General submission guidelines for 2010 – Poetry

Submission Guidelines for the 2010 National Jazz Writing Competition (poetry)

* Submit up to three poems
* Maximum 50 lines and 500 words per poem
* The poem must be about or inspired by an aspect of jazz or improvised music in Australia.
* Entry is free. Thanks to the assistance of the Copyright Agency Limited (CAL)’s Cultural Fund we do not need to charge an administration fee in 2010.
* Entries must not be published anywhere until after the prize has been announced.
* The competition is open to: Australian Residents who are not judges of the competition in the year of entry.
* Submit your entry by 30 June 2010. If posting, the envelope must be postmarked on or before 30 June. If emailing, the email must be sent no later than midnight on 30 June 2010, Eastern Australian time.
* Poems should be typed in 12 point font and double spaced.
* The competition is judged ‘blind’ so do not include your name on your poem(s). Submit a separate sheet with your details.
* First prize is $750. Other prizes will also be awarded for second and third places.
* Entries will not be returned. Please keep a copy for your own records.
* The decision of the judges is final. No discussion.
* Any entry that does not meet the criteria set out in the submission guidelines will not be considered

Your details on a separate sheet

Submit a separate sheet with your essay that includes the following information:

* Your name and address
* The title(s) of your poem(s)
* A contact telephone number
* Your email address
* Once again: Do not include your name on the poem(s)

Where to send entries

Email: with attachments in Microsoft Word ™ or PDF format to njwc@extempore.com.au
or
Post: Send hard copies printed single-sided on white A4 paper to:
National Jazz Writing Competition
PO Box 3079, Cotham LPO
Kew Vic 3101

From http://njwc.extempore.com.au/?page_id=37

Birthday Antics

"Look! Grandpa's taking a photo of you! Say hello to Grandpa!"

Weekend Beatnik - a light poem by Andrew Burke

‘Is that a real poncho
or is that a Sears poncho?’
Frank Zappa

I started out on bongos
but soon hit the harder stuff*

never did smoke banana peel
but dark green leaf from Pakistan

in a silver lined bowl
in a small pipe
in a vintage Rover
on the banks of the Swan

I lived in an accent learnt from The Subterraneans
paperback bought second hand
from a bookshop of many tongues

nearly lost my job writing
music specials and commercials
at a radio station
Where No Wrinklies Fly …

obvious to a right wing boss I was Communist
buying books from the Pioneer Bookshop
I hid Mayakovsky’s A Cloud In Trousers
among beer cans in my office drawer:
Open Only in Case of Emergency.

I started out on Time magazine
but soon hit Evergreen Review

played Monk’s Dream as I wrote
the Two Dog Night Special
for Saturday Night

living in the left bank
of my mind
shades on to avoid indignation

but rooted in the right bank
of suburban Perth
a weekend beatnik
complete with beads
a beret from army surplus
and DT Suzuki’s Zen scriptures


* apologies to Bob Dylan

KSP Writers Centre invites you to hear LES MURRAY

WA Poetry Walls for Festival

As part of the 2010 Poetry Festival WA Poets Inc, are organising poetry walls at a number of locations, and we want your contribution. Each poet may submit poetry with or without artwork. The work must be suitable for simple black and white photocopying and consist of a single sheet of A4 with a 2cm margin at the bottom for the WAPI and Festival logos.

The deadline is July 16th. Please send all contributions to WAPI, PO Box 684,Inglewood, WA, 6932.

Any poets who are interested in working on a Poetry in Schools project, please email Veronica Lake . You must be willing to obtain a Working with Children certificate, which costs $50.


--
WA Poets Inc
wapoets@gmail.com
http://www.wapoets.net.au

Scenes from India (apropos of nothing)

'Humoreske' - by Halvard Johnson

Are we inside the frog or outside? To say the least,
it makes for diverse and enjoyable living.
Just off the road to

wherever it was we were going,
very few poets, reading over
your shoulder. Transformed pre-trance

formations, the first I’d ever
heard of. Natural dis-
inclinations.

Marginally pond-bound
exceptional infur-
iations.

* * *

Halvard Johnson has been on this blog before. His wit and way with words appeal to me and when I once asked him for a 'poetic', he replied:
'Mostly I can't really explain how poetry works/gets written. It just does.'

Search this blog for more, then google him - He has an entire book online at http://www.scribd.com/doc/27039868/Halvard-Johnson-THE-PERFECTION-OF-MOZART-S-THIRD-EYE-Other-Sonnets which is entertaining reading - he takes the sonnets out for a spirited walk!

Ticket special – 2 for 1 Gamma Rays

Phoenix Theatre is offering a special of 2 for 1 tickets for the opening night, Thursday 24th June 2010, of The Effect of Gamma Rays on Man-in-the-Moon Marigolds at Phoenix Theatre Memorial Hall cnr Carrington Street and Rockingham Road, Hamilton Hill.

That is 2 tickets for $20!

To take advantage of this deal – bookings by email only to phoenixbookings@hotmail.com and mention Gamma Rays!

Poets Prizes and Prize Winners

The circuitous route of curiosity lead me to this site, which I didn't know existed before: http://poetsprize.com/index.html

The Griffen Prize, the T.S.Eliot Prize, Judith Wright Prize, Kenneth Slessor Prize - plus lots of current information and 'blurbs' on festivals and books. If you are resting between writing poems, it is a pleasant detour.

Pieces of Me: Frieda Hughes

This painting of her husband, Laszlo Lukacs, by Frieda Hughes is just one of 15 'pieces of me' displayed by the poet and artist at http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/gallery/2008/may/30/poetry.art?picture=334465624

What an interesting concept. What 15 pieces of ephemera would you present to display yourself? Frieda shows us a couple of her paintings, Wellington boots mixed with high heels, a favourite jacket from childhood, and - a cement mixer! I think mine would feature CDs and books. I don't have the Hopalong Cassidy outfit I wore as a child, or the set of glitter bongos I first played as a teenage drummer. Maybe a few old LPs remain in a cardboard box in the top of a cupboard: Allen Ginsberg reading 'Howl', Van Morrison with The Chieftans. The tooth fairy has my first teeth. Much of my old life has gone to the tip, thin pickings for seagulls who once clustered there. Now it's a tip no more but a Waste Disposal Centre - scant fun in that for a barefoot boy on weekends. Even my faithful old 1913 Smith Corona portable has gone to the tip, it's razor-edged 'O' startling no-one anymore.

Geoffrey Hill wins Oxford Professor of Poetry election by landslide

‘Greatest living poet in the English language’, who celebrates his 78th birthday today, voted in ahead of nine other candidates

His academic credentials and plethora of literary prizes have meant that Geoffrey Hill has been the frontrunner for the post of Oxford Professor of Poetry from the race’s start – and, this afternoon, the British poet was elected by a landslide.

Hill, who celebrates his 78th birthday today, was voted in ahead of nine other candidates with 1,156 votes, beating contenders including the Beat poet Michael Horovitz, the biographer Roger Lewis, Oxford-based performance poet Steve Larkin and South African poet Chris Mann.

Read all about it at http://worldbbnews.com/2010/06/geoffrey-hill-wins-oxford-professor-of-poetry-election-by-landslide/

Issa Haiku

the katydid
wagging his beard
is singing


-Issa, 1814

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

The Second Coming - Yeats (1920)

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

William Butler Yeats

This poem is just one of a list of 'poems everyone should know' by the about.com:poetry crew at http://poetry.about.com/od/poems/l/blyeatssecondcoming.htm At the site you will find notes about content and context, and information about Yeats himself. The other poems on the list are almost predictable - I would have missed the Emily Dickenson one and probably would have featured an older English poem before Whitman - a Milton or Donne sonnet for example. But it is all to do with personal choice, isn't it, with perhaps just a hint of cultural bias. It's all worth looking at, imho.

Writing Advice

Some advice I have heard writers give emerging writers:

John Marsden: Take risks.

Elizabeth Jolley: Put your bum in the chair and your words on the page.

Frank Moorehouse: Stay clean shaven and change your undies every day.

John Marsden: Be stingy.

Submission Link for 'Walking' issue of Landscapes magazine

Dear Andrew,

Thanks for writing. The link to the call for submissions is buried in the last issue. Here it is:

http://landscapeandlanguagecentre.au.com/hydrobotanica/Hydrobotanica_callforsubmissions_walking.pdf

That's great that you can link to your blog. We'd like to get a hearty round of submissions on the theme of walking.

All the best,

John Ryan

JACKADDER’S MUSIC CLUB This Sunday 3pm

Hope that you can make it along to JACKADDER’S MUSIC CLUB this Sunday June 20 at 3pm to enjoy the music and humour of award winning singer,songwriter DEB BECKETT.

She has picked up a swag of awards in recent years including: Western Australian Country Music Senior Songwriter Award 4 times as well as the Best Female Vocal award in 2007 & 2009. She recorded her album “Life, Love and Laughter Lines” in 2009. There are many and varied reasons for artists producing albums – but in the case of DEB BECKETT, the inspiration was both simple and compelling.

In October last year, the much awarded songwriter and twice winner of the W.A. Female vocal award in 2007 and 2009 was diagnosed with cancer. “It really was a shock," says Deb. "I'd never been sick in my life before and suddenly I was facing something that could take my life. I decided early on I was going to fight it with everything. I would keep really positive and not let the circumstances stop me from pursuing a dream which suddenly became not just rekindled but blazing.

“One of the things that suddenly seemed so important was to make sure that if I didn’t win the battle, I’d leave behind something that said what I was about apart from being a Mum, daughter and sister.” In 2005 I had entered one of my songs in the W.A. Country Music Awards. I’d never entered anything before and won with a song called ‘Off to the Diggings”. So off I went to Boyup Brook and dipped my toe back into country music – and it felt good so I decided to dive back in.”
I’d never felt comfortable being out front on the stage, even though that’s where I wanted to be, and I never thought in a million years I could do it. “But at Boyup Brook in 2005 I had to sing my winning song. I found the confidence I’d always lacked. The stage fright was gone – it was like finding a dream you’d tucked away and forgotten about.

“I came home with a rekindled dream to be a singer/songwriter, and I’ve pursued that since 2005 working around Western Australia.”

But inspiration is a selective thing, and whilst the reasons behind her renewed confidence and making of her album are clear, Deb’s amazing upbeat attitude should be an inspiration to plenty of others out there.

“I guess that having this Cancer, though a horrible thing, has brought about some positive things as well, like not taking things for granted and making the most of every day and not putting things off until tomorrow,” say Deb.

Support acts are Danny Gunzburg and Debra Ratcliffe.

The venue is Woodlands Reserve Hall, Teakwood Ave, Woodlands

For more details call Carmel on 94461558

Cost $8 Adults. Children free. Afternoon tea included

When I was a teenager, my brother Michael turned me on to Gene Krupa. It was a lasting passion - not so much for Krupa but for various forms of jazz drumming. However, it had another effect: the cover of Clef records back then had design and art work by David Stone Martin, a master of line and wash illustrations, as shown here with the Billie Holiday and James P.Johnson covers. His album covers are now up on the Internet at http://www.birkajazz.com/archive/stoneMartin.htm

Apart from David Stone Martin, I have always been drawn to the artwork of Ben Shahn and Jonathon Shahn ... Draw these styles together and you have the early cover work of Andy Warhol before he became THE Andy Warhol. The Griffen and Burrell ciovers are his.

CDs do have cover art, but today's artform for music is more the video. Progress I hate to call it, but time stands still for nobody - and technology dictates more changes today than a Zappa concerto!

So, I hope you enjoy these postcards from my past musical passions.

Hear Charles Bernstein read on ABC's Poetica on air or online

Poetica this week on ABC National Radio features one of my favourites, USA poet Charles Bernstein. It is repeated again on Thursday afternoon, but is available online for two weeks or so at http://www.abc.net.au/rn/poetica/default.htm

Here are the ABC's notes:

Thank you for saying thank you

A meeting with New York poet Charles Bernstein.

Charles Bernstein was born in New York City in 1950 and has published more than 20 books of poetry. He has been closely involved with the L=A=N=G=U=A=G=E poetry movement, and in the 1970s co-founded the journal of the same name.

In this production Charles Bernstein speaks to Anna Messariti in New York about his life and work, and reads a selection of his sharp, funny and political poems.

Sound engineer: David Le May
Producer: Christine Kinsella

Charles Bernstein's Selected Poems is published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Poems in the program

There's Beauty in the Sound
Thank you for saying thank you
The Ballad of the Girly Man
In Particular
Wherever Angels Go
It's 8.23 in New York
All from Girly Man published by University of Chicago Press

And
Doggy Bag
From With Strings published by University of Chicago Press.

"In this poor body, composed of one hundred bones and nine openings, is something called spirit, a flimsy curtain swept this way and that by the slightest breeze. It is spirit, such as it is, which led me to poetry, at first little more than a pastime, then the full business of my life. There have been times when my spirit, so dejected, almost gave up the quest, other times when it was proud, triumphant. So it has been from the very start, never finding peace with itself, always doubting the worth of what it makes."

Matsuo Basho
trans. by Lucien Stryk

Replay: A Snap Poem from 2006

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

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

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

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

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

Poetry Reading circa 1998 ...

Thanks to Frances Macaulay Forde for this piece of ephemera.

Landscapes 2010 CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS

The Journal of the International Centre for Landscape and Language at Edith Cowan University

Volume 4 Issue 1
Peripatetica

The upcoming issue of Landscapes 'Peripatetica' is soliciting responses to the theme of walking and bipedal movement in wild, suburban or urban areas.

American Transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau in his essay ‘Walking’ says ‘I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of Walking, that is, of taking walks--who had a genius, so to speak, for SAUNTERING’. Rebecca Solnit more recently in Wanderlust echoes Thoreau when she describes ‘walking is a subversive detour, the scenic route through a half-abandoned landscape of ideas and experiences’.

Landscapes is currently accepting submissions of poetry, fiction, non-fiction, photography, visual and sound art for this unique 2010 issue. We welcome all submissions that attempt to explore the theme of walking in literal or metaphoric ways, regionally in Southwest Australia or internationally.

Academic articles of 8000 words or less will be submitted to a peer-review process before publication.

Please see http://www.landscapeandlanguagecentre.au.com for submission guidelines and for previous issues

Closing Date 30 June 2010
General Editors Glen Phillips and Andrew Taylor ISSN 1448-0778

Addendum:

I went enquiring at their Landscapes site and with some difficulty found the following which may be useful to you.

Guide for Contributors to the ICLL journal Submissions

Landscapes welcomes submissions of scholarly articles, reviews and creative works on all aspects of the interrelationship between landscape and language, with a particular interest in ecocritical approaches. Reviews of books, notices of book launches, exhibitions and other events such as conferences and symposia are invited. Creative works accepted include short stories, poems, images and sound files. Scholarly articles will normally be 3000 - 7000 words; book reviews should usually comprise 600 - 800 words. The journal is published twice yearly. Submissions for Landscapes are accepted at any time throughout the year.

All submissions to Landscapes including creative works are refereed. The refereeing process may take up to 3 months. According to the interdisciplinary nature of the journal, our referees come from different disciplines. To view a list of previous and current referees of the journal please click here (coming soon).

Submissions should be sent in electronic form via attachments of MS word or Rich Text format documents to g.phillips@ecu.edu.au. Paper submissions will neither be considered nor returned. Images should be sent in jpg-format, sound files in wav-format. Scholarly articles must include an abstract of 150-200 words. All submissions must be accompanied by a brief biographical note. Contributions submitted to Landscapes should only require minor corrections and need to conform to the journal's style guide.

Style Guide

* Please use UK English.
* Please use single spacing for both main text and footnotes.
* The text should be unjustified with a font size of 12 points.
* Please use endnotes and in-text citations instead of footnotes.
* Indicate new paragraphs by indenting their first line with the tab key. Please do not indent the first paragraph under a heading.
* For all other matters please comply with the current edition of the MLA style. For more information on this style see http://www.mla.org/style.

Rockpile Tour Interviews and Feature at The Argotist Online.

This feature relates to ROCKPILE a collaboration between poets David Meltzer, Michael Rothenberg and Terri Carrion, who travelled through eight cities in the U.S. to perform poetry and prose, composed while on the road, with local musicians and artists in each city. ROCKPILE’s main aim was to educate and preserve, as well as to create a history of collaboration. It is hoped that it has helped to reinforce the tradition of the troubadour, a tradition that is central to the cultural upheaval and the identity politics that reawakened poets, artists, musicians and songwriters from the mid-1960s through to the 1970s.

Included in this feature is an interview with David Meltzer and Michael Rothenberg, an interview with David Meltzer, perspectives from two of the musicians involved (Bob Malone and Daniel McNaughton), some reactions from people who were either involved or who saw the tour on the road and an overview of the tour by Michael Rothenberg.

http://www.argotistonline.co.uk/Rockpile%20Interviews%20and%20Feature.htm

The other day I put up a link for the far-reaching site History of 20th C. Photography. On that same site was a link to Western Literature, of which Modernism was my first interest. Have a look - the evolution of cultural and artistic attitudes and stances is always interesting, especially when we are living in the aftermath, so-called Post Modernism - much of which is simply strands of Modernisn extended and separated from its roots.

Illustrations by Yuri Annenkov


http://www.all-art.org/history666_literature.html

Spoken Word in the Four5Nine: Sunday 20 June 2010

Poet, performer and Perth Poetry Club MC Janet Jackson presents an awesome lineup of local and interstate spoken word on Sunday 20 June in the old Cottonmouth venue: the Four5Nine Bar, Rosemount Hotel, 459 Fitzgerald Street, North Perth. Tickets at the door. $15 unwaged, $10 unwaged. Doors open 6:30pm. Dick Alderson. Tomás Ford. Kate Wilson. Amanda Joy. Kevin Gillam. Randall $tephens & Steve Smart (Melbourne). Plus open mike.

Janet says: 'I'm thrilled to be presenting such a smorgasbord of the best in Perth poetry and spoken word -- and Randall and Steve capture the absolute quintessence of Melbourne performance poetry. If you've got a mind, you'll enjoy this.'

What a lineup! Slam-winning headline Steve Smart has a presentation style that's almost violent in its nakedness, and a completely original voice, informed by everything from Bill Hicks to Laverne & Shirley to love and death to Tasmanian forest blockades. Randall $tephens has an angry vibe, spitting straight-talking lines of urban existence. Kevin Gillam, one of Perth's best-loved poets, performs his experimental, stylish poetry both with and without cello. Amanda Joy lives up to her name: poignant, lyrical poems of love, life and loss, presented with flair and feeling. Kate Wilson, from Bunbury, is one of WA’s favourite performance poets: get ready to hear rhymes that will tingle your spine. Tomás Ford, well-known here and interstate for his electro-disco multimedia shows, was the MC of Cottonmouth; his spoken word is confrontational and uncomfortably funny. Dick Alderson is a favourite at Perth poetry events for his wryly intelligent short poems that splice science into art.

More info: 0406 624 578. http://www.proximitypoetry.com

This event was made possible by Brian and Heather Hunt of Entopia Wines.

Interview with Millicent Borges Accardi

Interviews with poets are often interesting, and here's one by a poetry-list friend of mine, Millicent Borges Accardi at http://womensvoicesforchange.org/millicent-borges-accardi-woman-on-a-shaky-bridge.htm

A quote to tantalise you:

INTERVIEWER: That’s a provocative position! We’ll be interested to hear what WVFC readers think about that. Meanwhile, to close our conversation, here’s one final query: What question do you wish we’d asked you and how would you answer it?

MILLICENT: Oh gosh. I guess I want to answer a question about the book cover for Woman on a Shaky Bridge. My husband is an artist and the painting (of me) is a large-scale oil that he painted. It was one of those moments—I was sitting on the couch and Charles had finished a series of nude self portraits, then, another series of fallen soldiers, and was about to launch onto a new pathway when he looked at me and said, There! I had just returned from yoga and had no makeup on and I was not all that engaged. But when it came time to choose a cover, I thought that painting was perfect.

Iron W by Rich Curtis in Poetry

Iron W by Rich Curtis in Poetry

Very interesting project - with successful poems. Most games like Rich Curtis plays produce unreadable poems at best. I enjoyed these and will go back to them often. Hope you do too. And the download is FREE - best price.

Here is a very minimal example (not all so thin):

19.
into the
moving

be-grieving
bright

streets of
sunshine

rising for
work

opening
into a

day of
substance

and
optimism

Rich Curtis

Great Photography - Great Art

A great site for photography and art. Don't go there until you have time to spare!

http://www.all-art.org/history658_photography9.html

A poem is muddy

The children sing
tirelessly

It’s a hard act to follow

A little clip from Jill Jones piece in http://ungovernablepress.weebly.com/uploads/2/1/2/2/2122174/passages_annotations.pdf

Reasons for Poetry - by William Meredith

A long and thoughtful article on The Reasons for Poetry by William Meredith is available at http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/16176

I quote a section here:

If every poem is new, it is also associated in its own mind, and ideally in the reader's, with other poems of its species. Poems hold one another in place in our minds, Robert Frost said, the way the stars hold one another in place in the firmament.

The three roles I envision are these:

1. The poet as dissident. Underlying poems conceived by the poet as dissident is a social criticism, whether of a tyranny, like George III's or Stalin's, of an abuse, like nuclear pollution, or of a system, like capitalism. As an activist poet, the dissident is likely to be formally radical, since the large metaphor of his work is revolution, but not necessarily.

2. The poet as apologist. Underlying poems conceived by the poet as apologist is acceptance or approval of the human and social predicament of his tribe. However much the poem may focus on errors or imperfections in its subject, there is implied an order or decorum in the model. Often the poem's mode is praise, overt or implicit, of the specific subject or of the human condition. Every work of art, the Christian apologist W. H. Auden said, is by its formal nature a gesture of astonishment at that greatest of miracles, the principle of order in the universe. The poet as apologist is apt to have a pronounced sense of form, but not necessarily.

3. The third and commonest stance of the poet is the poet as solitary. While the poem by the poet as solitary will sometimes take the stance of talking to itself, more often it speaks from the poet as individual, to the reader as another individual, and intends to establish a limited, intense agreement of feeling. There is no implicit agreement about social needs or predicaments. Such solitary experiences, and they make up most of lyric poetry, carry on their backs the world they are concerned with, like itinerant puppet-shows They create a momentary event where the poet and the reader dwell together in some mutual astonishment of words. The best teacher I ever had told us a lyric poem can only say one of three things. It can say, "Oh, the beauty of it" or "Oh, the pity of it," or it can say, "Oh."

This is a crude trinity, and if useful at all, useful at the elementary level of detecting and dispelling false expectation. I will rehearse the three roles with some examples. [He continues ...]

William Meredith

Communication breakdown

smoke rises daily
from the hospital

but the staff have
their heads down

at the canteen
and coffee lounge

and can't read
the signals ...

Poetry lives, OK? | The Australian

Jaya Savige has his say on contemporary Australian Poetry.

Poetry lives, OK? | The Australian

Be quick! Hear Mick Jagger play the music that influenced him

http://www.facebook.com/l/4a741;www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00sknv5

Louise Bourgeois 1911-2010. RIP

Louise Bourgeois' Maman, located outside the National Gallery of Canada. Personal photo by:Radagast.

More poetry jots by Andrew Barke

Holden fans wave their flags
in Ford fans’ faces

The automobile is a wheelchair.

Balinese drape gods
in checkered cloth

*

we are numerous,
Oppen said

singleminded & focused

poems change up
minor to major

*

all poetry is derivative

no tradition without
revolution throwing over
the balustrades

ant’s a centaur in his dragon world

*

automobile quote, Nicanor Parra; ant quote, Ezra Pound

Randolph Stow, West Australian poet and novelist, has died.

Merry-go-Round in the Sea(1965) is perhaps his best known novel, but for me Tourmaline(1963) is outstanding. I'm glad to see it is in reprint and may still be available.

His poetry also had me mesmerised when I was younger. I shall go and read some now in homage.

Read more, and perhaps contribute some, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Randolph_Stow

I Taught Myself to Live Simply - Anna Akhmatova

I taught myself to live simply and wisely,
to look at the sky and pray to God,
and to wander long before evening
to tire my superfluous worries.
When the burdocks rustle in the ravine
and the yellow-red rowanberry cluster droops
I compose happy verses
about life's decay, decay and beauty.
I come back. The fluffy cat
licks my palm, purrs so sweetly
and the fire flares bright
on the saw-mill turret by the lake.
Only the cry of a stork landing on the roof
occasionally breaks the silence.
If you knock on my door
I may not even hear.

Anna Akhmatova

No news so a larf instead ...

Those who jump off a bridge in Paris are in Seine.

A man's home is his castle, in a manor of speaking.

Dijon vu - the same mustard as before.

Practice safe eating - always use condiments.

Shotgun wedding - A case of wife or death.

A man needs a mistress just to break the monogamy.

A hangover is the wrath of grapes.

Dancing cheek-to-cheek is really a form of floor play.

Does the name Pavlov ring a bell?

Condoms should be used on every conceivable occasion.

Reading while sunbathing makes you well red.

When two egotists meet, it's an I for an I.

A bicycle can't stand on its own because it is two tired.

What's the definition of a will? (It's a dead give away.)



Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.

In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes.

She was engaged to a boyfriend with a wooden leg but broke it off.

A chicken crossing the road is poultry in motion.

If you don't pay your exorcist, you get repossessed.

With her marriage, she got a new name and a dress.



The man who fell into an upholstery machine is fully recovered.

You feel stuck with your debt if you can't budge it.

Local Area Network in Australia - the LAN down under.

Every calendar's days are numbered.

A lot of money is tainted - It taint yours and it taint mine.

A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat.

He had a photographic memory that was never developed.

A midget fortune-teller who escapes from prison is a small medium at large.

Once you've seen one shopping centre, you've seen a mall.

Bakers trade bread recipes on a knead-to-know basis.

Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

Acupuncture is a jab well done.

Environs Kimberley Art Auction 12 June

One of the highlights of Broome's social & arts calendar is the Environs Kimberley Art Auction. The fundraiser will feature the work of a broad range of local Broome artists and Indigenous artists from around the Kimberley.

There will be music, a licensed bar and plenty of delicious food.

Date: Saturday June 12th, 2010 Place: The Broome Convention Centre 19 Frederick st, Broome Doors open & preview: 3 pm Auction starts: 7 pm

John Lennon Poetry Competition to be judged by Poet Laureate

Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy has agreed to judge a new international poetry competition celebrating the life of master lyricist, published poet and world icon John Lennon.

The final stages of an international hunt for ‘Liverpool Lennon Poet 2010' will take place during the John Lennon Tribute Season, a major two-month cultural programme marking 70 years since Lennon's birth and 30 years since his untimely death. The season takes place from 9 October - 9 December 2010.

The Liverpool Lennon Poet competition is being organised by the world's leading permanent Beatles-themed visitor attraction, the Beatles Story and Liverpool-born poet Roger Cliffe-Thompson who is the official Liverpool BT Arena poet.

This world-wide poetry competition will form a significant part of the John Lennon Tribute Season, bringing tourists and poetry lovers from across the globe to Liverpool and culminating in a Liverpool Lennon Performance Poetry Slam on 6 November co-hosted by Jason Richardson of poetry collective, Wirral Ode Show.

Poets from across the world are encouraged to enter unpublished verses which celebrate the life of the music legend. Poet Laureate Carol Ann Duffy will lead a team of judges who will award prizes in two categories:

1. Performance Poet - Poems composed and performed in Liverpool by their writers
2. Paper Poet - Poems submitted by email

Early in The Beatles' career, John Lennon was tagged the ‘literary' Beatle, having written two books, In His Own Write (1964) and The Spaniard in the Works (1965) plus a number of poems which appear throughout the books.

In 1965 he performed his poem ‘I Sat Belonely' in the Beatles movie Help and in the same year he performed his verse ‘The Wrestling Dog' on BBC2's satirical programme ‘Not Only, but Also'. His other poems include ‘Deaf Ted, Danoota (and me)' and ‘The fat budgie'.

Lennon named Oscar Wilde and Lewis Caroll among his literary influences. His 1967 song "I Am the Walrus" borrowed imagery from Lewis Carroll's poem "The Walrus and the Carpenter," and words from James Joyce's Finnegans Wake.

The competition is open to anyone in the world and the winning poet will be the first to hold the accolade of Liverpool Lennon Poet 2010. Competition organisers are hoping to publish the poems in a poetry anthology.

A separate Schools Poetry Competition will encourage secondary school pupils in Merseyside to write and perform their verses at a Schools Poetry Slam on 9 November. With John Lennon and the Beatles now on the curriculum, local pupils will be asked to compose a poem based on Lennon's lyrics and song titles and another verse celebrating the icon's life.

Carol Ann Duffy, Poet Laureate said, "I'm delighted to judge this competition which honours a famous son of a wonderful city. Liverpool is a city vibrant with language and poetry and from his earliest lyrics John Lennon displayed a poet's sensitivity to language."

Jerry Goldman, Managing Director of the Beatles said, "John Lennon's fans worldwide still adore his lyrics and poetry decades after his death. His songs were packed with lyrical debate and timeless words. We wanted to set up an international poetry competition allowing people across the globe to demonstrate the influence Lennon has had on their lives and lyrics."

For full entry details, terms and conditions please visit http://www.beatlesstory.com

Media enquiries: Rowan Atkins M: 07834 158 725 E: rowan@rowanatkins.co.uk

How to enter

1 - Performance Poet
Closing date for entries - 5pm Friday 10th September 2010
Email your entries to: poetry@beatlesstory.com
Poems will be performed on Saturday 6 November 2010

2 - Paper poet
Closing date for entries - 5pm Friday 10 September 2010
Email your entries to: poetry@beatlesstory.com
Finalists will be notified by 5pm Friday 8 October 2010

3 - Schools Poet
Register your secondary school's interest by 5pm Friday 11 June 2010 by emailing: shelley@beatlesstory.com
Closing date for entries: 5pm Friday 02 July 2010
Schools event Tuesday 9 November 2010

Haiku and Senryu POETICA ABC National - 3pm Saturday 29 May 2010

Photo by Ron Sims

The haiku and the senryu in contemporary Australian poetry.

In Poetica's two-part feature, program producer Ron Sims asks: what is it about the haiku that commands so much time and effort in creating a thing so small? The answer reveals a private world of passion, dedication, honesty and wry humour from writers who produce a haiku a month to those who produce them in their hundreds. The haiku poem is a tiny 'window-on-life' opening up for the reader an often startling vision of the nature of the world... or of their own nature. As the writers explain, the haiku really 'takes off' when the tiny spark they set up catches alight with a surprising brilliance in the reader's mind.

In Part 2 we hear from Janice Bostok, Andrew Burke, Bruce Dawe, Robert Gray, Jodie Hawthorn, Andrew Lansdown, Susan Murphy, Doris Reeves, Katherine Samuelwicz and Norman Talbot.

Readers: Peter Holland, Jodie Buzza, Murray Dowsett
Producer: Ron Sims
Sound Engineer: David LeMay

All this from http://www.abc.net.au/rn/poetica/stories/2010/2870565.htm

off the (other) cuff / poetry jots by Andrew Burke

twinkling lights in a grey sky

here to there

homage to
the Flight Bros

a wing and a prayer

*

Fatty played jazz eighty eight

before pulling out all the stops
switching to rock’n’roll organ

renamed Piggy
bringing home the bacon

*

I’m light on
the distortion pedal
in poetry

telling it
like it TI is

VOICEBOX Fremantle THURSDAY JUNE 3RD

Doors open 7pm

POETS IN PERFORMANCE

Liana joy christensen

& JOHN RYAN

Liana Joy Christensen is a Fremantle local with a longstanding interest in nature writing and the environment. She intends to contribute a few animal-themed poems to complement John’s botanical epiphanies and honour World Environment Day. However, her main focus tonight is a celebration of the completion of her Australian Poetry Centre gig as La Tropicana’s own resident poet. She will read some of her poems from that residency and talk briefly about the highlights of the experience, before throwing a metaphorical bouquet to open the space for the next potential Café Poet.



John Ryan is an American from New Jersey who now resides in Perth. Since coming to W.A., he has been working on a suite of poetry about the native flora of the Southwest, drawing inspiration from the poet botanists John Clare and H.D. Thoreau. Having spent many years walking long distances across the North American continent, his poetry invokes threshold moments of inspiration, epiphany, and kindredness during migrational movements across landscapes. Some of his works have been published recently in SWAMP, Philament and Australian Humanities Review. He cross-breeds poetry with amateur song-writing and guitar-playing.

@ LA TROPICANA 177 High Street Fremantle
Fair Trade coffee and tasty snacks

OPEN MIC – POETS & SINGERS

* FRIENDLY FREO VIBE *

voicebox@live.com.au: 9336 2836 : http://voicebox-fremantle.blogspot.com

VOICEBOX Fremantle:

FIRST THURSDAY EVERY MONTH

Donation: $5/$3 conc.

Letter from Pam Brown

Dear friends and poetry fans,

I am in the midst of what in mediaspeak is called a year of ‘downtime’and because of this unexpected circumstance I am writing to let you know that, unusually, there will be no book launch party for my new collection of poems, 'Authentic Local'.

The adventurous independent publisher, Papertiger Media, has recently published this slim volume as part of its ‘soi3 modern poets’ series.

As the book won’t be available at a booklaunch, I'd like to ask you to buy a copy of 'Authentic Local' at the inexpensive price of $20.95 (Austn) from the Papertiger Media website. It has totally secure payment facilities via paypal

http://www.papertigermedia.com/shop/

Or, if you prefer to support your local bookshop - in Australia - gleebooks, Berkelouw’s, Ariel, Bray’s, Readings, Brunswick St, Polyester,Collected Works, Avid Reader, Dark Horsey and many others - please ask your bookseller to order your copy from the Australian distributor Dennis Jones and Associates -
http://www.dennisjones.com.au/

Author: Pam Brown
Title: Authentic Local
ISBN: 978-0-9807695-1-7
Series: soi 3 modern poets
Language: English
Publisher: papertiger media inc
Pub date: 01 March 2010
Extent: 81pp
Height: 218mm
Width: 135mm
Thickness: 5.5mm
Format: Paperback

Poem beginning with a line by Miles Davis

Don't play what's there -
play what's not there.

upright in
the long paddock
gathers rain

**

we praise each new word
on the child's lips

moon moon

pale cuticle
in the daylight sky

**

body rags
slouch toward
dark

pianola rolls at play
in memory's chapel

Hafiz : Poems and Biography

Hafiz : Poems and Biography

Many other Sufi poets available through this portal.

Hear Rae Armantrout's interview

Q: What quality above all do you look for and love in somebody else's poem?

Rae Armantrout: Fierceness. Speed. Quickness. That's why I don't do that filler stuff we were talking about earlier. Grace, actually. Sonic pleasure is important to me. And surprise. When something surprises me, when there's a word that seems right but you didn't see it coming at all. That.

Hear the interview at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christopher-lydon/pulitzer-poet-rae-armantr_b_582301.html

from Friends of Irony

Chinese poet Li Bai's poems transcend cultural divide

Chinese poet Li Bai's poems transcend cultural divide

off the cuff / poetry jots by Andrew Burke

whistling without charts
I air my tongue
airs and graces of
a leftfooter’s choir

all language metaphor

**

silver wakes

fence dotted like
manuscript with
white snails

small autumn regatta

**

biting into an apple
hanging off a tree
in weather
written juices on skin

bought and sold

Call for Submissions: Blackmailpress 29 WA to NZ

Blackmail Press is calling for submissions of poetry from Western Australian Poets. The issue has no specific theme and is intended to bridge the divide.

Please send 3- 5 works for consideration to editor@blackmailpress.com
Doug Poole
e-publisher/ editor

Blackmail's web address is http://www.blackmailpress.com/Index27.html

Illustration :: Shane Eggleton
Thanks to David Barnes for information above.

Solar powered battery lets you charge 29 different items

http://gizmodo.com/5539788/solar+powered-battery-gives-you-29-ways-to-charge-choose-one

Cricket's oldest battle resumes in newest format | Cricket News | ICC World Twenty20 2010 | Cricinfo.com

Cricket's oldest battle resumes in newest format | Cricket News | ICC World Twenty20 2010 | Cricinfo.com

COMING UP AT PERTH POETRY CLUB plus other poetry events

15 May: Mardi May + Scrutineer of Splodge, followed by Mardi's book launch at 4pm (The Scrutineer has been challenged to do no less than FOUR poems in ten minutes)

22 May: some seriously poetic blokes: Stewart Hunt + Raymond Grenfell

29 May: Molly Hall (from Margaret River)

5 June: ACR (any performance by this powerful woman is NOT TO BE MISSED)

12 June: philosophical lines: Jo Clarke + Jonothon Twist

19 June: SPECIAL DOUBLE FEATURE: Mad hatters from Melbourne: Randall Stephens & Steve Smart

26 June: Kevin Gillam (the much-loved cello-playing poet himself)

Plus 3-minute open mike spots, professional sound, interesting company, and food and drink of various strengths. 2-4pm at The Moon, 323 William Street, Northbridge.

More info on artists and Perth Poetry Club: http://www.perthpoetryclub.com
Email: perthpoetryclub@gmail.com Phone: Janet 0406 624 578

--
Perth Poetry Club, where slams meet sonnets.

***

Other poetry events coming up:

* Mardi May's book launch, Sat 15 May, 4pm at The Moon. Immediately after Perth Poetry Club.
* Ron Okely's book launch, Sun 16 May, Hazel McDougall House, Como. rokely@argo.net.au
* Sun 30 May Fringe Gallery features Allan Boyd, Kevin Gillam & Janet Jackson. 7-10pm at 94 Bawdan St, Willagee. http://thefringegallery.blogspot.com

Issa Haiku - a beauty!

silkworm doctor
silkworm doctor...
a popular little girl!


-Issa, 1820

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

Izumi Shikibu's love poems

For the full story of this beautiful poet, go to http://poem-a-day.knopfdoubleday.com/2010/04/29/izumi-shikibu/

Nothing
in the world
is usual today.
This is
the first morning.

*

Come quickly—as soon as
these blossoms open,
they fall.
This world exists
as a sheen of dew on flowers.

*

Even though
these pine trees
keep their original color,
everything green
is different in spring.

*

Seeing you is the thread
that ties me to this life—
If that knot
were cut this moment,
I’d have no regret.

*

Sleeplessly
I watch over
the spring night—
but no amount of guarding
is enough to make it stay.

from The New York Review of Books

The Two Raymond Carvers
Giles Harvey

The editors of the new Library of America edition of Carver’s Collected Stories made the decision to include the manuscript version of What We Talk About When We Talk About Love, the book that established his reputation, under the title Beginners. Beginners is twice as long, and about half as interesting. One can’t help but wonder whether the Library of America would be republishing Carver now if it had been this version of the book, and not the one pruned and scoured by his editor, Gordon Lish, that had appeared in 1981.

Oxford Dictionary Mistake Noticed By QUT's Dr Stephen Hughes

The Oxford dictionary is the bible for word lovers in the English language, yet a mistake of definition has gone unchallenged for 99 years. Phew, whatever next!

Oxford Dictionary Mistake Noticed By QUT's Dr Stephen Hughes

Happy Birthday, Gary Snyder « Being Poetry

Happy Birthday, Gary Snyder « Being Poetry

A quote from Gary Snyder:

“As a poet, I hold the most archaic values on earth. They go back to the late Paleolithic: the fertility of the soil, the magic of animals, the power-vision in solitude, the terrifying initiation and rebirth; the love and ecstasy of the dance, the common work of the tribe. I try to hold both history and wilderness in mind, that my poems may approach the true measure of things and stand against the unbalance and ignorance of our times.”~ from A Controversy of Poets and quoted in the above article.

Elmore Leonard and Others - Tips for Writers

'My most important rule is one that sums up the 10: if it sounds like writing, I rewrite it.'

A great website for writers of all kinds of genre and experience: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2010/feb/24/elmore-leonard-rules-for-writers

Do poets need editors? : Poetry News : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation

Do poets need editors? : Poetry News : Harriet the Blog : The Poetry Foundation

It's wise to listen to others at times. But choose carefully.

COMING UP AT PERTH POETRY CLUB

8 May: the highly entertaining Alan Hancock (http://www.freeflow.net.au)

15 May: Mardi May + Scrutineer of Splodge, followed by Mardi's book launch at 4pm (The Scrutineer has been challenged to do no less than FOUR poems in ten minutes)

22 May: some seriously poetic blokes: Stewart Hunt + Raymond Grenfell

29 May: Molly Hall (from Margaret River)

5 June: ACR (any performance by this powerful woman is NOT TO BE MISSED)

12 June: philosophical lines: Jo Clarke + Jonothon Twist

19 June: SPECIAL DOUBLE FEATURE: Mad hatters from Melbourne: Randall Stephens & Steve Smart

26 June: Kevin Gillam (the much-loved cello-playing poet himself)

Plus 3-minute open mike spots, professional sound, interesting company, and food and drink of various strengths. 2-4pm at The Moon, 323 William Street, Northbridge.

BTW -- Perth Poetry Club needs more WOMEN on the mic! We love men too, but there's been an imbalance lately... come and share your (or your favourite) words, sisters!

Other poetry events coming up:

* Voicebox, Thu 6 May, 7pm at La Tropicana, 177 High Street, Freo
* Ron Okely's book launch, Sun 16 May, Hazel McDougall House, Como. RSVP by 7 May, 9459 2342, rokely@argo.net.au

Submission Guidelines for Best Australian Stories & Poems 2010

The Best Australian Stories 2010

Edited by Cate Kennedy

Please send one story – recent work only, published or unpublished – to Cate at the address below. Previously published work must have been published after
1 August 2009.

Cate Kennedy
c/- Black Inc.
Level 5, 289 Flinders Lane
Melbourne VIC 3000

The deadline for submissions is 30 July 2010, but early submission would be appreciated.

Due to the number of submissions we receive, stories cannot be returned and the editor is unable to comment on individual stories.


The Best Australian Poems 2010
Edited by Robert Adamson

Please send one, two or three poems – recent works only, published or unpublished – to Robert at the address below. Previously published work must have been published after 1 August 2009.

Robert Adamson
c/- Black Inc.
Level 5, 289 Flinders Lane
Melbourne VIC 3000

The deadline for submissions is 30 July 2010, but early submission would be appreciated.

Due to the number of submissions we receive, poems cannot be returned and the editor is unable to comment on individual poems.

Ain't it so.

Thanks, Jayne.

Peter Carey's only Melbourne public appearance

Federation Square hosts Peter Carey's only Melbourne public appearance. At this event he discusses literary fame and fortune, from Bacchus Marsh to New York.

Tickets $20, bookings essential.
More details: http://wheelercentre.com/calendar/event/peter-carey/

Carey is one of Australia’s best-loved and most internationally recognised authors. He's won or been shortlisted for every major literary prize in Australia. His most recent book is Parrot and Olivier in America, which has just been longlisted for the Miles Franklin Award.

Congratulations, Anthony Lawrence, winner of the 2010 ABR Poetry Prize

Announcing the winner of the sixth annual Australian Book Review Poetry Prize

ANTHONY LAWRENCE: ‘Domestic Emergencies'

Australian Book Review has much pleasure in announcing the winner of the sixth annual Australian Book Review Poetry Prize. Anthony Lawrence receives $4000. The judges – Ian Donaldson, Morag Fraser and Peter Rose – chose the poem from a field of just under 400 poems. Five poems were shortlisted, the details of which are below.


About the winner

Anthony Lawrence's most recent book of poems, Bark (UQP 2008) was shortlisted for the Judith Wright Calanthe Award. He is currently completing a PhD on the poetry of Richard Hugo and a book-length poem, The Welfare of My Enemy. He lives in Newcastle.


The winner's thoughts on the Prize

‘I’m thrilled to have won the Australian Book Review’s poetry prize. I’ve been reading the Review for many years and the fact that it gives serious space and consideration to poetry, both in its reviews and the publishing of individual poems, is to be celebrated. I’d like to congratulate the other poets – I loved reading their poems in the April issue, and look forward to reading them again, in book form.’


SHORTLISTED POEMS

Diane Fahey: 'The Hummingbird Suite'

Anthony Lawrence: 'Domestic Emergencies'

Jillian Pattinson: 'Estuary'

Philip Salom: 'Here Come the Missionaries'

Ynes Sanz: 'Taken as Required'



These poems were published in the April 2010 issue of Australian Book Review.

Now Available: 'Mother Waits for Father Late', Picaro Press 2010

Picaro Press has published a beautiful new and revised edition of Mother Waits for Father Late, first published by Freo Press in 1992, but sold out and out of print for some time. I've tweaked the text a little, thrown some poems out and added some in. For the cover, there is an archival photo of the Burke family from 1947 or so, having dinner out in the yard. The little boy standing at the far table is myself, between my grand parents with my mother nearby. Yes, I had hair then. My siblings are at the front table, all five of them.

The book is available for $15 from myself or online at http://www.picaropress.com/ Please support Rob Riel, the brave publisher who supports Australian poetry by keeping in print those titles which have made an impact on their first showing. The press also publishes chapbooks and new titles, plus the wonderful Wagtail series of monthly compilations of individual poet's works.

AGE SLIDES UNDER THE DOOR AS OIL PAINTS by Kenneth Wolman

I don't need to shave to see my future
in the purple scream.
On TV between shows about predatory big cats
there's a commercial for a scooter chair,
the old fart motorchair for aggressive men sick of their lives
who race down the middle of the boulevard
in Long Branch, New Jersey, trying to stage
insurance collisions because they need a Medicare supplement
or maybe because they might just be killed and end it.

I awaken and, before my daily filter kicks in, I am in a scooter too
and (sing) Do You See What I See?--
I am a paint-by-numbers copy of Francis Bacon's
"Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X"
with the ghastly old dude seated on a scooter throne
looking to play bumper cars with Cardinal Borgia
because they both are waiting for death and it's been
years since Borgia, at least, can remember
what it feels like to get laid.

That makes me feel just a bit better
because if my dreams are not much fun,
at least Bacon's must have been rarer than overcooked steer.
For how else could anyone bear to face a day
with that inner face, truthtelling, open to the world,
a purple splot of skeleton bleeding rage from every pore,
forcing some sucker priest to take him out in his scooter
to witness his final prayer, slamming at full force on the downgrade
into the back of a tractor trailer to end this holy farce
and send home the painter, his work done for the day.

Kenneth Wolman
USA poet and assoc prof

Why Les Murray doesn't want a Nobel Prize

Why Les Murray doesn't want a Nobel Prize

Yes, an interesting article that goes beyond that silly headline.

They quote part of a poem in there, The Instrument (pp.457, 458, Collected Poems, 2002). Here's another part of the same poem:

Poetry is read by the lovers of poetry
and heard by some more they coax to the cafe
or the district library for a bifocal reading.
Lovers of poetry may total a million people
on the whole planet. Fewer than the players of skat.