http://www.maureensexton.com.au/Pages/waspringpoetryfestival2008.html
wapoets@yahoo.com.au
Featured Guest Poet: Mike Ladd, producer and presenter of ABC Radio National’s poetry program Poetica.
Patron: Dennis Haskell
WA Poets Inc committee:
Coordinator: Peter Jeffery
Secretary: Maureen Sexton
Treasurer: Nathan Hondros
Publicity: Tash Adams
Committee members – Andrew Burke, Lucy Dougan, Veronica Lake.
Title: Out of the Asylum Poetry Wall
Theme: Space
Date: 29th August to 5th September
Venue: State Library of Western Australia
Cost: Free
Poets: Open to all WA poets
Details: Please send us your poems on A4 paper before August 25th, to OOTA, PO Box 142, Fremantle 6959 or email to Flora Smith florabl@iinet.net.au . Help us cover the walls with words. Feel free to decorate/illustrate your work.
Enquiries: Jo Clarke, 9339 0847 or josephine.oota@gmail.com
Title: Student’s Day
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 29th August
Venue: Poets visiting several Schools across the metropolitan area.
Enquiries: Veronica Lake - votiveoffering@gmail.com
Title: OOTA Poetry Reading with guest poet, Marcella Polain
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 29th August
Time: 12.30 to 2 pm
Venue: Function Room, Fremantle Arts Centre
Cost: Gold coin donation and poetry books for sale
Poets: Guest poet, Marcella Polain and open reading. MC, Donna Ward, editor of indigo.
Enquiries: Jo Clarke, 9339 0847, or josephine.oota@gmail.com
Title: de Ness & Friends @ Scots
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 29th August
Time: 7.30 pm onwards
Venue: Scot's Hall, Cnr South Terrace and Parry Street, Fremantle (next to Fremantle Markets)
Cost:$5 at the door
Poets: Featured Guest Poet Mike Ladd, Annamaria Weldon, Vivienne Glance, Afeif Ismail Abdelrazig, Jeremy Balius, Jaya Penelope, Flora Smith and Janet Jackson.
Details: A fantastic feast of original poetry from 8 of the best poets in town! MC Vivienne Glance will embellish the evening with poetic puns in between slick guitar, soaring harmonies and inspiring verse. Jen de Ness and Bill Atkinson will dish up a smooth mix of de Ness acoustic, nu-jazz groove alongside original verse.
Enquiries: Jen de Ness - jdenness@optusnet.com.au
Title: Opening Ceremony for National Poetry Week and the 2008 WA Spring Poetry Festival
Theme: Space
Date: Saturday 30th August
Time: 10 am to 12 noon
Venue: State Library of WA
Cost: Free
Poets: Featured Guest Poet Mike Ladd, Patron Dennis Haskell, Annamaria Weldon and other Guests.
Enquiries: Peter Jeffery - wapoets@yahoo.com.au
Title: Poet's Corner
Theme: Space
Date: Saturday 30th August
Time: 2 pm to 4.30 pm
Venue: Pages Cafe, State Library of WA, Alexander Building, Perth Cultural Centre,
across bridge from the Perth train station.
Cost: Free, but please buy stuff from the cafe if you can
Poets: Featured Guest Poet Mike Ladd and Open Readings
Enquiries: Frances Macaulay Forde: poetscornerwa@yahoo.com.au.
Title: OPENFACE 08 - Performance Poetry Action
Theme: Space
Date: Saturday 30th August
Time: 8 pm to midnight
Venue: Kaos Room, The Blue Room, Northbridge
Cost: Free, but limited capacity
Poets: Featured performance poets: Ashley J Higgs and the Antipoet - 20 invited guests and.Open Readings
Enquiries: allan boyd - allanboyd@optusnet.com.au
Title: Wings Translation & Transcreation
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 31st August
Time: 1 pm to 3 pm
Venue: State Library of WA
Cost: Donation
Enquiries: Afeif: afeif5@yahoo.com.au, Norelle: naabbott@iinet.net.au or Peter: wapoets@yahoo.com.au.
Wings Multicultural Poetry Reading
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 31st August
Time: 3.15 pm to 5 pm
Venue: State Library of WA
Cost: Donation
Enquiries: Afeif: afeif5@yahoo.com.au, Norelle: naabbott@iinet.net.au or Peter: wapoets@yahoo.com.au.
Title: Velvet Voices Poetry Reading, special guests and Open Reading
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 31st August
Time: 6 pm to 9.30 pm
Venue: Velvet Lounge, The Flying Scotsman, 639 Beaufort St, Mt Lawley
Cost: Donation
Poets: Featured Guest Poet Mike Ladd, Liana Christensen, Sue Clennell, Deanne Leber, Glen Phillips, Jan Napier, Helen Child, Ashley Higgs and Open Reading
Details: If you wish to read, please contact Maureen Sexton by email: wapoets@yahoo.com.au or put your name down at the door on the night.
Enquiries: Maureen Sexton – wapoets@yahoo.com.au
2008 WA Spring Poetry Festival ends and National Poetry Week continues…
Title: Haiku Wall
Theme: Space
Date: 1st September to 13th September
Time: Library opening times
Venue: City of Perth Library, 573 Hay Street, Perth.
Cost: Free
Poets: All entries to the Haiku competition
Enquiries: Anna Teasdale, Phone: 9461 3581, Fax: 9461 3534, Email: anna.teasdale@cityofperth.wa.gov.au
Title: Poetry Workshop – 'Sculpting in English' with Janet Jackson
Theme: Space
Date: Monday 1st September
Time: 11am to 3 pm
Venue: Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre, 11 Old York Rd, Greenmount.
Cost: $25 for members, $40 for non-members
Details: Hosted by Poets@KSP. Objectives: 1. Participants will learn about expanding the boundaries of their poetries by both reading and writing. 2. Participants will have opportunities to write in ways they may not have previously tried. 3. Participants will come away with drafts or ideas for new poems. 4. Participants will learn ways to improve their poetry by editing. Tea and coffee provided. BYO lunch.
Enquiries: Book with KSP 9294 1872, kspf@iinet.net.au, Website: http://www.kspf.iinet.net.au/index.html
Title: Haiku Workshop with Maureen Sexton
Theme: Space
Date: Monday 1st September
Time: 1 pm to 3 pm
Venue: City of Perth Library, 573 Hay Street, Perth
Cost: Free
Details: In this workshop, we will take a very brief look at the history of haiku, then we will get down to writing haiku and senryu, with tips on how to get that ‘aha’ factor, and how to get published.
Enquiries: Anna Teasdale, Phone: 9461 3581, Fax: 9461 3534, Email: anna.teasdale@cityofperth.wa.gov.au
Title: Walking on Water in association with WA Poets Inc
Theme: Space and Friends
Date: Monday 1st September
Time: 7.30pm to 10pm
Venue: Laneway Theatre, Perth. (The building is in the laneway that runs between Murray and Wellington streets, next to the Pier Street (carpark)
Cost: $5 waged, $3 unwaged
Poets: Master class poets Vivienne Glance, Sally Clarke, Flora Smith, Chris Konrad and Carol Millner will be performing works from their up coming anthology Amber Contains the Sun, plus guest poets Kevin Gillam, Annamaria Weldon, Janet Jackson and OPEN readers.
Details: Unamplified. Open stage. Tea & coffee provided, BYO mug. Bring nibbles & drinks to share if you like.
Enquiries: Jane Cornes: 0414 862 306, jcornes@iinet.net.au
Title: Poetry Session with Kevin Gillam in association with WA Poets Inc
Theme: Space
Date: Wednesday 3rd September
Time: 10 am to 12 noon
Venue: City of Perth Library, 573 Hay Street, Perth
Cost: Free
Details: Kevin Gillam, published poet and musician.
Enquiries: Anna Teasdale, Phone: 9461 3581, Fax: 9461 3534, Email: anna.teasdale@cityofperth.wa.gov.au
Title: Creative Connections Poetry and Art Exhibition
Theme: Space and I, Eye
Date: Thursday 5th, Friday 6th, Saturday 7th September
Time: Shopping Centre trading hours
Venue: Galleria Shopping Centre, Morley
Cost: Free
Poets: Natasha L Adams, Lyn Bryce, Andrew Burke, Saz Campbell, Liana Christensen, Dr Sally Clarke, Sue Clennell, Peter Evans, Jenny de Garis, Kevin Gillam, Peter Jeffery, Paula Jones, Chris Konrad, Trisha Kotai-Ewers, Melanie Kwa, Deanne Leber, Mardi May, Julienne Miller, Scott-Patrick Mitchell, Val Neubecker, Maureen Sexton, Flora Smith, Cathy Szathmary, B J Thomason, Michael Williams.
Details: Creative Connections is made up of artworks created by disabled artists and the poetry written to the artworks by WA poets.
Enquiries: Maureen Sexton, 0435 024 616, creativeconnections@live.com.au
Title: Creative Connections Magazines Launch
Theme: Space and I, Eye
Date: Thursday 5th
Time: 6 pm
Venue: Galleria Shopping Centre, Morley
Cost: Free
Details: Launch of the magazines and readings by poets. Creative Connections is made up of artworks created by disabled artists and the poetry written to the artworks by WA poets. The 2007 and 2008 magazines contain photos of all the artworks and poems from 2007 and 2008.
Enquiries: Maureen Sexton, 0435 024 616, creativeconnections@live.com.au
Title: Voicebox with FAWWA
Theme: Space
Date: Thursday 4th September
Time: 7.30 pm to 10 pm
Venue: La Tropicana Café, 177 High Street, Fremantle
Cost: $5/$3
Details: Readings from the Fellowship of Australian Writers of WA anthology, "Lines in the Sand"
Enquiries: Nandi Chinna - voicebox@live.com.au, FAWWA 9384 4771, fawwa@iinet.net.au, Website: http://www.fawwa.org.au/
Title: Poetry Session with Evelyn Bach
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 5th September
Time: 10 am to 11 am
Venue: City of Perth Library, 573 Hay Street, Perth
Cost: Free
Details: Fun interactive rhythm session
Enquiries: Anna Teasdale, Phone: 9461 3581, Fax: 9461 3534, Email: anna.teasdale@cityofperth.wa.gov.au
Title: Lunchlines
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 5th September
Time: 12.30 to 1.30 pm
Venue: Edith Cowan University, 1 Bradford St, Mt Lawley, Room ML 17.220
Cost: Free
Poet: Sarah French plus open reading
Contact Marcella Polain: m.polain@ecu.edu.au
Title: WA Bush Poets and Yarn Spinners Traditional Night - Poets From the Past
Theme: Space
Date: Friday September 5th
Time: commencing at 7.30pm
Venue: The Auditorium at Bentley Park Retirement Village (formerly Swan Cottages), 26 Plantation Drive, Bentley
Cost: $7, there is a door prize and supper will be available for $1
Details: The evening will consist of two parts, the first being "Impressions of Australia", a narrative joining together poems of an earlier time which express the varying views that those early poets had of our country, its people and it's spirit. You will hear works of many well known poets including Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, C J Dennis and Dorothea Mackeller along with some from lesser known bards.
Following this presentation, supper will be available after which, performing members of the WA Bush Poets will present some of their favourite poems of those golden years of Bush Poetry.
Enquiries: Brian Langley, 9361 3770, braindot@tpg.com.au
Title: Poetry Extravaganza
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 7th September
Time: 1.30 pm
Venue: Peter Cowan Writers Centre, Edith Cowan House, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup
Poets: Andrew Burke and Open Reading
Details: Keynote speaker - PCWC Writer in Residence, Andrew Burke. Poetry readings: PCWC members and the general community are invited to read their poetry or just come along and listen.
Enquiries: Telephone: 9301 2282, Email: cowan05@bigpond.com
Title: Poetry of the Sacred
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 7th September
Time: 2 pm to 4 pm
Venue: St John's Church in the Square, Fremantle
Cost: Free
Details: We invite poets, poetry lovers and readers to submit poems for inclusion.
Music and refreshments.
Enquiries: Patrick Speed: 9370 1151, 0400 231 591, patwiland@iinet.net.au
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Thursday, August 21, 2008
WA Spring Poetry Festival (mini-fest) and National Poetry Week
Webpages: http://www.maureensexton.com.au/Pages/waspringpoetryfestival2008.html
Email: wapoets@yahoo.com.au
In this bulletin:
1. Creatrix Poetry Prize and Creatrix Issue 2 Hurry and submit your poems.
2. Featured Guest Poet: Mike Ladd.
3. Open Readings – where to read your poems.
4. Where to send your poems to.
5. The Program.
6. Update your details.
7. Your committee.
1. Creatix Poetry Prize and Creatrix Issue 2
Closing date: 22nd August 2008
Guidelines:
Poetry to 60 lines
Open theme
No more than 3 poems per poet
Poems entered in the prize, must not be previously published
or have won any prizes in competitions.
Any poems not eligible for the competition, may still be published in creatrix, but any previous publication details must be acknowledged. Please email submissions to wapoets@yahoo.com.au.
2. Featured Guest Poet: Mike Ladd. Producer and Presenter of ABC Radio National’s Poetry Program, Poetica. Mike Ladd was born in 1959 and grew up at Blackwood in the Adelaide Hills. After completing a Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy at Adelaide University, he began to publish his poetry widely in Australia. In 1980 he formed “The Drum Poets”, a group of musicians who perform his poetry using conventional instruments, found objects and pre-recorded sounds. In the early 1980’s Mike Ladd travelled in Europe and Africa. Whilst in Senegal, he made recordings of the traditional poet-praise singers known as “griot”. In London he worked for the BBC and the British Institute of Recorded Sound. Returning to Adelaide, Mike began work with ABC Radio. After working as a sound engineer, he became a producer within the Radio Arts department and is currently producer and presenter of the Radio National poetry program “PoeticA”. “Close to Home” (2000) published by Five Islands Press, is Mike’s third book of poetry, his earlier publications being “The Crack in the Crib” (1984) and “Picture’s Edge (1994). Mike’s poetry has been translated and published in several different languages, and his writing for radio has been broadcast in many countries including the UK, Ireland, Canada, Finland, Germany and France. Mike has always been interested in collaborations between poetry and other disciplines, and has made poetic works for live performance, radio, photography, film, installations and the internet. In 2000 he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to spend time at Churchill College, Cambridge, studying the relationship between poetry and radio. He has conducted many poetry workshops and master-classes for the South Australian Writers’ Centre and regional Arts councils.
3. OPEN READINGS during the 2008 WA Spring Poetry Festival and National Poetry Week events
· OOTA Poetry Reading with Guest poet, Marcella Polain and open reading. Friday 29th August, 12.30 to 2 pm, Function Room, Fremantle Arts Centre, Gold coin donation and poetry books for sale. For more information, contact Jo Clarke, 9339 0847, or josephine.oota@gmail.com.
· On 30th August 2008, Poets Corner @ Pages Cafe will invite everyone to take part in a spectacular OPEN MIC which will last all afternoon from 2pm to 4.30pm. Register with your host Frances Macaulay Forde on the day and keep the surprises coming. If you've ever wanted to read but not done so, so far - now's your opportunity... See you there! Free, but please buy stuff from the cafe if you can. Pages Cafe, State Library of WA, Alexander Building, Perth Cultural Centre across bridge from the Perth train station. Frances Macaulay Forde: poetscornerwa@yahoo.com.au.
· OPENFACE 08 - Performance Poetry Action, Saturday 30th August 2008, Kaos Room, The Blue Room, Northbridge, 8 pm to midnight, Organiser: allan boyd, allanboyd@optusnet.com.au.
· Velvet Voices Poetry Reading and Open Reading, Sunday 31st August, Velvet Lounge, The Flying Scotsman, 639 Beaufort St, Mt Lawley, 6 pm to 9.30 pm, Poets: Special Guest Poet Mike Ladd, Liana Christensen, Sue Clennell, Deanne Leber, Helen Child, Ashley Higgs and Open Reading. Cost: Donation. If you wish to read, please contact Maureen by email: wapoets@yahoo.com.au or put your name down at the door on the night.
· Walking on Water, Monday 1st September, Laneway Theatre, Perth. (The building is in the laneway that runs between Murray and Wellington streets, next to the Pier Street (carpark), 7.30pm to 10pm, $5 waged, $3 unwaged, Master class poets Vivienne Glance, Sally Clarke, Flora Smith, Chris Konrad and Carol Millner will be performing works from their up coming anthology 'Amber Contains the Sun', plus guest poets Kevin Gillam, Annamaria Weldon, Janet Jackson and OPEN readers. Unamplified. Open stage. Tea & coffee provided, BYO mug. Bring nibbles & drinks to share if you like. Enquiries: Jane Cornes: 0414 862 306, jcornes@iinet.net.au.
· Lunchlines, Friday 5th September, Edith Cowan University, 1 Bradford St, Mt Lawley, 12.30 to 1.30 pm, Guest Poet: Sarah French plus open reading, Room ML 17.220, For details: contact Dr Marcella Polain on 08 93706322 or at m.polain@ecu.edu.au.
4. Send your poems to:
· OOTA Poetry Wall, State Library of Western Australia, 29th August to 5th September, Please send us your poems on A4 paper before August 25th, to OOTA, PO Box 142, Fremantle 6959 or email to Flora Smith florabl@iinet.net.au . Help us cover the walls with words. Feel free to decorate/illustrate your work. For more information, contact Jo Clarke, 9339 0847 or josephine.oota@gmail.com.
· Poetry of the Sacred, Sunday 7th September, 2 pm to 4 pm, St John's Church in the Square, Fremantle, Local Poets, their friends & supporters, will read their own poems & the poetry of others. We invite poets, poetry lovers and readers to submit poems for inclusion. Music and refreshments. Free. Contact: Patrick Speed: 0400 231 591, patwiland@iinet.net.au. What do we mean by “Sacred”? Poems of hope through despair, Poems of gladness, Poems that express both the finiteness of life and the infinity beyond life, Poems about God and the Wholly Other, Poems about the absence of God, of doubt and scepticism, Poems about the sacredness of space, of the world, of all living things, Poems about me and about you, Poems that say YES and poems that ask questions, Poems (in the Great Tradition) and Songs of Innocence & Experience.
5. PROGRAM OF WA Spring Poetry Festival (mini-fest) and National Poetry Week Events in WA brought to you by WA Poets Inc
Title: Out of the Asylum Poetry Wall
Theme: Space
Date: 29th August to 5th September
Venue: State Library of Western Australia
Cost: Free
Poets: Open to all WA poets
Details: Please send us your poems on A4 paper before August 25th, to OOTA, PO Box 142, Fremantle 6959 or email to Flora Smith florabl@iinet.net.au . Help us cover the walls with words. Feel free to decorate/illustrate your work.
Enquiries: Jo Clarke, 9339 0847 or josephine.oota@gmail.com
Title: Student’s Day
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 29th August
Venue: Several Schools across the metropolitan area.
Enquiries: Veronica Lake - votiveoffering@gmail.com
Title: OOTA Poetry Reading with guest poet, Marcella Polain
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 29th August
Time: 12.30 to 2 pm
Venue: Function Room, Fremantle Arts Centre
Cost: Gold coin donation and poetry books for sale
Poets: Guest poet, Marcella Polain and open reading. MC, Donna Ward, editor of indigo.
Enquiries: Jo Clarke, 9339 0847, or josephine.oota@gmail.com
Title: de Ness & Friends @ Scots
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 29th August
Time: 7.30 pm onwards
Venue: Scot's Hall, Cnr South Terrace and Parry Street, Fremantle (next to Fremantle Markets)
Cost:$5 at the door
Poets: Mike Ladd, Annamaria Weldon, Vivienne Glance, Afeif Ismail Abdelrazig, Jeremy Balius, Jaya Penelope, Flora Smith and Janet Jackson.
Details: A fantastic feast of original poetry from 8 of the best poets in town! MC Vivienne Glance will embellish the evening with poetic puns in between slick guitar, soaring harmonies and inspiring verse. Jen de Ness and Bill Atkinson will dish up a smooth mix of de Ness acoustic, nu-jazz groove alongside original verse.
Enquiries: Jen de Ness - jdenness@optusnet.com.au
Title: Opening Ceremony for the 2008 WA Spring Poetry Festival
Theme: Space
Date: Saturday 30th August
Time: 10 am to 12 noon
Venue: State Library of WA
Cost: Free
Poets: Mike Ladd, Dennis Haskell, Annamaria Weldon and other Guests.
Enquiries: Peter Jeffery - wapoets@yahoo.com.au
Title: Poet's Corner
Theme: Space
Date: Saturday 30th August
Time: 2 pm to 4.30 pm
Venue: Pages Cafe, State Library of WA, Alexander Building, Perth Cultural Centre,
across bridge from the Perth train station.
Cost: Free, but please buy stuff from the cafe if you can
Poets: Open Readings
Enquiries: Frances Macaulay Forde: poetscornerwa@yahoo.com.au.
Title: OPENFACE 08 - Performance Poetry Action
Theme: Space
Date: Saturday 30th August
Time: 8 pm to midnight
Venue: Kaos Room, The Blue Room, Northbridge
Poets: Open Readings
Enquiries: allan boyd - allanboyd@optusnet.com.au
Title: Wings Translation & Transcreation
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 31st August
Time: 1 pm to 3 pm
Venue: State Library of WA
Cost: Donation
Enquiries: Afeif Ismail Abdelrazig – afeif5@yahoo.com.au or wapoets@yahoo.com.au
Title: Wings Multicultural Poetry Reading
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 31st August
Time: 3.15 pm to 5 pm
Venue: State Library of WA
Cost: Donation
Enquiries: Afeif Ismail Abdelrazig – afeif5@yahoo.com.au or wapoets@yahoo.com.au
Title: Velvet Voices Poetry Reading, special guests and Open Reading
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 31st August
Time: 6 pm to 9.30 pm
Venue: Velvet Lounge, The Flying Scotsman, 639 Beaufort St, Mt Lawley
Cost: Donation
Poets: Mike Ladd, Liana Christensen, Sue Clennell, Deanne Leber, Helen Child, Ashley Higgs and Open Mic
Details: If you wish to read, please contact Maureen Sexton by email: wapoets@yahoo.com.au or put your name down at the door on the night.
Enquiries: Maureen Sexton – wapoets@yahoo.com.au
Title: Haiku Wall
Theme: Space
Date: 1st September to 13th September
Time: Library opening times
Venue: City of Perth Library, 573 Hay Street, Perth.
Cost: Free
Poets: All entries to the Haiku competition
Enquiries: Anna Teasdale, Phone: 9461 3581, Fax: 9461 3534, Email: anna.teasdale@cityofperth.wa.gov.au
Title: Poetry Workshop – 'Sculpting in English' with Janet Jackson
Theme: Space
Date: Monday 1st September
Time: 11am to 3 pm
Venue: Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre, 11 Old York Rd, Greenmount.
Cost: $25 for members, $40 for non-members
Details: Hosted by Poets@KSP. Objectives: 1. Participants will learn about expanding the boundaries of their poetries by both reading and writing. 2. Participants will have opportunities to write in ways they may not have previously tried. 3. Participants will come away with drafts or ideas for new poems. 4. Participants will learn ways to improve their poetry by editing. Tea and coffee provided. BYO lunch.
Enquiries: Book with KSP 9294 1872, kspf@iinet.net.au, Website: http://www.kspf.iinet.net.au/index.html
Title: Haiku Workshop with Maureen Sexton
Theme: Space
Date: Monday 1st September
Time: 1 pm to 3 pm
Venue: City of Perth Library, 573 Hay Street, Perth
Cost: Free
Details: In this workshop, we will take a very brief look at the history of haiku, then we will get down to writing haiku and senryu, with tips on how to get that ‘aha’ factor, and how to get published.
Enquiries: Anna Teasdale, Phone: 9461 3581, Fax: 9461 3534, Email: anna.teasdale@cityofperth.wa.gov.au
Title: Walking on Water
Theme: Space and Friends
Date: Monday 1st September
Time: 7.30pm to 10pm
Venue: Laneway Theatre, Perth. (The building is in the laneway that runs between Murray and Wellington streets, next to the Pier Street (carpark)
Cost: $5 waged, $3 unwaged
Poets: Master class poets Vivienne Glance, Sally Clarke, Flora Smith, Chris Konrad and Carol Millner will be performing works from their up coming anthology Amber Contains the Sun, plus guest poets Kevin Gillam, Annamaria Weldon, Janet Jackson and OPEN readers.
Details: Unamplified. Open stage. Tea & coffee provided, BYO mug. Bring nibbles & drinks to share if you like.
Enquiries: Jane Cornes: 0414 862 306, jcornes@iinet.net.au
Title: Poetry Session with Kevin Gillam
Theme: Space
Date: Wednesday 3rd September
Time: 10 am to 12 noon
Venue: City of Perth Library, 573 Hay Street, Perth
Cost: Free
Details: Kevin Gillam, published poet and musician.
Enquiries: Anna Teasdale, Phone: 9461 3581, Fax: 9461 3534, Email: anna.teasdale@cityofperth.wa.gov.au
Title: Creative Connections Poetry and Art Exhibition
Theme: Space and I, Eye
Date: Thursday 5th, Friday 6th, Saturday 7th September
Time: Shopping Centre trading hours
Venue: Galleria Shopping Centre, Morley
Cost: Free
Poets: Natasha L Adams, Lyn Bryce, Andrew Burke, Saz Campbell, Liana Christensen, Dr Sally Clarke, Sue Clennell, Peter Evans, Jenny de Garis, Kevin Gillam, Peter Jeffery, Paula Jones, Chris Konrad, Trisha Kotai-Ewers, Melanie Kwa, Deanne Leber, Mardi May, Julienne Miller, Scott-Patrick Mitchell, Val Neubecker, Maureen Sexton, Flora Smith, Cathy Szathmary, B J Thomason, Michael Williams.
Details: Creative Connections is made up of artworks created by disabled artists and the poetry written to the artworks by WA poets.
Enquiries: Maureen Sexton, 0435 024 616, creativeconnections@live.com.au
Title: Creative Connections Book Launch
Theme: Space and I, Eye
Date: Thursday 5th
Time: 6 pm
Venue: Galleria Shopping Centre, Morley
Cost: Free
Details: Launch of the book/booklets and readings by poets. Creative Connections is made up of artworks created by disabled artists and the poetry written to the artworks by WA poets. The 2007 and 2008 books/booklets contain photos of all the artworks and poems from 2007 and 2008.
Enquiries: Maureen Sexton, 0435 024 616, creativeconnections@live.com.au
Title: Voicebox with FAWWA
Theme: Space
Date: Thursday 4th September
Time: 7.30 pm to 10 pm
Venue: La Tropicana Café, 177 High Street, Fremantle
Cost: $5/$3
Details: Readings from the Fellowship of Australian Writers of WA anthology, "Lines in the Sand"
Enquiries: Nandi Chinna - voicebox@live.com.au, FAWWA 9384 4771, fawwa@iinet.net.au, Website: http://www.fawwa.org.au/
Title: Poetry Session with Evelyn Bach
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 5th September
Time: 10 am to 11 am
Venue: City of Perth Library, 573 Hay Street, Perth
Cost: Free
Details: Fun interactive rhythm session
Enquiries: Anna Teasdale, Phone: 9461 3581, Fax: 9461 3534, Email: anna.teasdale@cityofperth.wa.gov.au
Title: Lunchlines
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 5th September
Time: 12.30 to 1.30 pm
Venue: Edith Cowan University, 1 Bradford St, Mt Lawley, Room ML 17.220
Cost: Free
Poet: Sarah French plus open reading
Contact Marcella Polain: m.polain@ecu.edu.au
Title: WA Bush Poets and Yarn Spinners Traditional Night - Poets From the Past
Theme: Space
Date: Friday September 5th
Time: commencing at 7.30pm
Venue: The Auditorium at Bentley Park Retirement Village (formerly Swan Cottages), 26 Plantation Drive, Bentley
Cost: $7, there is a door prize and supper will be available for $1
Details: The evening will consist of two parts, the first being "Impressions of Australia", a narrative joining together poems of an earlier time which express the varying views that those early poets had of our country, its people and it's spirit. You will hear works of many well known poets including Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, C J Dennis and Dorothea Mackeller along with some from lesser known bards.
Following this presentation, supper will be available after which, performing members of the WA Bush Poets will present some of their favourite poems of those golden years of Bush Poetry.
Enquiries: Brian Langley, 9361 3770, braindot@tpg.com.au
Title: Poetry Extravaganza
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 7th September
Time: 1.30 pm
Venue: Peter Cowan Writers Centre, Edith Cowan House, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup
Poets: Andrew Burke and Open Mic
Details: Keynote speaker - PCWC Writer in Residence, Andrew Burke. Poetry readings: PCWC members and the general community are invited to read their poetry or just come along and listen.
Enquiries: Telephone: 9301 2282, Email: cowan05@bigpond.com
Title: Poetry of the Sacred
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 7th September
Time: 2 pm to 4 pm
Venue: St John's Church in the Square, Fremantle
Cost: Free
Details: We invite poets, poetry lovers and readers to submit poems for inclusion.
Music and refreshments.
Enquiries: Patrick Speed: 9370 1151, 0400 231 591, patwiland@iinet.net.au
Email: wapoets@yahoo.com.au
In this bulletin:
1. Creatrix Poetry Prize and Creatrix Issue 2 Hurry and submit your poems.
2. Featured Guest Poet: Mike Ladd.
3. Open Readings – where to read your poems.
4. Where to send your poems to.
5. The Program.
6. Update your details.
7. Your committee.
1. Creatix Poetry Prize and Creatrix Issue 2
Closing date: 22nd August 2008
Guidelines:
Poetry to 60 lines
Open theme
No more than 3 poems per poet
Poems entered in the prize, must not be previously published
or have won any prizes in competitions.
Any poems not eligible for the competition, may still be published in creatrix, but any previous publication details must be acknowledged. Please email submissions to wapoets@yahoo.com.au.
2. Featured Guest Poet: Mike Ladd. Producer and Presenter of ABC Radio National’s Poetry Program, Poetica. Mike Ladd was born in 1959 and grew up at Blackwood in the Adelaide Hills. After completing a Bachelor of Arts in English and Philosophy at Adelaide University, he began to publish his poetry widely in Australia. In 1980 he formed “The Drum Poets”, a group of musicians who perform his poetry using conventional instruments, found objects and pre-recorded sounds. In the early 1980’s Mike Ladd travelled in Europe and Africa. Whilst in Senegal, he made recordings of the traditional poet-praise singers known as “griot”. In London he worked for the BBC and the British Institute of Recorded Sound. Returning to Adelaide, Mike began work with ABC Radio. After working as a sound engineer, he became a producer within the Radio Arts department and is currently producer and presenter of the Radio National poetry program “PoeticA”. “Close to Home” (2000) published by Five Islands Press, is Mike’s third book of poetry, his earlier publications being “The Crack in the Crib” (1984) and “Picture’s Edge (1994). Mike’s poetry has been translated and published in several different languages, and his writing for radio has been broadcast in many countries including the UK, Ireland, Canada, Finland, Germany and France. Mike has always been interested in collaborations between poetry and other disciplines, and has made poetic works for live performance, radio, photography, film, installations and the internet. In 2000 he was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to spend time at Churchill College, Cambridge, studying the relationship between poetry and radio. He has conducted many poetry workshops and master-classes for the South Australian Writers’ Centre and regional Arts councils.
3. OPEN READINGS during the 2008 WA Spring Poetry Festival and National Poetry Week events
· OOTA Poetry Reading with Guest poet, Marcella Polain and open reading. Friday 29th August, 12.30 to 2 pm, Function Room, Fremantle Arts Centre, Gold coin donation and poetry books for sale. For more information, contact Jo Clarke, 9339 0847, or josephine.oota@gmail.com.
· On 30th August 2008, Poets Corner @ Pages Cafe will invite everyone to take part in a spectacular OPEN MIC which will last all afternoon from 2pm to 4.30pm. Register with your host Frances Macaulay Forde on the day and keep the surprises coming. If you've ever wanted to read but not done so, so far - now's your opportunity... See you there! Free, but please buy stuff from the cafe if you can. Pages Cafe, State Library of WA, Alexander Building, Perth Cultural Centre across bridge from the Perth train station. Frances Macaulay Forde: poetscornerwa@yahoo.com.au.
· OPENFACE 08 - Performance Poetry Action, Saturday 30th August 2008, Kaos Room, The Blue Room, Northbridge, 8 pm to midnight, Organiser: allan boyd, allanboyd@optusnet.com.au.
· Velvet Voices Poetry Reading and Open Reading, Sunday 31st August, Velvet Lounge, The Flying Scotsman, 639 Beaufort St, Mt Lawley, 6 pm to 9.30 pm, Poets: Special Guest Poet Mike Ladd, Liana Christensen, Sue Clennell, Deanne Leber, Helen Child, Ashley Higgs and Open Reading. Cost: Donation. If you wish to read, please contact Maureen by email: wapoets@yahoo.com.au or put your name down at the door on the night.
· Walking on Water, Monday 1st September, Laneway Theatre, Perth. (The building is in the laneway that runs between Murray and Wellington streets, next to the Pier Street (carpark), 7.30pm to 10pm, $5 waged, $3 unwaged, Master class poets Vivienne Glance, Sally Clarke, Flora Smith, Chris Konrad and Carol Millner will be performing works from their up coming anthology 'Amber Contains the Sun', plus guest poets Kevin Gillam, Annamaria Weldon, Janet Jackson and OPEN readers. Unamplified. Open stage. Tea & coffee provided, BYO mug. Bring nibbles & drinks to share if you like. Enquiries: Jane Cornes: 0414 862 306, jcornes@iinet.net.au.
· Lunchlines, Friday 5th September, Edith Cowan University, 1 Bradford St, Mt Lawley, 12.30 to 1.30 pm, Guest Poet: Sarah French plus open reading, Room ML 17.220, For details: contact Dr Marcella Polain on 08 93706322 or at m.polain@ecu.edu.au.
4. Send your poems to:
· OOTA Poetry Wall, State Library of Western Australia, 29th August to 5th September, Please send us your poems on A4 paper before August 25th, to OOTA, PO Box 142, Fremantle 6959 or email to Flora Smith florabl@iinet.net.au . Help us cover the walls with words. Feel free to decorate/illustrate your work. For more information, contact Jo Clarke, 9339 0847 or josephine.oota@gmail.com.
· Poetry of the Sacred, Sunday 7th September, 2 pm to 4 pm, St John's Church in the Square, Fremantle, Local Poets, their friends & supporters, will read their own poems & the poetry of others. We invite poets, poetry lovers and readers to submit poems for inclusion. Music and refreshments. Free. Contact: Patrick Speed: 0400 231 591, patwiland@iinet.net.au. What do we mean by “Sacred”? Poems of hope through despair, Poems of gladness, Poems that express both the finiteness of life and the infinity beyond life, Poems about God and the Wholly Other, Poems about the absence of God, of doubt and scepticism, Poems about the sacredness of space, of the world, of all living things, Poems about me and about you, Poems that say YES and poems that ask questions, Poems (in the Great Tradition) and Songs of Innocence & Experience.
5. PROGRAM OF WA Spring Poetry Festival (mini-fest) and National Poetry Week Events in WA brought to you by WA Poets Inc
Title: Out of the Asylum Poetry Wall
Theme: Space
Date: 29th August to 5th September
Venue: State Library of Western Australia
Cost: Free
Poets: Open to all WA poets
Details: Please send us your poems on A4 paper before August 25th, to OOTA, PO Box 142, Fremantle 6959 or email to Flora Smith florabl@iinet.net.au . Help us cover the walls with words. Feel free to decorate/illustrate your work.
Enquiries: Jo Clarke, 9339 0847 or josephine.oota@gmail.com
Title: Student’s Day
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 29th August
Venue: Several Schools across the metropolitan area.
Enquiries: Veronica Lake - votiveoffering@gmail.com
Title: OOTA Poetry Reading with guest poet, Marcella Polain
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 29th August
Time: 12.30 to 2 pm
Venue: Function Room, Fremantle Arts Centre
Cost: Gold coin donation and poetry books for sale
Poets: Guest poet, Marcella Polain and open reading. MC, Donna Ward, editor of indigo.
Enquiries: Jo Clarke, 9339 0847, or josephine.oota@gmail.com
Title: de Ness & Friends @ Scots
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 29th August
Time: 7.30 pm onwards
Venue: Scot's Hall, Cnr South Terrace and Parry Street, Fremantle (next to Fremantle Markets)
Cost:$5 at the door
Poets: Mike Ladd, Annamaria Weldon, Vivienne Glance, Afeif Ismail Abdelrazig, Jeremy Balius, Jaya Penelope, Flora Smith and Janet Jackson.
Details: A fantastic feast of original poetry from 8 of the best poets in town! MC Vivienne Glance will embellish the evening with poetic puns in between slick guitar, soaring harmonies and inspiring verse. Jen de Ness and Bill Atkinson will dish up a smooth mix of de Ness acoustic, nu-jazz groove alongside original verse.
Enquiries: Jen de Ness - jdenness@optusnet.com.au
Title: Opening Ceremony for the 2008 WA Spring Poetry Festival
Theme: Space
Date: Saturday 30th August
Time: 10 am to 12 noon
Venue: State Library of WA
Cost: Free
Poets: Mike Ladd, Dennis Haskell, Annamaria Weldon and other Guests.
Enquiries: Peter Jeffery - wapoets@yahoo.com.au
Title: Poet's Corner
Theme: Space
Date: Saturday 30th August
Time: 2 pm to 4.30 pm
Venue: Pages Cafe, State Library of WA, Alexander Building, Perth Cultural Centre,
across bridge from the Perth train station.
Cost: Free, but please buy stuff from the cafe if you can
Poets: Open Readings
Enquiries: Frances Macaulay Forde: poetscornerwa@yahoo.com.au.
Title: OPENFACE 08 - Performance Poetry Action
Theme: Space
Date: Saturday 30th August
Time: 8 pm to midnight
Venue: Kaos Room, The Blue Room, Northbridge
Poets: Open Readings
Enquiries: allan boyd - allanboyd@optusnet.com.au
Title: Wings Translation & Transcreation
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 31st August
Time: 1 pm to 3 pm
Venue: State Library of WA
Cost: Donation
Enquiries: Afeif Ismail Abdelrazig – afeif5@yahoo.com.au or wapoets@yahoo.com.au
Title: Wings Multicultural Poetry Reading
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 31st August
Time: 3.15 pm to 5 pm
Venue: State Library of WA
Cost: Donation
Enquiries: Afeif Ismail Abdelrazig – afeif5@yahoo.com.au or wapoets@yahoo.com.au
Title: Velvet Voices Poetry Reading, special guests and Open Reading
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 31st August
Time: 6 pm to 9.30 pm
Venue: Velvet Lounge, The Flying Scotsman, 639 Beaufort St, Mt Lawley
Cost: Donation
Poets: Mike Ladd, Liana Christensen, Sue Clennell, Deanne Leber, Helen Child, Ashley Higgs and Open Mic
Details: If you wish to read, please contact Maureen Sexton by email: wapoets@yahoo.com.au or put your name down at the door on the night.
Enquiries: Maureen Sexton – wapoets@yahoo.com.au
Title: Haiku Wall
Theme: Space
Date: 1st September to 13th September
Time: Library opening times
Venue: City of Perth Library, 573 Hay Street, Perth.
Cost: Free
Poets: All entries to the Haiku competition
Enquiries: Anna Teasdale, Phone: 9461 3581, Fax: 9461 3534, Email: anna.teasdale@cityofperth.wa.gov.au
Title: Poetry Workshop – 'Sculpting in English' with Janet Jackson
Theme: Space
Date: Monday 1st September
Time: 11am to 3 pm
Venue: Katharine Susannah Prichard Writers' Centre, 11 Old York Rd, Greenmount.
Cost: $25 for members, $40 for non-members
Details: Hosted by Poets@KSP. Objectives: 1. Participants will learn about expanding the boundaries of their poetries by both reading and writing. 2. Participants will have opportunities to write in ways they may not have previously tried. 3. Participants will come away with drafts or ideas for new poems. 4. Participants will learn ways to improve their poetry by editing. Tea and coffee provided. BYO lunch.
Enquiries: Book with KSP 9294 1872, kspf@iinet.net.au, Website: http://www.kspf.iinet.net.au/index.html
Title: Haiku Workshop with Maureen Sexton
Theme: Space
Date: Monday 1st September
Time: 1 pm to 3 pm
Venue: City of Perth Library, 573 Hay Street, Perth
Cost: Free
Details: In this workshop, we will take a very brief look at the history of haiku, then we will get down to writing haiku and senryu, with tips on how to get that ‘aha’ factor, and how to get published.
Enquiries: Anna Teasdale, Phone: 9461 3581, Fax: 9461 3534, Email: anna.teasdale@cityofperth.wa.gov.au
Title: Walking on Water
Theme: Space and Friends
Date: Monday 1st September
Time: 7.30pm to 10pm
Venue: Laneway Theatre, Perth. (The building is in the laneway that runs between Murray and Wellington streets, next to the Pier Street (carpark)
Cost: $5 waged, $3 unwaged
Poets: Master class poets Vivienne Glance, Sally Clarke, Flora Smith, Chris Konrad and Carol Millner will be performing works from their up coming anthology Amber Contains the Sun, plus guest poets Kevin Gillam, Annamaria Weldon, Janet Jackson and OPEN readers.
Details: Unamplified. Open stage. Tea & coffee provided, BYO mug. Bring nibbles & drinks to share if you like.
Enquiries: Jane Cornes: 0414 862 306, jcornes@iinet.net.au
Title: Poetry Session with Kevin Gillam
Theme: Space
Date: Wednesday 3rd September
Time: 10 am to 12 noon
Venue: City of Perth Library, 573 Hay Street, Perth
Cost: Free
Details: Kevin Gillam, published poet and musician.
Enquiries: Anna Teasdale, Phone: 9461 3581, Fax: 9461 3534, Email: anna.teasdale@cityofperth.wa.gov.au
Title: Creative Connections Poetry and Art Exhibition
Theme: Space and I, Eye
Date: Thursday 5th, Friday 6th, Saturday 7th September
Time: Shopping Centre trading hours
Venue: Galleria Shopping Centre, Morley
Cost: Free
Poets: Natasha L Adams, Lyn Bryce, Andrew Burke, Saz Campbell, Liana Christensen, Dr Sally Clarke, Sue Clennell, Peter Evans, Jenny de Garis, Kevin Gillam, Peter Jeffery, Paula Jones, Chris Konrad, Trisha Kotai-Ewers, Melanie Kwa, Deanne Leber, Mardi May, Julienne Miller, Scott-Patrick Mitchell, Val Neubecker, Maureen Sexton, Flora Smith, Cathy Szathmary, B J Thomason, Michael Williams.
Details: Creative Connections is made up of artworks created by disabled artists and the poetry written to the artworks by WA poets.
Enquiries: Maureen Sexton, 0435 024 616, creativeconnections@live.com.au
Title: Creative Connections Book Launch
Theme: Space and I, Eye
Date: Thursday 5th
Time: 6 pm
Venue: Galleria Shopping Centre, Morley
Cost: Free
Details: Launch of the book/booklets and readings by poets. Creative Connections is made up of artworks created by disabled artists and the poetry written to the artworks by WA poets. The 2007 and 2008 books/booklets contain photos of all the artworks and poems from 2007 and 2008.
Enquiries: Maureen Sexton, 0435 024 616, creativeconnections@live.com.au
Title: Voicebox with FAWWA
Theme: Space
Date: Thursday 4th September
Time: 7.30 pm to 10 pm
Venue: La Tropicana Café, 177 High Street, Fremantle
Cost: $5/$3
Details: Readings from the Fellowship of Australian Writers of WA anthology, "Lines in the Sand"
Enquiries: Nandi Chinna - voicebox@live.com.au, FAWWA 9384 4771, fawwa@iinet.net.au, Website: http://www.fawwa.org.au/
Title: Poetry Session with Evelyn Bach
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 5th September
Time: 10 am to 11 am
Venue: City of Perth Library, 573 Hay Street, Perth
Cost: Free
Details: Fun interactive rhythm session
Enquiries: Anna Teasdale, Phone: 9461 3581, Fax: 9461 3534, Email: anna.teasdale@cityofperth.wa.gov.au
Title: Lunchlines
Theme: Space
Date: Friday 5th September
Time: 12.30 to 1.30 pm
Venue: Edith Cowan University, 1 Bradford St, Mt Lawley, Room ML 17.220
Cost: Free
Poet: Sarah French plus open reading
Contact Marcella Polain: m.polain@ecu.edu.au
Title: WA Bush Poets and Yarn Spinners Traditional Night - Poets From the Past
Theme: Space
Date: Friday September 5th
Time: commencing at 7.30pm
Venue: The Auditorium at Bentley Park Retirement Village (formerly Swan Cottages), 26 Plantation Drive, Bentley
Cost: $7, there is a door prize and supper will be available for $1
Details: The evening will consist of two parts, the first being "Impressions of Australia", a narrative joining together poems of an earlier time which express the varying views that those early poets had of our country, its people and it's spirit. You will hear works of many well known poets including Banjo Paterson, Henry Lawson, C J Dennis and Dorothea Mackeller along with some from lesser known bards.
Following this presentation, supper will be available after which, performing members of the WA Bush Poets will present some of their favourite poems of those golden years of Bush Poetry.
Enquiries: Brian Langley, 9361 3770, braindot@tpg.com.au
Title: Poetry Extravaganza
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 7th September
Time: 1.30 pm
Venue: Peter Cowan Writers Centre, Edith Cowan House, Edith Cowan University, Joondalup
Poets: Andrew Burke and Open Mic
Details: Keynote speaker - PCWC Writer in Residence, Andrew Burke. Poetry readings: PCWC members and the general community are invited to read their poetry or just come along and listen.
Enquiries: Telephone: 9301 2282, Email: cowan05@bigpond.com
Title: Poetry of the Sacred
Theme: Space
Date: Sunday 7th September
Time: 2 pm to 4 pm
Venue: St John's Church in the Square, Fremantle
Cost: Free
Details: We invite poets, poetry lovers and readers to submit poems for inclusion.
Music and refreshments.
Enquiries: Patrick Speed: 9370 1151, 0400 231 591, patwiland@iinet.net.au
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Two Men with the Blues
I've been spinning this disc on my car CD player for a couple of weeks now, fascinated by the juxtaposition of Willie Nelson's voice and the tight band lead by Wynton Marsalis.
Now I've read a great mention of it at http://newcritics.com/blog1/2008/08/18/willies-world/ Here's a snippet of that long review of a book on Willie:
Two-step stomps, songs with jazzy harmonies, and liberal group improvisation–the stuff of western swing–remain hallmarks of Nelson’s style to this day, and the natural ease of a lifetime steeped in the music informs Nelson’s most recent CD release, Two Men with the Blues, a fantastic live collaboration between Nelson (with his harmonica player Mickey Rafael) and Wynton Marsalis’ Jazz at Lincoln Center quintet captured by Blue Note records.
The repertoire is a mix of Nelson classics (Night Life, Rainy Day Blues), Hoagy Carmichael tunes (Georgia, Star Dust–Carmichael has no greater living interpreter than Nelson) and blues of varied provenance (like Basin Street Bluesfamously recorded by Willis among a million others). Wynton Marsalis’ cultivated devotion to prewar jazz allows the music here to fit Willie like a custom cut Brioni suit. There’s no chance of that Willie’s improvised, off the beat phrasing could throw this crew, and Willie responds with his jazziest vocal performance on record, rarely singing a melody straight. Willie’s guitar solos are wonderful here too, although, truth be told, at 75 and suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome after decades on the road, Willie’s not the guitarist he used to be and there are plenty of better examples of his chronically underrated guitar soloing elsewhere in the Nelson discography. Pianist Dan Nimmer is a stand out here. At 25, he’s already a monster, proving himself a brilliant vocal accompanist AND a great soloist.
The CD’s best performance comes on My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It–an early jazz staple written by pioneering New Orleans pianist Clarence Williams and recorded by both Louis Armstrong (who got early work as a Williams sideman) and Hank Williams. Not only do Willie and Wynton clown their way through great vocal performances, but the band plays remarkably well–comfortable with the old-time beat. Drummer Ali Jackson plays one of the best drum solos I’ve ever heard, a break so melodic you can just about sing along with it.
In a promo video prepared for the CD release Willie said: “Labels were invented to sell the music. You had to know what to call it before you could sell it so they called the blues the blues, and jazz is jazz, bluegrass, gospel, whatever. But some music encompasses it all. So what do you call that? And that’s pretty much what I like to play.” Mission accomplished.
Sunday, August 17, 2008
Doug Barbour's WEDNESDAYS' has appeared above/ground
I often think of the thousands of poetry books produced by small presses around the world in all the world's various tongues, and wonder what happens to them. My little books appear here in a flourish and I am excited, have a party, read poems from them to anyone who will stand still long enough, and (sometimes) get reviews in low-figure subscription magazines or in the barely-read arts pages of the everyday press. When I die, will they be an embarrassment to my children? What the hell do you do with Dad's old books? My eldest son is about to have his first book published, so maybe he will care and give them a graceful exit in some way. It is a sunny Sunday, another spring is around the corner, I must think positively - perhaps some collector will keep a complete collection somewhere and hope to cash in, mysteriously, some day.
So, here I promote my Canadian friend Doug Barbour's latest collection in the hope that people from side-pockets of the world will order it, savour it, and keep it alive on the planet for decades to come. Go now and buy. Only 200 copies and he has at least that many friends, a big family and many students. Be nibble, be quick. Go to -
http://abovegroundpress.blogspot.com/2008/03/new-from-aboveground-press_10.html
Friday, August 15, 2008
Hear all about it! ABC Radio National
ABC Radio National
Books and Drama newsletter
15-22 August 2008
POETICA
16/8/2008 15:00
21/8/2008 15:45
Fishing in the Devonian
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/poetica/stories/2008/2312061.htm
Poetica’s contribution to National Science Week, featuring the poems of Carol Jenkins.
In this program, Carol speaks about her writing process and the sources of inspiration for her Science poems, drawing on her expert knowledge of Science and Law.
LINGUA FRANCA
16/8/2008 15:45
21/8/2008 15:45
Picture this!
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/linguafranca/stories/2008/2332955.htm
Images by the illustrator and author Shaun Tan adorn the Children's Book Council's advertising for this year's Book Week (16-22 August, 2008). Reflecting on his fascination with both writing and painting, he reveals his thoughts on visual literacy and about creating an intimate distance between words and pictures.
SHORT STORY
17/8/2008 08:30
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, read by Michael Loney
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/shortstory/default.htm
In 1348 the Black Plague raged over most of Europe. The following year the young Giovanni Boccaccio, whose reputation as a writer and friend of Petrarch was growing, began his most famous work, The Decameron. It told the story of ten young aristocrats from Florence who, to escape the plague in the city, took refuge in a villa on an estate in the Florentine countryside. To while away the time the three men and seven women each told a story a day. There were 100 stories in all.
17/8/2008 15:35
A Bad Joke by Ha Jin, read by Patrick Dickson
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/shortstory/default.htm
It pays not to be too disrespectful of those in authority for two ignorant peasants in China.
AIRPLAY
17/8/2008 15:00
Fragments of Hong Kong, by Katherine Thomson, featuring Ivy Mak; Peta Sergeant; Karen Pang; Patricia Yiling Toh and Michelle Vergara.
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/airplay/stories/2008/2313588.htm
Episode 1
On the eve of the 1997 British handover of colonial Hong Kong to China, Fragments of Hong Kong is an intimate journey into the lives of six Hong Kong women whose lives are brought together and changed forever, by an unexpected and dramatic event.
THE BOOK SHOW
Monday to Friday 10:00am (repeated at midnight)
18/8/2008
Amanda Curtin's new novel The Sinkings
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2336566.htm
Western Australian writer Amanda Curtin's new novel The Sinkings deals with the 19th century murder of an ex-convict called Little Jock, who had lived his life as a man, but was found in death to have been a woman. Amanda Curtin uses this story to traverse some difficult territory, exploring the experience of being neither man nor woman, of being born of indeterminate gender and what that might mean, not just for a child, but also for a mother.
19/8/2008
Obscene: the literary world of Barney Rosset
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2336633.htm
American entrepreneur and publisher Barney Rosset mounted landmark, and ultimately successful, legal battles for free speech over the right to publish an uncensored version of Lady Chatterley's Lover and over Henry Miller's controversial novel Tropic of Cancer. He introduced Americans to writers such as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco and Harold Pinter and published many of the writers of the Beat generation, including William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. Filmmakers Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O'Connor have recorded the achievements of this passionate, and at times infamous, crusader for free expression in their documentary Obscene.
20/8/2008
David Sedaris engulfed in flames
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2336694.htm
Self-deprecating writer David Sedaris was 'humorist of the year' in 2001 after his book Me Talk Pretty One Day received rave reviews. Sedaris has written six mostly autobiographical works. His latest is When You Are Engulfed in Flames.
21/8/2008
Times Literary Supplement editor Peter Stothard
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2336779.htm
22/8/2008
Books for children
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2336738.htm
Award-winning writer Sonya Hartnett, children's literature specialist Professor John Stephens and illustrator and author Tina Matthews discuss writing for children.
THE BOOK READING
Monday to Friday 2.00pm
4/8/2008 - 29/8/2008
Journey to the Stone Country by Alex Miller, read by Julie Hudspeth
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookreading/stories/2008/2198535.htm
Betrayed by her husband, Annabelle Beck retreats in confusion and pain to the supposed sanctuary of her old family home in Townsville. There she meets and begins work with Bo Rennie, an ex-stockman and Jangga. Annabelle is increasingly intrigued by Bo's modest assurances that he holds the key to her future and she sets out with him on a path of recovery that leads her back to her childhood.
FIRST PERSON
Monday to Friday 10.45am
25/8/2008 - 5/9/2008
Thirteen Tonne Theory (Life inside Hunters and Collectors), written and read by Mark Seymour
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/firstperson/default.htm
What happens to a band that sees its future packed in a thirteen-tonne truck on a never-ending highway? For eighteen years, Mark Seymour fronted one of Australia's most loved and hard-working bands, Hunters and Collectors. With superstardom always just beyond reach, they hit the road, becoming an efficient and relentless touring machine that kept pubs overflowing around the country. With a lyricist's eye for detail, Mark reveals the endless fried breakfasts, between-gig comas, bewildering industry negotiations and the struggle to be heard in a democracy of blokes that, as an artistic collective, shared everything equally, from the drinks rider to songwriting copyright.
Books and Drama newsletter
15-22 August 2008
POETICA
16/8/2008 15:00
21/8/2008 15:45
Fishing in the Devonian
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/poetica/stories/2008/2312061.htm
Poetica’s contribution to National Science Week, featuring the poems of Carol Jenkins.
In this program, Carol speaks about her writing process and the sources of inspiration for her Science poems, drawing on her expert knowledge of Science and Law.
LINGUA FRANCA
16/8/2008 15:45
21/8/2008 15:45
Picture this!
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/linguafranca/stories/2008/2332955.htm
Images by the illustrator and author Shaun Tan adorn the Children's Book Council's advertising for this year's Book Week (16-22 August, 2008). Reflecting on his fascination with both writing and painting, he reveals his thoughts on visual literacy and about creating an intimate distance between words and pictures.
SHORT STORY
17/8/2008 08:30
The Decameron by Giovanni Boccaccio, read by Michael Loney
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/shortstory/default.htm
In 1348 the Black Plague raged over most of Europe. The following year the young Giovanni Boccaccio, whose reputation as a writer and friend of Petrarch was growing, began his most famous work, The Decameron. It told the story of ten young aristocrats from Florence who, to escape the plague in the city, took refuge in a villa on an estate in the Florentine countryside. To while away the time the three men and seven women each told a story a day. There were 100 stories in all.
17/8/2008 15:35
A Bad Joke by Ha Jin, read by Patrick Dickson
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/shortstory/default.htm
It pays not to be too disrespectful of those in authority for two ignorant peasants in China.
AIRPLAY
17/8/2008 15:00
Fragments of Hong Kong, by Katherine Thomson, featuring Ivy Mak; Peta Sergeant; Karen Pang; Patricia Yiling Toh and Michelle Vergara.
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/airplay/stories/2008/2313588.htm
Episode 1
On the eve of the 1997 British handover of colonial Hong Kong to China, Fragments of Hong Kong is an intimate journey into the lives of six Hong Kong women whose lives are brought together and changed forever, by an unexpected and dramatic event.
THE BOOK SHOW
Monday to Friday 10:00am (repeated at midnight)
18/8/2008
Amanda Curtin's new novel The Sinkings
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2336566.htm
Western Australian writer Amanda Curtin's new novel The Sinkings deals with the 19th century murder of an ex-convict called Little Jock, who had lived his life as a man, but was found in death to have been a woman. Amanda Curtin uses this story to traverse some difficult territory, exploring the experience of being neither man nor woman, of being born of indeterminate gender and what that might mean, not just for a child, but also for a mother.
19/8/2008
Obscene: the literary world of Barney Rosset
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2336633.htm
American entrepreneur and publisher Barney Rosset mounted landmark, and ultimately successful, legal battles for free speech over the right to publish an uncensored version of Lady Chatterley's Lover and over Henry Miller's controversial novel Tropic of Cancer. He introduced Americans to writers such as Samuel Beckett, Eugène Ionesco and Harold Pinter and published many of the writers of the Beat generation, including William Burroughs and Jack Kerouac. Filmmakers Neil Ortenberg and Daniel O'Connor have recorded the achievements of this passionate, and at times infamous, crusader for free expression in their documentary Obscene.
20/8/2008
David Sedaris engulfed in flames
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2336694.htm
Self-deprecating writer David Sedaris was 'humorist of the year' in 2001 after his book Me Talk Pretty One Day received rave reviews. Sedaris has written six mostly autobiographical works. His latest is When You Are Engulfed in Flames.
21/8/2008
Times Literary Supplement editor Peter Stothard
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2336779.htm
22/8/2008
Books for children
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookshow/stories/2008/2336738.htm
Award-winning writer Sonya Hartnett, children's literature specialist Professor John Stephens and illustrator and author Tina Matthews discuss writing for children.
THE BOOK READING
Monday to Friday 2.00pm
4/8/2008 - 29/8/2008
Journey to the Stone Country by Alex Miller, read by Julie Hudspeth
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/bookreading/stories/2008/2198535.htm
Betrayed by her husband, Annabelle Beck retreats in confusion and pain to the supposed sanctuary of her old family home in Townsville. There she meets and begins work with Bo Rennie, an ex-stockman and Jangga. Annabelle is increasingly intrigued by Bo's modest assurances that he holds the key to her future and she sets out with him on a path of recovery that leads her back to her childhood.
FIRST PERSON
Monday to Friday 10.45am
25/8/2008 - 5/9/2008
Thirteen Tonne Theory (Life inside Hunters and Collectors), written and read by Mark Seymour
URL: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/firstperson/default.htm
What happens to a band that sees its future packed in a thirteen-tonne truck on a never-ending highway? For eighteen years, Mark Seymour fronted one of Australia's most loved and hard-working bands, Hunters and Collectors. With superstardom always just beyond reach, they hit the road, becoming an efficient and relentless touring machine that kept pubs overflowing around the country. With a lyricist's eye for detail, Mark reveals the endless fried breakfasts, between-gig comas, bewildering industry negotiations and the struggle to be heard in a democracy of blokes that, as an artistic collective, shared everything equally, from the drinks rider to songwriting copyright.
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Poetry of the Sacred - reading & performance
Title: Poetry of the Sacred
Theme: SONGS OF INNOCENSE & EXPERIENCE!
Date: Sunday 7th September
Time: 2 pm to 4 pm
Venue: St John's Church in the Square, Fremantle
Cost: Free
Poets: Local Poets, their friends & supporters, will read their own poems & the poetry of others.
Details: We invite poets, poetry lovers and readers to submit poems for inclusion.
Music and refreshments.
Enquiries: Patrick Speed: 9370 1151, 0400 231 591, patwiland@iinet.net.au
What do we mean by “Sacred”?
Well, if we segue down to the theme given above, it will include
Poems of hope through despair
Poems of gladness
Poems that express both the finiteness of life and the infinity beyond life
Poems about God and the Wholly Other
Poems about the absence of God, of doubt and scepticism
Poems about the sacredness of space, of the world, of all living things
Poems about me and about you
Poems that say YES and poems that ask questions
Poems (in the Great Tradition) and Songs of Innocence & Experience
Theme: SONGS OF INNOCENSE & EXPERIENCE!
Date: Sunday 7th September
Time: 2 pm to 4 pm
Venue: St John's Church in the Square, Fremantle
Cost: Free
Poets: Local Poets, their friends & supporters, will read their own poems & the poetry of others.
Details: We invite poets, poetry lovers and readers to submit poems for inclusion.
Music and refreshments.
Enquiries: Patrick Speed: 9370 1151, 0400 231 591, patwiland@iinet.net.au
What do we mean by “Sacred”?
Well, if we segue down to the theme given above, it will include
Poems of hope through despair
Poems of gladness
Poems that express both the finiteness of life and the infinity beyond life
Poems about God and the Wholly Other
Poems about the absence of God, of doubt and scepticism
Poems about the sacredness of space, of the world, of all living things
Poems about me and about you
Poems that say YES and poems that ask questions
Poems (in the Great Tradition) and Songs of Innocence & Experience
Monday, August 11, 2008
Sorry - 1 Address wrong, but the info is right!
From the desk of Frances Macauley Forde:
Andrew Burke will guest host Poets Corner @ Pages Cafe, 2pm Saturday 18 August, and invite well-known WA Poet Partners and writers:
Glen Phillips & Rita Tognini
Marcella Polain & Mike Williams
Frances Arnett Sbrocchi & N.J (Jim) Cornish
Andrew Taylor & Beate Josephi
It promises to be an interesting and inspiring afternoon.
We begin at 2pm so get your 1st coffees in early.
OPEN MIC is cancelled.
Further Information: Frances Macaulay Forde admin@poetcornerwa.com
Many thanks, as always, to PAGES CAFE and the WA STATE LIBRARY for their on-going support of POETS CORNER.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
THE FOURTH ISSUE OF CHA: AN ASIAN LITERARY JOURNAL IS NOW
From the editors -
We are pleased to announce the publication of the fourth issue of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (August 2008). The new issue features 24 writers/artists: Gil Azouri, Isabela Banzon, David Braden, Winnie Chau, Grace V. S. Chin, SuzAnne C. Cole, Rocco De Giacomo, Lee Herrick, Louise Ho, Philip Holden, Kristy Joe, Ken Kamoche, William Kimzey, Gilbert Koh, Franky Lau, Mary Lee, Manuel Libres Librodo Jr, Lyn Lifshin, Reid Mitchell, Evelde Mourne, Papa Osmubal, Thaila Ramanujam, Margaret Stawowy and Ouyang Yu. To read the issue, please visit our website at http://www.asiancha.com.
Our first anniversary issue is due out in November 2008. Poet and historian Reid Mitchell will lend us his expertise in the role of guest editor. If you are interested in having your works considered for publication in this special issue of Cha, please read our submission guidelines for details.
Tammy Ho & Jeff Zroback/ The Editors
Cha: An Asian Literary Journal/ http://www.asiancha.com
We are pleased to announce the publication of the fourth issue of Cha: An Asian Literary Journal (August 2008). The new issue features 24 writers/artists: Gil Azouri, Isabela Banzon, David Braden, Winnie Chau, Grace V. S. Chin, SuzAnne C. Cole, Rocco De Giacomo, Lee Herrick, Louise Ho, Philip Holden, Kristy Joe, Ken Kamoche, William Kimzey, Gilbert Koh, Franky Lau, Mary Lee, Manuel Libres Librodo Jr, Lyn Lifshin, Reid Mitchell, Evelde Mourne, Papa Osmubal, Thaila Ramanujam, Margaret Stawowy and Ouyang Yu. To read the issue, please visit our website at http://www.asiancha.com.
Our first anniversary issue is due out in November 2008. Poet and historian Reid Mitchell will lend us his expertise in the role of guest editor. If you are interested in having your works considered for publication in this special issue of Cha, please read our submission guidelines for details.
Tammy Ho & Jeff Zroback/ The Editors
Cha: An Asian Literary Journal/ http://www.asiancha.com
Saturday, August 09, 2008
Nominations for Poetry prize of Age Book of the Year
Not Finding Wittgenstein, J.S.Harry, Giramondo
Not Finding Wittgenstein is a spectacularly original work, sending Peter Rabbit ("Peter Henry Lepus") on a serio-comic quest in which he tries to write a rabbit History of Philosophers, converses with Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and crosses war-torn Iraq with a journalist, a huntsman spider, and a camel.
Not only does Harry manage to make all this make sense, but she also presents us with an utterly unique way of seeing the world in all its horror and complexity. Throughout, Harry offers some of her most innovative and lyrical work. This is, in my view, a master work. .
Shades of the Sublime & Beautiful, John Kinsella, Fremantle Press
Using Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) as its ironic intertext, Kinsella's latest work takes a characteristically clear-eyed view of Australian landscape. Throughout the collection, Kinsella considers the relationship between history, landscape, violence and aesthetics.
His connections are often startling and always open to the complex ways in which "experience" and "poetry" are intertwined, so that his work is both profoundly sensate and deeply lettered, intensely political and powerfully personal. His poetry is, as ever, energetic, intense, original, and brilliantly inventive.
Bark, Anthony Lawrence, University of Queensland Press
Bark shows once again the peculiar power of Anthony Lawrence's vision. Attuned to the poetics of space and the quiddity of things and animals, Lawrence's poems repeatedly offer us new ways of seeing. By taking the usually unnoticed or unthought-of (marine stingers, the sport of luge, wombats) Lawrence fashions extraordinary poetic essays that involve his considerable wit, style, and formal skill.
Lawrence's fascination with landscape, seascape, and animals is unsentimental and bracingly aware of humans' ambiguous relationship to those things. As such, his poems move powerfully between the modes of praise and protest.
Typewriter Music, David Malouf, University of Queensland Press
David Malouf's late return to poetry (where his career began) is a welcome development in the career of one of Australia's best-known and most successful writers. Typewriter Music brilliantly illustrates Malouf's profound metaphorical skills. The collection's poems are poems of transformation, taking the details of everyday life and fashioning something rich and strange out of them.
Malouf's poems of love, ageing, and mortality are moving and insightful. Seven Last Words of the Emperor Hadrian is a minor masterpiece, showing Malouf's inventiveness and abundant linguistic talents.
Scar Revision, Tracy Ryan, Fremantle Press
Scar Revision is concerned with the literal and metaphorical scars of grief, parenthood, and love, tracing moments of intensity, and the long intensity of familial and personal history. Ryan's compelling poems are both direct and metaphorical, marked by their striking imagery and rhythmic skill, as well as their skilful blend of demotic and lyrical language.
They are also notable for the way they balance seriousness of purpose with an arresting sense of humour. The book is a powerfully coherent collection, offering brilliant poetic models of how we "revise" the scars caused by experience and loss.
Victorian Premier's Poetry Prize:
Event, Judith Bishop (Salt Publishing)
Judith Bishop's Event is distinguished by the sophistication and originality of its varied subject matter, its attention to craft and form, and above all by the intensity of its language, which confidently creates striking effects - sometimes dark, sometimes brilliant, often daring.
Press Release, Lisa Gorton, (Giramondo Publishing)
The consistent poise and thoughtfulness of Lisa Gorton' poetic voice in Press Release is remarkable, whether modulating into intellectual speculation, wry humour, or an elegiac tenderness utterly unsentimental or self-regarding. Many poets have written about the Mallee: Gorton's sequence manages to be original, technically varied, and at once witty and poignant.
As We Draw Ourselves, Barry Hill, (Five Islands Press)
Barry Hill has several earlier collections, but the judging panel found in As We Draw Ourselves the element of fresh directions we were privileging in well-known contenders. That poetry about art can be a way of exploring what it is to be human is a traditional enough theme, but Hill's tri-partite locating of his texts in China, Italy and Australia extends the thematic range, and, in particular, allows the admirable delicacy and elegance of the poems in the opening Chinese section to contrast strikingly with the morerobust quality of the Italian.
Thanks to Alison Croggon, herself a recently published poet with a new book THEATRE now vailable wherever SALT titles are sold in Australia - and, presumbaly, around the world - for all the above information.
Not Finding Wittgenstein is a spectacularly original work, sending Peter Rabbit ("Peter Henry Lepus") on a serio-comic quest in which he tries to write a rabbit History of Philosophers, converses with Bertrand Russell and Ludwig Wittgenstein, and crosses war-torn Iraq with a journalist, a huntsman spider, and a camel.
Not only does Harry manage to make all this make sense, but she also presents us with an utterly unique way of seeing the world in all its horror and complexity. Throughout, Harry offers some of her most innovative and lyrical work. This is, in my view, a master work. .
Shades of the Sublime & Beautiful, John Kinsella, Fremantle Press
Using Edmund Burke's A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) as its ironic intertext, Kinsella's latest work takes a characteristically clear-eyed view of Australian landscape. Throughout the collection, Kinsella considers the relationship between history, landscape, violence and aesthetics.
His connections are often startling and always open to the complex ways in which "experience" and "poetry" are intertwined, so that his work is both profoundly sensate and deeply lettered, intensely political and powerfully personal. His poetry is, as ever, energetic, intense, original, and brilliantly inventive.
Bark, Anthony Lawrence, University of Queensland Press
Bark shows once again the peculiar power of Anthony Lawrence's vision. Attuned to the poetics of space and the quiddity of things and animals, Lawrence's poems repeatedly offer us new ways of seeing. By taking the usually unnoticed or unthought-of (marine stingers, the sport of luge, wombats) Lawrence fashions extraordinary poetic essays that involve his considerable wit, style, and formal skill.
Lawrence's fascination with landscape, seascape, and animals is unsentimental and bracingly aware of humans' ambiguous relationship to those things. As such, his poems move powerfully between the modes of praise and protest.
Typewriter Music, David Malouf, University of Queensland Press
David Malouf's late return to poetry (where his career began) is a welcome development in the career of one of Australia's best-known and most successful writers. Typewriter Music brilliantly illustrates Malouf's profound metaphorical skills. The collection's poems are poems of transformation, taking the details of everyday life and fashioning something rich and strange out of them.
Malouf's poems of love, ageing, and mortality are moving and insightful. Seven Last Words of the Emperor Hadrian is a minor masterpiece, showing Malouf's inventiveness and abundant linguistic talents.
Scar Revision, Tracy Ryan, Fremantle Press
Scar Revision is concerned with the literal and metaphorical scars of grief, parenthood, and love, tracing moments of intensity, and the long intensity of familial and personal history. Ryan's compelling poems are both direct and metaphorical, marked by their striking imagery and rhythmic skill, as well as their skilful blend of demotic and lyrical language.
They are also notable for the way they balance seriousness of purpose with an arresting sense of humour. The book is a powerfully coherent collection, offering brilliant poetic models of how we "revise" the scars caused by experience and loss.
Victorian Premier's Poetry Prize:
Event, Judith Bishop (Salt Publishing)
Judith Bishop's Event is distinguished by the sophistication and originality of its varied subject matter, its attention to craft and form, and above all by the intensity of its language, which confidently creates striking effects - sometimes dark, sometimes brilliant, often daring.
Press Release, Lisa Gorton, (Giramondo Publishing)
The consistent poise and thoughtfulness of Lisa Gorton' poetic voice in Press Release is remarkable, whether modulating into intellectual speculation, wry humour, or an elegiac tenderness utterly unsentimental or self-regarding. Many poets have written about the Mallee: Gorton's sequence manages to be original, technically varied, and at once witty and poignant.
As We Draw Ourselves, Barry Hill, (Five Islands Press)
Barry Hill has several earlier collections, but the judging panel found in As We Draw Ourselves the element of fresh directions we were privileging in well-known contenders. That poetry about art can be a way of exploring what it is to be human is a traditional enough theme, but Hill's tri-partite locating of his texts in China, Italy and Australia extends the thematic range, and, in particular, allows the admirable delicacy and elegance of the poems in the opening Chinese section to contrast strikingly with the morerobust quality of the Italian.
Thanks to Alison Croggon, herself a recently published poet with a new book THEATRE now vailable wherever SALT titles are sold in Australia - and, presumbaly, around the world - for all the above information.
Friday, August 08, 2008
OVERLAND MAGAZINE JUDITH WRIGHT POETRY PRIZE for NEW and EMERGING POETS
In 2007, Overland and the Malcolm Robertson Foundation joined forces to create the Overland Magazine Judith Wright Prize for New and Emerging Poets.
We are pleased to announce that in 2008 the prize money has been increased to $3000, with two minor prizes of $500.
Eligible poets are those who have not yet had a collection of their work commercially published (that is, by a publishing house with commercial distribution). A maximum of three unpublished poems is allowed per entrant. The poems will be judged by Overland’s poetry editor, Keri Glastonbury. The winning poem will be published in the magazine.
Entries, with entry form, should be sent to:
‘Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize’
VU–Footscray Park
PO Box 14428
MELBOURNE VIC 8001
by Friday 7 November 2008.
Winners will be announced in Overland 194, March 2009.
More information is available at www.overland.org.au
This prize is made possible by the support of the Malcolm Robertson Foundation.
We are pleased to announce that in 2008 the prize money has been increased to $3000, with two minor prizes of $500.
Eligible poets are those who have not yet had a collection of their work commercially published (that is, by a publishing house with commercial distribution). A maximum of three unpublished poems is allowed per entrant. The poems will be judged by Overland’s poetry editor, Keri Glastonbury. The winning poem will be published in the magazine.
Entries, with entry form, should be sent to:
‘Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize’
VU–Footscray Park
PO Box 14428
MELBOURNE VIC 8001
by Friday 7 November 2008.
Winners will be announced in Overland 194, March 2009.
More information is available at www.overland.org.au
This prize is made possible by the support of the Malcolm Robertson Foundation.
Poets Partners at Pages Cafe 16th August 2008
From the desk of Frances Macauley Forde:
Andrew Burke writes for stage, page, screen and ear and, has a PhD in Writing from ECU. He’s taught in China, The Kimberley, currently at FAWWA doing workshops but is about to go off to Broome for a month as a Writer in Residence. BUT FIRST he will guest host Poets Corner @ Pages Cafe and invite well-known WA Poet Partners and writers:
Glen Phillips & Rita Tognini
Marcella Polain & Mike Williams
Frances Arnett Sbrocchi & N.J (Jim) Cornish
Andrew Taylor & Beate Josephi
It promises to be an interesting and inspiring afternoon.
We begin at 2pm so get your 1st coffees in early.
OPEN MIC is cancelled.
Further Information: Frances Macaulay Forde poetscornerwa@yahoo.com.au
Many thanks, as always, to PAGES CAFE and the WA STATE LIBRARY for their on-going support of POETS CORNER.
Andrew Burke writes for stage, page, screen and ear and, has a PhD in Writing from ECU. He’s taught in China, The Kimberley, currently at FAWWA doing workshops but is about to go off to Broome for a month as a Writer in Residence. BUT FIRST he will guest host Poets Corner @ Pages Cafe and invite well-known WA Poet Partners and writers:
Glen Phillips & Rita Tognini
Marcella Polain & Mike Williams
Frances Arnett Sbrocchi & N.J (Jim) Cornish
Andrew Taylor & Beate Josephi
It promises to be an interesting and inspiring afternoon.
We begin at 2pm so get your 1st coffees in early.
OPEN MIC is cancelled.
Further Information: Frances Macaulay Forde poetscornerwa@yahoo.com.au
Many thanks, as always, to PAGES CAFE and the WA STATE LIBRARY for their on-going support of POETS CORNER.
Blow-up church for beach-goers
Now thia idea could be translated into Australian >g<
ROME (Reuters) - Catholic nuns and priests in Italy are following their flocks to the beach this summer, establishing an inflatable church and a beach-convent in the sands to lure sunbathers.
The 30-metre (98 ft) long blow-up church -- staffed by priests ready to take confession -- will debut on Saturday on the Adriatic coast in the Molise region, an organizer said.
"There will be four or five people singing, with music about God," said Chiara Facci with Catholic group Sentinelli del Mattino. Night time activities, which will not include Mass, will run from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.
The first attempt to inaugurate the inflatable church last month on the holiday island of Sardinia failed after strong winds forced organizers to relocate, she said.
...
On the Mediterranean coast, nuns from a convent near the southern Italian city of Naples have relocated to beach cabins to join holidaymakers saying the rosary. An adjoining altar was set up under two tents.
"The concept of a beach-convent is something that is appreciated by vacationers and the nuns themselves," priest Antonio Rungi, who helped spearheaded the initiative, told Italian news agency ANSA.
ROME (Reuters) - Catholic nuns and priests in Italy are following their flocks to the beach this summer, establishing an inflatable church and a beach-convent in the sands to lure sunbathers.
The 30-metre (98 ft) long blow-up church -- staffed by priests ready to take confession -- will debut on Saturday on the Adriatic coast in the Molise region, an organizer said.
"There will be four or five people singing, with music about God," said Chiara Facci with Catholic group Sentinelli del Mattino. Night time activities, which will not include Mass, will run from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.
The first attempt to inaugurate the inflatable church last month on the holiday island of Sardinia failed after strong winds forced organizers to relocate, she said.
...
On the Mediterranean coast, nuns from a convent near the southern Italian city of Naples have relocated to beach cabins to join holidaymakers saying the rosary. An adjoining altar was set up under two tents.
"The concept of a beach-convent is something that is appreciated by vacationers and the nuns themselves," priest Antonio Rungi, who helped spearheaded the initiative, told Italian news agency ANSA.
Thursday, August 07, 2008
Australian Poets Reading at Mildura
Les Murray, Sarah Day, Anthony Lawrence: Poets Reading.
Mildura Writers' Festival
Mildura | August 2008
http://www.themonthly.com.au/tm/node/1113
Part Two: http://www.themonthly.com.au/tm/node/1118
(Photo my wife Jeanette with Les Murray in the backyard of Andrew Taylor's home some months ago.)
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
William Carlos Williams and friends
Williams with cat, Rutherford, NJ, 1916
Front row, L-R: Alison Hartpence, Afred Kreymborg, WCW, Skip Cannell
Back row, L-R: Jean Crotti, Marcel Duchamp, Walter Arensberg,
Man Ray, R.A. Sanborn, Maxwell Bodenheim
Monday, August 04, 2008
The great Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn has died
MOSCOW (AP) -- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, the Nobel Prize-winning author whose books chronicled the horrors of the Soviet gulag system, has died of heart failure, his son said Monday. He was 89.
Stepan Solzhenitsyn told The Associated Press his father died late Sunday, but declined further comment.
Friday, August 01, 2008
Total eclipse of the Sun due August 1 2008
A total eclipse of the sun is to take place in the Northern Hemisphere on 1 August.
To see a video click on the following (brilliant) link:
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/player/flash/syndicatedVideoPlayer.swf?vid=solar-eclipse-vin
Thursday, July 31, 2008
The Best American Poetry blog
http://www.thebestamericanpoetry.typepad.com/the_best_american_poetry/
The BAP blog gave me this image of Emily Dickenson and her dog Carlo, who seems to have played a significant part in her life. David Lehman, series editor of BAP, and friends have made this blog - originally to extend the poetry basis of their annual, but now with a wider agenda, including such subjects as baseball and sex.
Wednesday, July 30, 2008
Jerome Rothenberg's blog and Poems for the Millenium volume 3
Jerome Rothenberg, one of my favourite living poets and movers&shakers in ethnopoetics, now has a blog: http://poemsandpoetics.blogspot.com/ It is rich in information and creative sharing. He announced its presence on another list, so I quote below part of his invitation to view:
The following anyway are the last ten entries on the blog, poemsandpoetics.blogspot.com, and will be followed in the next couple of weeks by further previews from Poems for the Millennium, volume 3, and by contributions from Pierre Joris and Charles Bernstein, among others:
From The Medusa Interview: Anthologies, Modernism, & Postmodernism
Ian Tyson's "17 Horse Songs X-XIII" with a Note on Ian Tyson...
Reconfiguring Romanticism (6): Poe's Eureka, with commentary, for Hanon Reznikov
Rae Armantrout, BABEL, a Poem & a Comment, plus an excerpt from Collected Prose
A Note and Poem (Blessèd Terror) for Jean Pierre Faye and "Change"
Reconfiguring Romanticism (5): Dionysios Solomos Poem & Commentary..
Clayton Eshleman: The Left Foot of King Ramesses I, with a note on Clayton Eshleman
Gematria (1): Seven Poems in Dedication
Reconfiguring Romanticism (4): Hugo & Dickinson
That Dada Strain Continued: Three from Tristan Tzara, with a Note on Tristan Tzara
(end quote)
Elsewhere, in 2002, Jerome Rothenberg said: We proceed in the spirit of Gertrude Stein, often quoted by me: The exciting thing about all this is that as it is new it is old and as it is old it is new, but now we have come to be in our way which is an entirely different way.
Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Portrait of Zimmy
This is our playful pup, Zimmy, a Jack Russell who rushes around day and night, and then collapses in a heap. Here she is in a very unusual pose - quiet and serene on a colourful rug as we holidayed down south last week.
Journaling-aling-ling
Yesterday, I started tuting in a unit at Edith Cowan University called Creativity & Writing. First major topic was Journal useage and value for a practicing writer. I pulled out notebooks and a journal from my pockets and bag, surprised myself that I carry so much hopeful paper when the love of my life is this laptop and its talents. Old habits die hard.
Then, this morning, long after students have left, I suddenly realize that blogs are a form of journal. Why didn't I realize that yesterday and tell them?! Awk, personal shortcomings are my frustration.
For example take a look at http://stephenvincent.net/blog/ where Stephen Vincent utilises his camera (see photo above off his blog) and his language responses to the images created to create a great dialogue with the reader. A small quote should give you a taste of its flavour:
"Is context everything? No. One lives - or has the opportunity - between zoom and focus, between the microcosm of the particular and the multiple approach of the the broad. Mythology, legend, narrative - no matter how conventional or avant are drawn (created) from the inherrent juxtapositions or coherrences of the picture."
... and elsewhere on his blog, very moving moments with his aged Mum and her words as poetry. Take a look. I will direct students there next week.
Monday, July 28, 2008
David Brooks finds a new (true) voice
A new book from my old friend David Brooks is on the horizon from UQP. I'm excited to see a write-up in the Sydney Morning Herald, from which I quote:
'Now comes The Balcony, a volume of nearly 100 poems, different from everything else he has written, Brooks says.
It is a question of voice, one he has been searching for for a long time.
"I have been struggling, trying to shift myself out of some very old and deeply lodged ideas about how I should write poems. I have been trying to find a new voice - I mean, I didn't know that I was trying to find a new voice, I didn't even know I was lodged in some old ideas of the poem - but now with what has happened with these poems, I at last know that I am speaking as myself.
"I also realise now that at last, after all this time, I am not afraid of speaking as myself. I realise that I hadn't before. But now I know that there is nothing else you can do: you come to a point in your life where you don't worry about how you seem to other people. That is where I am now. That really is a huge relief, getting over yourself. And I am getting over myself at last." '
See the entire article at http://www.smh.com.au/news/books/poet-finds-a-sensual-new-voice/2008/07/25/1216492715988.html
Handwritten Typographers
Take a look here. Those great designers who create the typefaces we use often have a variety of handwriting styles! Take a look at http://www.themaninblue.com/articles/handwritten_typographers/
Monday, July 21, 2008
voicebox
poetry performance event
presents
FAWWA Masterclass poets
Flora Smith
&
Carol Milner
plus open mic
La Tropicana Cafe
177 High street Fremantle.
Thursday August 7th at 7.30 pm.
cost: $5.00/$3.00conc
voiceboxfreo@yahoo.com.au
poetry performance event
presents
FAWWA Masterclass poets
Flora Smith
&
Carol Milner
plus open mic
La Tropicana Cafe
177 High street Fremantle.
Thursday August 7th at 7.30 pm.
cost: $5.00/$3.00conc
voiceboxfreo@yahoo.com.au
Sunday, July 20, 2008
One man's muse is another man's ...
And what of women poets? Who or what is their Muse? A muscle-bound new-age sensitive guy? Nah. This musing is only for amusing - more serious work awaits without ...
(I went looking for a classical image of a muse, and found the above. She's a backstreet muse, thoroughly unlike the image I was searching for, yet 'grounded and sensual', if they be two of my criteria, as exposed in the next posting ((which, of course, was posted prior to this ... as all good bloggers know.)) )
... and that cover illustration is such a lovely contrast to my portrait photo, with wife Jeanette, up in the coner of my blog >g<
Nurses ARE muses, as you know full well...
Thank you for the rich replies to yesterday's tale, one of which stated: 'Nurses ARE muses, as you know full well...' Yes, they have been good friends to me throughout my life - grounded and sensual. Only as an adult poet (that's often a conflict in terms) have I realised the Muse(s) is not some airy fairy, mythical goddess, but living breathing people who inspire a poet to think beyond the mundane, be it in a highly charged sensual response to the perceived or a heightened awareness of the spiritual. I think it was Robert Graves, of 'White Goddess' fame, who said a poet always must be in love, and for this he had various women other than his wife. Maybe I've got the guy wrong, or the story wrong, but any infatuation with another woman in my writerature tends to lend itself to schoolboyish poems about their breasts and eyes/thighs, and their mock-heroic unobtainableness. Luckily I soon notice this and throw such poetic reveries in the bin. (Perhaps my doctor is a muse: she is middle-aged, mother, caring, well-grounded, and laconic, with a wry Aussie sense of humour. Any doc who'll prescribe salmon for every meal is a friend of mine!)
Speaking of the 'highly charged sensual', among the viagra spam subject headings this morning was this unintentional pun or play on words: Member Listing. Huh! Listing to starboard, perhaps!
Speaking of the 'highly charged sensual', among the viagra spam subject headings this morning was this unintentional pun or play on words: Member Listing. Huh! Listing to starboard, perhaps!
Saturday, July 19, 2008
I said to my dog this morning ...
I said to my dog this morning, freezing in the backyard at 6.07am, ‘If you eat your own poo, you’ll probably spew!’ It is a basic rhyming couplet, not unusual in the playground, in rap music or in advertising jingles. Yet here I am, 63 years and eleven-twelfths, semi-retired uni lecturer, retired ad land Creative Director – and that’s all I can come up with for my wisdom of the dawn.
So, what’s with the rhyming couplet? I’ve been dropping rhymes on the ears of the unsuspecting since I was a pup – like ‘shave, shower, and smell like a flower’. Painful stuff, but perhaps more pleasurable than my other long-term habit, punning.
Anyway, this is a pre(r)amble without purpose. My main subject here, which I was hoping to segue into nicely but it ain’t gunna happen, is this week’s self-inflected homework. This week, at my Wednesday morning Creative Writing class at Tom Collins House, Swanbourne (10am to Noon. If you’re not busy, drop in) I set homework of writing a narrative situated within a job you have held. As part of the project, we all had to make a short list of our occupations. I listed three – uni lecturer, Creative Director, and rubbish tip scavenger. It took me until this morning, Saturday morning, to realise that I had not listed my raison d’etre: writing poetry. I am a poet. I won’t change the world, I probably won’t win a Pulitzer Prize, but I am a poet. It means the world to me. I am depressed if I’m not writing, and over the moon if some words of mine are graced with printer’s ink.
So, why don’t I list it as an occupation? Poet.
I once put it on a Commonwealth Employment Service form as my occupation when I was about 18 years, annoyed that no-one ever saw it as a valuable act. They told me to be serious. And now I’m neglecting it in a similar vein. (Will the cock crow three times before dawn?) It’s the forces of society, isn’t it: everything is indexed to the Holy Dollar. (The USAmericans even had ‘In God We Trust’ on their dollar at once stage – a holy item.)
Now, to get back on task, my homework should search out an incident in my career as poet and tell that in a narrative style. Yes, I have a few anecdotes, stories I trot out at the drop of a hat in the company of attentive students or at literary parties.
AN EARLY LESSON IN CONCRETE IMAGERY AS A VEHICLE FOR EMOTION IN POETRY
I was a bearded, bongo-playing Beatnik at eighteen years old. Kerouac had supplanted Saint Francis of Assisi as my hero about eighteen months before, and I had consumed as much Beat literature as I could lay my hands on in Perth, the world’s most isolated capital city. It was 1962 and my home town on the west coast of Australia was a country town with pretensions. Contemporary jazz and Beat lit were scarce. Invisible would be closer.
So, my best mate Viv Kitson (poet and surfer) and I decided to hitch to Sydney. Long story short, we arrived in Adelaide, capital of South Australia, and a desert and two days drive away from home. We hit the booze one afternoon, and met up with two other strangers in town: two Scottish folksingers who were travelling the world courtesy of their vocal cords. Amazing. We were in awe of them, their bravery and their stories. But likewise, they liked us, and our crazy claims to be poets. I pulled out my exercise book in which I had painstakingly transposed twenty four of my best poems in copperplate handwriting. It was entitled “24 Poems”.
We yakkety-yakked and drank all afternoon until they had to get ready for a gig at the Catacombs, a folk club in town. We left them and went to a pub to drink more, then wandered through town until opening time for the club.
It was the days of the folk boom, so little imitation Pete Seegers and plastic Bob Dylans vied for the spotlight with out-of-tune Joan Baezs … We were still drinking, cheap wine by this stage, and I was well away. At last, our Scottish friends were announced and got up to sing. They wowed everyone with true whaling songs sung a capella, interspersed with tales of their travels in broad accents. We were so proud to be their friends. All of a sudden I heard my name, Andy, said with an original origin accent.
‘Come on up and treat us to a couple of ya poems, Andy, lad. Come on! Wouldn’t you like a few poems, hey?’ they asked the audience. The audience indicated ‘Yes!’ and I shrank further down into my coat. After some fruitless cajoling, one of the Scottish boys leant forward and grabbed my exercise book out of my hands.
‘Okay, if Andy won’t read his own poems to us, I’ll give ‘em an airing.’
The light was dim, if you can picture it, about one and a half watts I reckon. Smoke filled the room. Scotty started to read my favourite poem which I had read to them that afternoon. It was called ‘This Body, World’, and I was very proud of it. I can’t remember it all but some of it went like this:
My God, a Muse jumped on me
From a Darkness and the World
Did the Big Act with a shuddering
Orgasm. Between the lovelegs of life,
My senses bright – the rain is real!
Etcetera. It was about sixteen lines long (I had studiously avoided such a pedestrian thing as a sonnet).
Scotty began reading: My God, a nurse jumped on me …
Ahh, I lost the rest of the poem, ashamed of his gaping gaff. What would they think! My masterpiece ruined!
… But they loved it. And me. I was a hero, a living poet, just recently returned from the heights of Mount Parnassus.
I learnt a big lesson about poetry that night: use the concrete and not the abstract. Write with images of the five senses and avoid abstract posturing.
I have written a million poems since then, and luckily I have lost ’24 Poems’ along the track, but if you are writing poems, the best way to progress is to keep listening to the reactions of those you respect and trust.
So, what’s with the rhyming couplet? I’ve been dropping rhymes on the ears of the unsuspecting since I was a pup – like ‘shave, shower, and smell like a flower’. Painful stuff, but perhaps more pleasurable than my other long-term habit, punning.
Anyway, this is a pre(r)amble without purpose. My main subject here, which I was hoping to segue into nicely but it ain’t gunna happen, is this week’s self-inflected homework. This week, at my Wednesday morning Creative Writing class at Tom Collins House, Swanbourne (10am to Noon. If you’re not busy, drop in) I set homework of writing a narrative situated within a job you have held. As part of the project, we all had to make a short list of our occupations. I listed three – uni lecturer, Creative Director, and rubbish tip scavenger. It took me until this morning, Saturday morning, to realise that I had not listed my raison d’etre: writing poetry. I am a poet. I won’t change the world, I probably won’t win a Pulitzer Prize, but I am a poet. It means the world to me. I am depressed if I’m not writing, and over the moon if some words of mine are graced with printer’s ink.
So, why don’t I list it as an occupation? Poet.
I once put it on a Commonwealth Employment Service form as my occupation when I was about 18 years, annoyed that no-one ever saw it as a valuable act. They told me to be serious. And now I’m neglecting it in a similar vein. (Will the cock crow three times before dawn?) It’s the forces of society, isn’t it: everything is indexed to the Holy Dollar. (The USAmericans even had ‘In God We Trust’ on their dollar at once stage – a holy item.)
Now, to get back on task, my homework should search out an incident in my career as poet and tell that in a narrative style. Yes, I have a few anecdotes, stories I trot out at the drop of a hat in the company of attentive students or at literary parties.
AN EARLY LESSON IN CONCRETE IMAGERY AS A VEHICLE FOR EMOTION IN POETRY
I was a bearded, bongo-playing Beatnik at eighteen years old. Kerouac had supplanted Saint Francis of Assisi as my hero about eighteen months before, and I had consumed as much Beat literature as I could lay my hands on in Perth, the world’s most isolated capital city. It was 1962 and my home town on the west coast of Australia was a country town with pretensions. Contemporary jazz and Beat lit were scarce. Invisible would be closer.
So, my best mate Viv Kitson (poet and surfer) and I decided to hitch to Sydney. Long story short, we arrived in Adelaide, capital of South Australia, and a desert and two days drive away from home. We hit the booze one afternoon, and met up with two other strangers in town: two Scottish folksingers who were travelling the world courtesy of their vocal cords. Amazing. We were in awe of them, their bravery and their stories. But likewise, they liked us, and our crazy claims to be poets. I pulled out my exercise book in which I had painstakingly transposed twenty four of my best poems in copperplate handwriting. It was entitled “24 Poems”.
We yakkety-yakked and drank all afternoon until they had to get ready for a gig at the Catacombs, a folk club in town. We left them and went to a pub to drink more, then wandered through town until opening time for the club.
It was the days of the folk boom, so little imitation Pete Seegers and plastic Bob Dylans vied for the spotlight with out-of-tune Joan Baezs … We were still drinking, cheap wine by this stage, and I was well away. At last, our Scottish friends were announced and got up to sing. They wowed everyone with true whaling songs sung a capella, interspersed with tales of their travels in broad accents. We were so proud to be their friends. All of a sudden I heard my name, Andy, said with an original origin accent.
‘Come on up and treat us to a couple of ya poems, Andy, lad. Come on! Wouldn’t you like a few poems, hey?’ they asked the audience. The audience indicated ‘Yes!’ and I shrank further down into my coat. After some fruitless cajoling, one of the Scottish boys leant forward and grabbed my exercise book out of my hands.
‘Okay, if Andy won’t read his own poems to us, I’ll give ‘em an airing.’
The light was dim, if you can picture it, about one and a half watts I reckon. Smoke filled the room. Scotty started to read my favourite poem which I had read to them that afternoon. It was called ‘This Body, World’, and I was very proud of it. I can’t remember it all but some of it went like this:
My God, a Muse jumped on me
From a Darkness and the World
Did the Big Act with a shuddering
Orgasm. Between the lovelegs of life,
My senses bright – the rain is real!
Etcetera. It was about sixteen lines long (I had studiously avoided such a pedestrian thing as a sonnet).
Scotty began reading: My God, a nurse jumped on me …
Ahh, I lost the rest of the poem, ashamed of his gaping gaff. What would they think! My masterpiece ruined!
… But they loved it. And me. I was a hero, a living poet, just recently returned from the heights of Mount Parnassus.
I learnt a big lesson about poetry that night: use the concrete and not the abstract. Write with images of the five senses and avoid abstract posturing.
I have written a million poems since then, and luckily I have lost ’24 Poems’ along the track, but if you are writing poems, the best way to progress is to keep listening to the reactions of those you respect and trust.
Publishers and authors in book fight: The Australian
Justine Ferrari | July 10, 2008
PUBLISHERS and authors are joining forces to campaign against the proposed lifting of restrictions on booksellers importing books that are also published in Australia.
The Australian Publishers Association and the Australian Society of Authors are organising a grassroots campaign to educate the public that cheap books will come at a cost to the local industry.
APA chief executive Maree McCaskill said yesterday that the two organisations had retained the services of influential lobbyists Hawker Britton to organise the campaign and would meet other industry groups next week to map out a strategy.
The campaign will pitch former NSW premier Bob Carr, now on the board of one of the nation's largest booksellers, Dymocks, against his former chief of staff, Bruce Hawker, the managing director and co-founder of Hawker Britton.
The Council of Australian Governments decided last week to ask the Productivity Commission to review copyright laws restricting the parallel importation of books.
These laws give the Australian copyright owner control over who is allowed to import books subject to the 30-day rule. Under this rule, local publishers must supply a book within 30 days of its publication overseas, otherwise booksellers can import directly from the foreign publisher.
Booksellers and reports by the Productivity Commission and its predecessors argue that lifting the restrictions will result in cheaper books for the consumer.
Authors are joining publishers in opposing the move, with Nick Earls writing to Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan and Queensland's Premier Anna Bligh and Treasurer Andrew Fraser.
"Through the internet and discount outlets, Australians' access to cheaper books has already improved over time, and the cultural cost of allowing parallel imports is simply too great," Earls says.
"It would be a strong disincentive towards the publishing of Australian stories, and to the unearthing and nurturing of new talent."
Dymocks chief executive officer Don Grover said the publishing industry was ignoring global changes, such as the huge rise in people shopping on the internet, where books were exempt from GST, making them even cheaper.
PUBLISHERS and authors are joining forces to campaign against the proposed lifting of restrictions on booksellers importing books that are also published in Australia.
The Australian Publishers Association and the Australian Society of Authors are organising a grassroots campaign to educate the public that cheap books will come at a cost to the local industry.
APA chief executive Maree McCaskill said yesterday that the two organisations had retained the services of influential lobbyists Hawker Britton to organise the campaign and would meet other industry groups next week to map out a strategy.
The campaign will pitch former NSW premier Bob Carr, now on the board of one of the nation's largest booksellers, Dymocks, against his former chief of staff, Bruce Hawker, the managing director and co-founder of Hawker Britton.
The Council of Australian Governments decided last week to ask the Productivity Commission to review copyright laws restricting the parallel importation of books.
These laws give the Australian copyright owner control over who is allowed to import books subject to the 30-day rule. Under this rule, local publishers must supply a book within 30 days of its publication overseas, otherwise booksellers can import directly from the foreign publisher.
Booksellers and reports by the Productivity Commission and its predecessors argue that lifting the restrictions will result in cheaper books for the consumer.
Authors are joining publishers in opposing the move, with Nick Earls writing to Kevin Rudd, Wayne Swan and Queensland's Premier Anna Bligh and Treasurer Andrew Fraser.
"Through the internet and discount outlets, Australians' access to cheaper books has already improved over time, and the cultural cost of allowing parallel imports is simply too great," Earls says.
"It would be a strong disincentive towards the publishing of Australian stories, and to the unearthing and nurturing of new talent."
Dymocks chief executive officer Don Grover said the publishing industry was ignoring global changes, such as the huge rise in people shopping on the internet, where books were exempt from GST, making them even cheaper.
Friday, July 18, 2008
Poem for my grandson Quinn
Today
the price of petrol is up again
but you’re not going anywhere:
you lie
snug in your hospital crib,
visitors 3 to 8pm, Mother’s milk
on tap
and a wardrobe mistress to attend to
those messier moments. This
is life
on the outside.
Takes a little getting used to, I’ll admit.
A word in
your shell-like:
always own toys,
shine a light
on skeletons in
or out of the dark,
and make it a habit to sing in the bath.
From history, learn to create
the future.
Now, go forth.
I think you are ready.
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Quote of the Day
It isn't necessary to imagine the world ending in fire or ice. There are two other possibilities: one is paperwork, and the other is nostalgia.
Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Saturday, July 12, 2008
Tim Winton's Breath
I'd like to quote the whole review here, but I'll be circumspect and only quote from it.
BREATH
Tim Winton
Farrar Straus Giroux
ISBN 978-0374116347
217 pages
$23 [American price]
Reviewed by Carolyn See, who can be reached at www.carolynsee.com [I had trouble getting through there, so good luck]
I used to teach an undergraduate class in Australian literature. It was open to non-English majors and fulfilled a general requirement, so routinely a couple of hundred disaffected youths would crowd into a large classroom and emerge, at the end of the course, as dithering fanatics saving up for plane fare to Australia. They fell dead in love; they loved Peter Carey, Elizabeth Jolley and Thea Astley, but they worshiped Tim Winton. For a while they went around asking each other, "Why don't people know more about this guy? He's the most amazing man in the world!"
And it's true. When Winton was still in his 20s he wrote "Shallows," a dark masterpiece about whaling that ranks with (or above?) "Moby-Dick." His "Cloudstreet" talks about class and caste and love and our inexplicable wish for death and our relationship to the universe. It's the Hope Diamond of novels -- the one that set my students' teeth to chattering. He's produced 11 volumes of novels and short stories, but he lives in western Australia, one of the remotest parts of the world. People don't know about him. They don't know what they're missing.
(...)
"Breath," Winton's latest novel, is stunning in the depth of its audacity. Because, when you think about it, breath is our relationship to the cosmos. We breathe in an iota of the universe, we breathe it out; without it, we die. But then why is there something in us that makes us want to hold our breath as kids until we pass out, or makes us just stop breathing while we're sleeping until our rattled partners shake us awake?
In "Breath," Winton sets up an ancient Australian forest against a beautiful seacoast with plenty of turbulent weather -- there seem always to be storms coming in. All this dwarfs a brutally ordinary little town with a mill where the father of a boy called Pikelet goes every day to risk his life. Pikelet is 11 when the novel begins and spends much of his free time swimming in the river, diving down, holding on to tree roots, holding his breath until he sees stars. That's how he meets Loonie, a year older, who shares the same obsession. Pikelet, little fish; Loonie -- yes, he's crazy as hell. The two swim, dive, goof off, do odd jobs and finally bike out a few miles to the ocean where they meet some surfers.
(...)
This would seem to be a novel about surfing, from fiddling around with your first little Styrofoam board to riding waves that are three stories high and a mile offshore. (...)
Surfing is only the metaphor. ... But "Breath" is about moving out of your depth, getting in over your head, having your soul damaged beyond repair. ... But against all this pointless sorrow, there remains the evanescent beauty of the world, and Winton matches that with limitlessly beautiful prose.
Copyright 2008 Washington Post Writers Group
Friday, July 11, 2008
Of interest to Beckett fans ...
http://www.villagevoice.com/2008-07-09/theater/beckett-texts-for-something/
Quote:
"I must go on. I can't go on. I'll go on." So ends The Unnamable, Samuel Beckett's inscrutable and very nearly unreadable 1953 novel. Irish actor Barry McGovern has taken those words to heart. For 23 years, he's gone on, performing his distillation of The Unnamable and two other Beckett novels, Molloy and Malone Dies.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Creative Connections Opening at Warwick Centro
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photos: Tibor with video camera; Val Shields opening the exhibition; Sue Clennell in blue, myself with sheets of paper; Flora Smith reading; Glen Phillips and myself
This afternoon, Maureen Sexton and a team of volunteers put on an exhibition of art from differently abled people from various hostels. This art event is an annual event called Creative Connections - Invited poets responded in recent weeks to individual paintings, and today was the opening of the July exhibition. There will be another exhibition in September for National Poetry Week, complete with booklet marrying the painterly images with the poems that go with them.
The exhibition will run from Thursday 10th July to Saturday 12th July during normal trading hours at Warwick Centro Shopping Complex, Beach Road and Erindale Road, Warwick.
There will be a second exhibition in September.
The aims of the project are:
- to demonstrate through creative pursuits, the diverse abilities
and personalities of people who are differently-abled
- to enable differently-abled people, the community and
community groups to connect with each other.
Here are a couple of my poems which I hope to team up with their images, when I get permission.
ARTWORK NO 28
ARTIST: Michael Hoey
so much depends
upon Nature
dancing
force that through
the green world
pulses
sunlight that licks
the leaves of
grass
bark and low and gobble of
all creatures, great and
small
so much delight in
the garden of our
Earth
ARTWORK NO 50
ARTIST: Katie Bassett
Action! Lights!
yellowness of yolk echoes
yellingness of children
laughter of birds
The painter is painting
Psychedelic jellyfish
Beyond words
we’ve let out
our thoughts
to play
Action! Lights!
Willam Stafford article in The Oregonian
I'm a longtime fan of William Stafford, American poet. His habit of writing every morning inspired me to try to do the same many years ago. I am still an inconstant holder of this habit.
There is a wonderful article on him, entitled Oregon poet William Stafford is hugely popular -- 15 years after his death at The Oregonian, from which I quote a middle paragraph:
'In the [CO]camp, Stafford began a lifelong habit of getting up early to write, responding to the persistent scratching of what Portland poet Judith Barrington calls "the little daily dog eager to be let out." The routine was get up, go for a walk, then write until his wife arose. When his daughter Barbara was young, she decided to get up early and keep her father company. Stafford never let on that she was interrupting him but kept getting up earlier and earlier until she stopped.'
Read the entire article at http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1215226518277170.xml&coll=7&thispage=1
In you're interested in reading and hearing William Stafford, try http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/224
Wednesday, July 09, 2008
One of my colleagues in China
At Shanxi Normal University, China, they had a Walk of Famous Men. My favourite statue was this lively image of Einstein. Fellow lecturer John Jain took this photo, in 2006. Thanks for its use, John.
Monday, July 07, 2008
2008 CREATIVE CONNECTIONS ART AND POETRY EXHIBITION
Creative Connections and WA Poets Inc bring you the 2008 Creative Connections Art and Poetry Exhibition. This exhibition is supported by Disability Services Commission of WA.
There will be two exhibitions this year.
The first exhibition will be held on Thursday 10th, Friday 11th and Saturday 12th July 2008 at Centro Warwick Shopping Centre, during trading hours. There will be a launch at 3 pm on Thursday 10th, with guest speakers, to coincide with filming by Community Television.
The second exhibition will be held in conjunction with National Poetry Week on Thursday 5th, Friday 6th and Saturday 7th September 2008 at the Galleria Shopping Cente in Morley, during trading hours.
There are 55 Artworks by 30 Artists and 26 Poets are busy writing poetry to the artworks.
2008 Artists:
Jane Gribben
Bristol Hostel
Craig Hockey
Kathy Adair
Katie Bassett
Kristen Cameron
Laurie Coyne
Lisa Bernic
Matthew Bowen
Meryl Harris
Michael Hoey
Robert O'Dwyer
Vivienne Sharp
Wayne Russell
Norwich Hostel
Adrian Chadwick
Barry Tonkin
Cecilia Hynes
Cheryl Ham
Douglas Patching
Mildred D'Rozario
Terry Haynes
Sussex Hostel
Avril-Jo Coppping
Emma Biaisin
Emma Tamblyn
Dennis Goater
Graham Hoffman
Graham McNally
Harry Wheeler
Raymond Thomas
Tony Santoro
Buckthorn Group Home
Julie Dace
2008 Poets:
Tasha Adams
Andrew Burke
Saz Campbell
Coral Carter
Liana Christensen
Dr Sally Clarke
Sue Clennell
Peter Evans
Trisha Kotai Ewers
Jenny de Garis
Kevin Gillam
Peter Jeffery
Paula Jones
Christopher Konrad
Melanie Kwa
Deanne Leber
Mardi May
Julienne Miller
Scott-Patrick Mitchell
Jan Napier
Val Neubecker
Maureen Sexton
Flora Smith
Cathy Szathmary
Bron Thomason
Michael Williams
Sunday, July 06, 2008
John Updike's Book Reviewing rules
Thirty-one years ago, in the introduction to "Picked Up Pieces," his second collection of assorted prose, John Updike laid down his own six rules for reviewing. They are still the single best guide to fairness today:
"My rules," he writes, "shaped intaglio-fashion by youthful traumas at the receiving end of critical opinion, were and are:
1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.
2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.
3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.
4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending. (How astounded and indignant was I, when innocent, to find reviewers blabbing, and with the sublime inaccuracy of drunken lords reporting on a peasants' revolt, all the turns of my suspenseful and surpriseful narrative! Most ironically, the only readers who approach a book as the author intends, unpolluted by pre-knowledge of the plot, are the detested reviewers themselves. And then, years later, the blessed fool who picks the volume at random from a library shelf.)
5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's ouevre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?
To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser. Do not accept for review a book you are predisposed to dislike, or committed by friendship to like. Do not imagine yourself a caretaker of any tradition, an enforcer of any party standards, a warrior in an idealogical battle, a corrections officer of any kind. Never, never (John Aldridge, Norman Podhoretz) try to put the author "in his place," making him a pawn in a contest with other reviewers. Review the book, not the reputation. Submit to whatever spell, weak or strong, is being cast. Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end."
Taken from http://bookcriticscircle.blogspot.com/2006/06/reviewing-101-john-updikes-rules.html
Saturday, July 05, 2008
li'l poem
in last night's dream
words spoke through
puns and play
words are acts
when you constantly
refer to yourself
i see you constantly
defer to your self
you take rain
out for a walk
you let sun shine in
but you never leave
your self at home
words spoke through
puns and play
words are acts
when you constantly
refer to yourself
i see you constantly
defer to your self
you take rain
out for a walk
you let sun shine in
but you never leave
your self at home
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Welcome, Quinn
My eldest son, Miles and his wife Meredith are the proud parents of child number three, Quinn Nathaniel Burke, born June 30th at St John's in Subiaco. All well.
The photos are by Miles, and show Quinn at 1 hour, 5 hours and 8 hours old.
Of course, I am a proud grandparent, too!
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