Friendly Street Poets Inc. Japanese Poetry Competition 2010

HAIKU & HAIBUN
Closing Date: Friday 30th July 2010

Category A HAIKU
Prize Money: A page of 3 Haiku = 1 entry $100 $50

Category B HAIBUN
Prize Money: $150 $75
A haiku journey = 1 entry
maximum length 600 words
Entry Fee: AUS $5.00 per entry
or AUS$12.00 for three Haiku entries
Cheque or money order payable to: Friendly Street Poets Inc.

Please send entries to Friendly Street Poets Inc PO Box 3697 Norwood, SA 5067


CONDITIONS OF ENTRY


1.Entries must be typed, one page per entry.
1.Two copies of your poetry must accompany the entry form and fee. Please use paper clips rather than staples.
1.Your name must not appear on the poetry page, only on the entry form. You need to use the entry form to submit entries.
1.Entries must be the original work of the entrant, unpublished, not have won any other monetary prize or be under consideration anywhere else.
1.There is no limit to the number of entries submitted.
1.Please retain a copy of your work. All entries are destroyed after judging.
1.Authors retain copyright of their work, but we claim the right (if we choose) to publish the winner’s work on our website or in our publications.
1.Prizes are awarded on literary merit and judged ‘blind’. The Judge’s rulings are final and no correspondence can ensue.
1.Prizes and fees are in Australian Dollars.
1.Notification of winners and commendations (if awarded) will be announced at a Friendly Street Poets Meeting; and after that, on our website: friendlystreetpoets.org.au. If you include a SSAE with postage (DL Envelope) in your entry, the results will be posted you.
1.We will invite all winners to attend the announcement.

This theatre is going black for a short while.

I shall be away from my computer for a number of days, so the content of this blog will not change during that time. I guess it will be about a week from Tuesday 29 June. Meanwhile, there's a lot to read here and in the archives

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* Entries must not be published anywhere until after the prize has been announced.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.