments which lend the collection its name, The Flash and The Baci, two coffee shops in Adelaide’s Hindley Street.

The poems are various and consider, for example, a list of things to be done as the poet drives in to town, a meditation in his lunch-break on the relation of the eye to the brain, on the number of flies being swatted at any one time around the world… Other poems consist of contemplations: on life in Rome today, on Patti Smith and John Coltrane, on friends, work, art & time passing, & on politics — and the simple movement of people in the street. These are poems resolutely of the city and today, of Australia and its precarious position vis a vis the West and Asia and in relation to its own past.

Ken Bolton’s work has been accused, on the one side, of ‘breaking all the rules’ and found, on the other, to be intelligent and amusing: one of the most distinctive voices in Australian poetry—the first Australian poet to dismantle the conventional Modernist lyric mode without giving up the lyrical impulse – John Forbes, The Age
About the author
From Sydney, Ken Bolton has lived in Adelaide since 1982 and is associated there with the Experimental Art Foundation. He writes poetry and art criticism and is publisher of Little Esther books. His major collections prior to At The Flash are a Selected Poems from Penguin, and Untimely Meditations, Wakefield Press.

‘At the Flash & At the Baci’
Ken Bolton

ISBN 1862547386
Wakefield Press
rrp $24.95 NZ$34.95
www.wakefieldpress.com.au

haiku

swollen with child
she holds hard the sapling
held hard by its roots

Rottnest Writers' Getaway

Jenny de Garis - poet and workshop convenor - sent me an email with lotsa information re: a Rottnest writers' getaway. I went to the last one some five years ago, and enjoyed myself immensely. Wrote a couple of usable poems too! Brian de Garis works hard in the kitchen and dishes up a storm. Great atmosphere, great place, hopefully - great works!

Here's Jenny:


WRITING AT ROTTNEST is on again, after a 5-year break.

The Sergeants' Mess is booked
from early afternoon Thursday, 28 September till Sunday morning, 1st October(we may be able to arrange to stay till the afternoon).

This is the weekend the school holidays begin. It's also the Queen's Birthday long weekend. Unfortunately there was no group accommodation left for the full weekend, so I've booked a day before, which at least means we'll have half the weekend still free for other activities/commitments. It's usually just warm enough for the odd dip then - the Mess being very close to the beach.
I don't yet have a detailed costing, but it looks like working out around $268 per person. This will include shared accommodation, catering by Brian, workshop sessions - led or prompted mainly by me and writers' own current interests, some photocopied material, but won't include ferry fare or bike hire if you want it. The fare is approx $60 return depending on where from and who with, and you can take your own bike with you for $9.
More details further down the line . . .

Jenny de Garis
Email jjdeg@yahoo.com
Website (not up to date again) www.geocities.com/jjdeg
Phone 9310 3896 Mobile 0400 200 491 Balingup 9764 1498 (let it ring)

Quote Unquote

"What do I know of man's destiny? I could
tell you more about radishes."
--Samuel Beckett

The shoes of the fisherman

The shoes of the fisherman
Are parked side-by-side
By a post on the shore.

Nobody about. Not a boat
Or shag, duck or pelican.
Only a dead fish washed up.

The parking lot is empty.
A new notice declares,
WARNING: Algal Bloom

And I stand there like
I’m reading a movie poster.
A wind ruffles the waves –

The water needs aerating.
Rain is forecast for this evening.
Nothing will revive the fish.

Minimalist concrete poetry by Carlos Luis

Words, shapes, typewriter poems, rewritten signs ... Ah, but what comes before the letter? Shapes. Shapes that later come together to form the letter. Carlos Luis makes concrete poems out of shapes that are positive/negative images of parts of letters. At least, that's how I would put it. Come and see for yourself at http://www.logolalia.com/minimalistconcretepoetry/

Gilchrist to the rescue!

Adam Gilchrist, swashbuckling batsman on any other day, settled down to the job at hand yesterday and saved Australia from having to follow on in their Test against Bangladesh. Gilly's 144 not only saved face for Australia but made the match an interesting event ... Bangladesh has to score the runs - but then Australia has to catch them up on a turning wicket. Cric-info had this to say about the future of the match:

'This match is far from over, however. This pitch will deteriorate and a target of 350 will test any side, not least one that was dismantled by a 35-year old spinner in his first appearance against them. Australia may have enjoyed their best day of this enthralling Test match, but Bangladesh still have plenty to say.'

Gabriel Gudding says happy birthday to Christopher Smart

http://gabrielgudding.blogspot.com/2005/04/christopher-smart-born-april-11-283.html

'Who Reads Poetry?' a USA survey

http://www.poetryfoundation.org/foundation/initiative_poetryamerica.html

Marcus Beilby's painting Happy Hour at the National

It is of course ironic
and we wouldn’t want it any other way
in our Western literature
that the blokes
and I use the word to place them and us
at the National Hotel
in Marcus Beilby’s super-realist painting
‘Happy Hour at the National’
should be so down cast
if not to say despondent
what with the evening sun outside
and their friends and family adrift
somewhere in other lives

There’s one bloke
in the foreground if you can call it that
who is sitting on a seat leaning forward
with his head propped in one hand
and his beer presumably in the other
with his blue and white banded thick jumper on
and jeans
and thongs on his feet

His elbow is resting on one knee
while the hand of that arm holds up his face
or should I say stops it falling further
because he is facing down
looking
but no doubt not seeing
the red patterned carpet
that has itself seen better days

Four men at the bar stand or sit on bar stools
chatting about who-knows-what to each other
two sets of pairs
all wearing jeans of various shades of blue
and I believe
although it is difficult to see in one case
all wearing some kind of shoes
sensible if it is cold enough
to wear jumpers and such to
warm the upper torso

But such is my habit
that I keep going back to the despondent man
slumped in his chair
head held from falling further
in one cupped hand

All his worries I’ve no doubt had
all his woes I’ve no doubt suffered

But to sit in a bar
ironically at the Happy Hour
in a dark brown plastic chair
is too depressing
it’ll do him little to no good

I want to get into that painting
and tell him, Buck up –
Here, the next one’s on me.



(Another poem writ for NaPoWriMo)

A Poem A Day - The Sunday Times poem

A slapdash poem for NaPoWriMo, squeezed into a busy morning ...


In the early morning dark
I stumble out of bed from a nightmare
where words devolved
and wouldn’t stay on the tablets
where they were embossed.
I stumble into the kitchen
stark naked
and the octogenarian neighbour
pipes up from the courtyard, Good morning, Andrew.
He is delivering The Sunday Times
at 5.55am for my wife –
the crossword page, specifically.
They talk clues and letters and meanings
throughout each day, two crossword birds
on the same bough. I ponder my thesis –
monologic or dialogic?
Bakhtin barks at Baxter, the dog next door,
as he chases our cat into the garden.
Sunday morning –
perhaps I should go back to religion
just for the rest.

What Is Poetry?

Poetry is a kind of distilled insinuation. It’s a way of expanding and talking around an idea or a question. Sometimes, more actually gets said through such a technique than a full frontal assault.

Yusif Komunyakaa

Knopf poetry - Podcasts & a poem-a-day

It being USA's Poetry Month, Knopf publishing (part of Random House) has been sending enlisted people a poem-a-day from their authors and books. Here's the info to enjoy it retrospectively from April 1 on -

If you missed poetry and podcasts we've already mailed, please visit www.knopfpoetry.com/poemaday

Joan Didion reading Gerard Manley Hopkins is one of my favourites so far.

Today's featured poem at Poetry Daily

"To the Mocking-Bird"
by Richard Henry Wilde (1789-1847)


Winged mimic of the woods! Thou motley fool,
Who shall thy gay buffoonery describe?
Thine ever-ready notes of ridicule
Pursue thy fellows still with jest and gibe;
Wit, sophist, songster, Yorick of thy tribe,
Thou sportive satirist of Nature's school,
To thee the palm of scoffing we ascribe,
And mocker, and mad abbot of misrule!
For such thou art by day; but all night long
Thou pour'st a soft, sweet, solemn, pensive strain,
As if thou didst, in this thy moonlight song,
Like to the melancholy Jaques complain,
Musing on falsehood, violence, and wrong,
And sighing for thy motley coat again!

Allan Kaprow, RIP

One of my theatre favourites has died. So, another sad day on the planet. Life is all a happening, hey, Allan.

Today Allan Kaprow, Master of the Happening, the radical artist whose
work transformed the nature of art making forever, died peacefully in
his home in Encinitas, California. Beginning as a painter, his work
from the late fifties and early sixties, his spectacular and
theatrical environments and performance pieces, overran the capacities
of galleries and museums, as his increasingly austere psychological
and spiritual pieces from the seventies on managed to elude all but
the eager audiences who increasingly became participants and
collaborators in the work. He leaves behind his wife Coryl and son
Bram, and Anton, Amy and Marisa, his children with his former wife
Vaughan Rachel.

'snap' poem today / may change later

up early
to catch autumn

cat fed and quieted
oats in my bowl
coffee steaming
in my cup

I knock
a dictionary over
and it spills
on the factory floor

the hollow ring of its claims
echoes back

I press the button
to start
the assembly line:
the monolingual beast
mutters and purrs
testing its moods
in the morning light

foreman, designer, planner,
I sit at the keyboard to begin
the line kicks in and I mumble

days begin like this
before the world awakes
before deliveries
and telephone calls
before interruptions
before the diary is opened

I mumble and think
and sing a few songs
the factory echoes
with possibilities

autumn is in
the song of a currowong
and lifts off the river
like a mist

On Earth: Last Poems and An Essay - Robert Creeley

Find out how to buy Creeley's posthumous work at http://www.ucpress.edu/books/pages/10613.html

A little late but ...

90 YEARS OF ARCHY: It was 90 years ago on March 29, 1916, that an "insignifcant and journalistic insect" named Archy first spoke to the world from Don Marquis' typewriter at the old New York Evening Sun. And he's still with us, griping and philosphizing and poking fun at the human world he inhabits. Just a few days ago (March 27), L.A. Times columnist Al Martinez reprised Archy and Mehitabel for a column on the folly of men and war. It's great stuff.

go to http://www.donmarquis.com/index.html

I am a serious poet (promise!) but I have always been a firm fan of Archy & Mehitabel ... In fact, my first car was named Mehitabel Morris the Tenth ...

Ruby Street

Ruby Street

One Less - call for submissions

One Less Magazine
[art on the range]

Call For Submissions: # 3 Film (Extended Deadline)

If you are a reader of One Less, we would be pleased to read your work for One Less: Art on the Range: #3 Film.

We're inviting you to make a film (on paper). This means all processes
and techniques of filmmaking and film viewing are welcome. The screen
is blank, now project.

Here is our ideal scenario. You send us your: black & white
film/video/dvd stills (found or original), excerpts from film scripts, project
ideas, an interview with a filmmaker, storyboards, set designs, scenes
that you block out (diagrams, maps, list) reviews, dialogue, criticism
essays manifestos, documentaries, experimental shorts, avant-garde
explorations, poems, short stories, etc. Work from existing films and
genres or invent your own. Write, shoot, process, splice, and project.

Please send either (by postal mail or electronic files):

3-5 Pages of Poetry;
5-10 Pages of Prose;
1-5 Pages of Artwork (Imageable size: 5" x 7")

(Please be aware that we can only print images in black and white.
Please send JPEG or TIFF files at 300 dpi for photographic/filmic works and 600 dpi for line drawings.)

Enclose a self-addressed, stamped envelope (with adequate postage) if you would like to have your work to be returned.

Do not send us originals.

We will read work in May and reply in early June at the latest.


New Tech Terrain for One Less Issue # 3

Our upcoming project is expanding into digital media. We're going to host a virtual film screening of contributors' work. Beginning with Issue #3: Film, we will produce a vodcast (video podcast) in conjunction with the print magazine. The show will be 30 minutes and will be available for free downloads. If you are interested or if you know someone who may want to take part in this new venture, please pass the word along.

What we're looking for: film/video shorts that are 10 minutes or less saved to disk. The film/video may include: the processes of filmmaking, the medium of film itself, translations of film to video, or simply put, film about film. Same deadline here as Issue #3, April 30th.

Send your submission and cover letter to:

One Less Magazine
c/o Nikki Widner
6 Village Hill Road
Williamsburg, MA 01096

Or by email: onelessartontherange@yahoo.com

Deadline (Issue Three: Film): April 30th, 2006

brought to you by:

the editors @
One Less Magazine

Nikki Widner & David Gardner, Editors
One Less
6 Village Hill Road
Williamsburg, MA 01096
Check out our New Blog: onelessmag.blogspot.com

Jackie McLean RIP

March 31, 2006
Jazz Saxophonist Jackie McLean Dies at 73
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 11:11 p.m. ET

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Jazz saxophonist Jackie McLean, a performer
and teacher who played with legendary musicians including Miles
Davis and Sonny Rollins, died Friday. He was 73.

McLean, a contemporary of some of the 20th century's most famed jazz
musicians, died at his Hartford home after a long illness, family
members told The Hartford Courant.

McLean was founder and artistic director of the Jackie McLean
Institute of Jazz at the University of Hartford's Hartt School.

He and his wife, actress Dollie McLean, also founded the Artists
Collective, a community center and fine arts school primarily for
troubled youth in inner city Hartford.

University President Walter Harrison said that despite his many
musical accomplishments, McLean was a modest man whose connections
with his students lasted for decades after they left his classroom.

''He fully understood the way that jazz as an art should be passed
down to students,'' Harrison said. ''He saw his role as bringing
jazz from the 1950s and '60s and handing it down to artists of
today.''

McLean, a native of Harlem in New York City, grew up in a musical
family, his father playing guitar in Tiny Bradshaw's band. McLean
took up the soprano saxophone as a teen and quickly switched to the
alto saxophone, inspired by his godfather's performances in a church
choir, he told WBGO-FM in Newark, N.J., in an interview in 2004.

McLean went on to play with his friend Rollins under the tutelage of
pianist Bud Powell, and was 19 when he first recorded with Miles
Davis.

He drew wide attention with his 1959 debut on Blue Note
Records, ''Jackie's Bag,'' one of dozens of albums he recorded in
the hard-bop and free jazz styles.

He also played with Charles Mingus and Art Blakey's Jazz Messengers,
experiences that he credited with helping him find his own style as
he tried to emulate the famed Charlie ''Bird'' Parker.

''I never really sounded like Bird, but that was my mission,''
McLean said in the radio interview. ''I didn't care if people said
that I copied him; I loved Bird's playing so much. But Mingus was
the one that really pushed me away from the idea and forced me into
thinking about having an individual sound and concept.''

After Blue Note terminated his recording contract in 1968, McLean
began teaching at the University of Hartford. McLean taught jazz,
African-American music, and African-American history and culture. He
received an American Jazz Masters fellowship from the National
Endowment for the Arts in 2001, and toured the world as an educator
and performer.

McLean, a heroin addict during his early career, also lectured on
drug addiction research.