'OOROO' by Richard Tipping INVITATION

AUSTRALIAN GALLERIES - SYDNEY Invites you to the opening STUDIO OF BRIAN DUNLOP Brian Dunlop • Sophie Dunlop • Francis Giacco Jenny Giacco • Justin O’Brien • Jeffrey Smart Tuesday 4 April 2017 6pm to 8pm  To be opened at 6.45pm by Brian’s daughter Claudia Kelly Add to calendar 15 Roylston Street, Paddington, NSW 2021 Current until Sunday 23 April 2017 Above: Orpheus & Eurydice  2009, oil on canvas, 156 x 200 cm AUSTRALIAN GALLERIES - SYDNEY Invites you to the opening RICHARD TIPPING Instant History Tuesday 4 April 2017 6pm to 8pm  The artist will read from his new book of poems Instant History - Flying Island Books, 2017 Add to calendar 15 Roylston Street, Paddington, NSW 2021 Artist talks and poetry: 2:30pm Saturday 15 April 2017 and 2:30pm Saturday 22 April 2017 Current until Sunday 23 April 2017 Above: Jump start – our ‘roo shoots through  2016, retro-reflective vinyl on aluminium (installed dimensions variable, 2 varieties of vinyl), 170 x 284 x 4 cm, ed 8 Visit our blog Open 7 days 10am to 6pm T 02 9360 5177

STOP ADANI

‘Lending Mr Adani, a billionaire, a billion dollars of taxpayers’ money to carry this project into reality would be the political mistake of the decade.’ Photograph: Lukas Coch/AAP

 

The Adani mine is this generation's Franklin River. People power can stop it

Bob Brown

 

This is the environmental issue of our times and the Great Barrier Reef is at stake. But people standing up for what they believe in has unbeatable power

 

 

When I rafted the Franklin in the 1970s, I knew the campaign to save that spectacular river, despite local support for damming it, would become one to test that generation. In 2017, stopping the Adani coal mine is a campaign to test this generation of Australians.
In 40 years time people will be talking about the campaign to stop Adani like they now talk about the Franklin. “Where were you and what did you do?” they will ask.

READ THE FULL TEXT AT https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/mar/24/the-adani-mine-is-this-generations-franklin-river-people-power-can-stop-it?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=GU+Today+AUS+v1+-+AUS+morning+mail+callout&utm_term=218982&subid=7413251&CMP=ema_632

VERDURE - Canberra Choral Society

Canberra Choral Society’s first performance with new artistic director Dianna Nixon

March 26, 5.30 pm Village Centre, National Arboretum

 

Canberra Choral Society will launch its 2017 series in the stunning surrounds of the National Arboretum, with a program created by new artistic director Dianna Nixon celebrating the human relationship with trees and nature. 

 

From the innocence of the famous poem Trees, by Joyce Kilmer, in a gorgeous setting by ex-Canberran, Daniel Brinsmead, to the wildly dramatic Frank Hutchens' setting of Charles Kingsley's Ode to the North East Wind, the programme gives the choir a range of stimulating artistic and technical challenges. A third Australian composer is featured in the concert with an exquisite setting, by Stephen Leek, of The Silent Gums, which will be sung (and danced) by a small group of students of Wild Voices Music Theatre.

 

The choir will be exploring combinations and textures ranging from unison singing and solos, to the lushly glorious final chorus from Leonard Bernstein's take on Voltaire's novella, Candide.

 

Other poets whose work features in this programme include Shakespeare, Robert Frost, Mary Coleridge, and, for the Leek setting, text created by Anne Williams and the Eltham East Primary School Choir.

 

It should be an afternoon of total pleasure for performers and audience alike, with the picturesque backdrop of Arboretum plantings and Lake Burley Griffin views framing our efforts.

 

Tickets: http://www.trybooking.com/253229 

And check out this article in Canberra Times:

http://www.canberratimes.com.au/act-news/canberra-life/canberra-choral-societys-verdure-celebrates-nature-in-the-national-arboretum-20170309-guu5ed.html

from Rochford Street Review: Vale JOANNE KYGER

Vale Joanne Kyger by Mark Roberts

Joanne Kyger .Photo by Andrew Kenower.

Rochford Street Review was saddened to learn of the death of Joanne Kyger on 22 March. Associated with the poets of the San Francisco Renaissance, poet Joanne Kyger studied philosophy and literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara, moving to San Francisco in 1957 just before she finished her degree. In San Francisco she attended the Sunday meetings of Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan, and moved into the East West House, a communal house for students of Zen Buddhism and Asian studies. She lived in Japan with Gary Snyder, her husband at the time, and traveled in India with Snyder, Allen Ginsberg, and Peter Orlovsky. She eventually returned to California, where she lived until her death in 2017. (Text courtesy of the Poetry Foundation)

Full bography and links to poems are available at  https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poets/detail/joanne-kyger#poet

And an interview at http://queenmobs.com/2017/02/everyone-counts-questions-joanne-kyger/

Issa Haiku

at my feet
when did you get here?
snail

ISSA - 1801

 

.足元へいつ来りしよかたつぶり
ashi moto e itsu kitarishi yo katatsuburi

 

 

Shinji Ogawa comments: "This haiku shows a very common scene of surprise when one finds a slow snail very close to oneself. Adding to that, when we learn that Issa was attending his dying father, our appreciation of this haiku may advance farther. We must learn how many things are left out from the haiku and yet, or therefore, so many things are expressed."

 

 

http://haikuguy.com/issa/

__._,_.___

Poetry Prize from WA Poets Inc

Sir Derek Walcott is dead.

Sir Derek Walcott is dead.

Relatives and sources  close to the Saint Lucian poet and playwright who had been suffering with health issues have confirmed that he passed away in the early hours of Friday morning.

Walcott received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was Professor of Poetry at the University of Essex from 2010 to 2013.

March 20 World Storytelling Day

Join us at the Centre for Stories for World Storytelling Day, a global celebration of the art of storytelling.  Pop in between 11am and 12:30pm to listen to and watch some of the amazing West Australian stories we've collected over the past few months. Our brand new video stories collected in collaboration with the Office of Multicultural Interests for Harmony Week 2017 will be available to watch. These nine stories surround the themes Food, Faith and Love in WA. Listen to Fauzia, a woman from Afghanistan who sends her kids over to her neighbours with plates of food every week because her mother taught her that those who smell the food as it is being prepared must taste it too. Jamaican man Osric travelled 15000km running away from heartbreak and found love in Australia. Takako is Japanese and her husband of 40 years, Velaphi, is Zimbabwean. They tell us, "you don't talk about racism, you do something about it by confronting it with your very existence." You will also be able to listen to stories from A Mile in My Shoes, our collaboration with the Empathy Museum for PIAF 2016. Listen to Dalwinder Singh, devoted Sikh and taxi driver who dedicates his spare time to engaging in conversations with strangers and increasing awareness about Sikhism. He believes that through conversation, we are able to break down barriers. Dianne Lawrence tells us about the challenges of being the mother of a transgender child, and how she's been on a journey of her own alongside her son. Jeremy Smith has achondroplasia, the cause of what is commonly known as dwarfism. He encourages people to ask questions about physical differences, so that we can increase the understanding and celebration of diversity in the world. Kaliyugan Pathmanathan fled the Sri Lankan civil war when he was a child. Years later, he came to Australia by boat as a refugee where he has made his home in Perth. He says he struggles to be happy knowing that there are still so many people who don't have freedom. These stories and many more will available to listen to and watch at the Centre for Stories. Morning tea will be provided and our staff will be available if you would like to chat about what makes a good story or any story ideas you may have.  We'd love to see you there!

ISSA HAIKU

don't cry, insects!
the world will get better
in its own time

 

ISSA 1825

 

.鳴な虫直る時には世が直る
naku na mushi naoru toki ni wa yo ga naoru

 

 

Good advice for trying times.

http://haikuguy.com/issa/

JOE DOLCE AND LIN VAN HEK AT THE DAN

Hello Poetry Lovers Come, Eat, Drink and Listen to Poetry, put your feet up, re-boot yourself with poetry Read your poetry on the Open Mic. Up Coming Features@THE DAN Joe Dolce& Lin van Hek feb 25th Kevin Brophy March 4th Adrienne & Dragonfly March 11th (Chicago) Sasha Cuha March 18th Jeltje Fanoy & Friends March 25th   View this email in your browser

SATURDAY Feb 25th                                 Dan Poets presents  Joe Dolce and Lin Van Hek with libby charlton as mc

JOE DOLCE. Writer and performer of the most successful Australian song in history Shaddap You Face, a title held for 37 years straight. Poetry published in Best Australian Poems 2015 & 2014 and shortlisted for the Newcastle Poetry Prize and Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s Poetry Prize. Winner of the 25th Launceston Poetry Cup. Recipient of the Advance Australia Award. Presently on staff of the Australian Institute of Music, teaching Composition, Ensemble and setting poetry to music. Ginninderra Press is publishing his second poetry collection, ‘On Murray’s Run’, selected by Les Murray, in Oct, on his 70th birthday. LIN VAN HEK. Published in Best Australian Poems 2015, Winner of the The Age Short Story Contest, founding member of the literary-music group DIFFICULT WOMEN. Writer of three novels: The Ballad of Siddy Church, Katherine Mansfield's Black Paper Fan and The Hanging Girl and two books of short stories: The Slain Lamb and Anna's Box. Co-writer, and lead singer, of the song, INTIMACY, included in the classic US sci-fi film, THE TERMINATOR one of 25 movies listed for preservation, by the US Library of Congress. In the last five years, she has been a prolific and successful painter, exhibiting at her gallery, Poet House, in Thornbury. Tomorrow, she is one of the guest readers at the 66th Women of Letters event at the Thornbury Theatre, at 2:30 pm Dan Poets, every Saturday, 2-5pm. Free Entry Includes open mic. Rotating MCs Anne, Libby, Norman and Steve. Dan O'Connell Hotel, 225 Canning St Carlton. Licensed premises. Kids welcome but must be accompanied by an adult.

BOOK LAUNCH: SUE WOOLFE

Dear Poets, Academics, Artists, Friends,

You are warmly invited to the launch of my new book of poems A Personal History of Vision (UWAP Poetry) on Saturday 11 March at Gleebooks. Peter Boyle will be giving the launch speech, I’ll read some poems, and there will be a panel discussion on themes connected to the book with Brook Emery, Deborah Bird Rose, and Peter Boyle. The event is free but please RSVP through Gleebooks at the following webpage (or phone 9660 2333): http://www.gleebooks.com.au/BookingRetrieve.aspx?ID=279101  

Time: 3.30 pm for 4 pm start

Address: 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe, NSW 2037

  

Please feel free to pass on the invitation to anyone who might be interested in this event.

 

I hope to see you there!

 

Best wishes,

 

Luke Fischer 

Publishing opportunity for poets at Uneven Floor

Uneven Floor publishes a poem or two most weeks, and needs more well-written poems from published and unpublished poets. Previously published poems are welcome, as are poems in text, video, audio or image format. Read the editorial, poems and submission guidelines at unevenfloorpoetry.blogspot.com. Follow @unevenfloor_po on Twitter. Like facebook.com/unevenfloor. Please watch your step.

Thoreau and Trump - 'No President'?

Mark Greif on What Thoreau Can Teach Us About Resisting Trump

https://mail.google.com/mail/u/0/?tab=wm#inbox/159fa3f908b60493

Tom Collins Poetry Prize Reading in Freo

Issa Haiku

tucking in
the blind priest...
winter rain

Issa - 1814

 

.座頭の坊中につつんで時雨けり
zato no bônaka ni tsutsunde shigure keri

 

Issa implies that the blind priest is a beggar, and his "house" (bônaka) is the street. Literally, bônaka can be the inside of a temple, but it can also signify the streets. Shinji Ogawa notes that naka ni tsutsunde means "holding or hugging, inside." He adds, "Though the phrase is used as a gentle expression, the haiku is one of harsh reality." The poem has one of Issa's most dramatic surprise endings. One expects a cozy, warm quilt to be the final image, going along with "tucking in," but instead he gives us winter rain, and, as Shinji puts it, "harsh reality."

 

http://haikuguy.com/issa/

JOYCE CAROL OATES - 20 Q&A - Witty!

Twenty Questions with Joyce Carol Oates

Writers and thinkers take on twenty questions from the TLS, revealing the books they most admire, nagging regrets and the occasional hidden talent

INTENSE Poetry Workshop with Les Wicks

“INTENSE”

– poetry workshop with Les Wicks-

nearly 6 hours plus substantial prior editorial work in an extraordinary locale.

 

Venue: Community Hall, Dangar Island

Sunday 26 March 10.45 to 5.00 with a 30” break for lunch (vegetarian, included in price).

 

This template has been a complete charge for everyone. One of the country’s leading poetry facilitators will be giving a workshop in Sydney.

 

This project will consist of three components.

 

Everyone gets in advance a strategy sheet on editing their work. Then, participants will send four poems (maximum 30 lines each) to leswicks@hotmail.com 14 days prior to the workshop. The poems with commentary will be distributed to the participants four days prior to their workshop. Participants should bring a copy of the entire commentary document to the workshop.

 

On the day of the workshop we will work intensively through each participant’s poems building on prior suggestions and experiencing a dynamic interplay of ideas/insights.

 

Should they so wish, participants will have a chance to have a piece published in the e-mag Australian Poetry Collaboration, which is widely read and archived by the National Library’s Pandora.

 

It is strictly limited to only 7 attendees.

 

Bookings must be made by 27 February.

 

Cost $90.

 

Getting there: train Hawkesbury River or drive Brooklyn. Ferry departs at 10am. Fares 7.40 or 3.70 Conc. each way. Arrive early/leave later - wander through this unique community, have a swim!

 

Further details & booking: leswicks@hotmail.com

New Poem

AFTERNOON TEA

Memory is the mothership.

I wash and rinse the pots and pans,

remembering the scraggly tall

European refugees working

in the kitchen of the boarding school

I went to in the Fifties. I can’t

remember ever knowing their names

yet here they work, crusty aprons on

and giant silver trays glinting

as they walk toward the spreading tree

where we queue in the shade, hungry

as growing boys can be, and take

one gigantic slice of fresh baked bread

spread with strawberry jam. Ah,

that jam! Memory

is the mothership that lowers

its gangplank under the tree where

we sit hurriedly eating the first slice,

hoping for seconds.

-          Andrew Burke

Poet Jacob Polley wins 2016 TS Eliot Prize for Jackself, 'a firework of a book'

 

 

 

Jacob Polley has won the 2016 TS Eliot Prize for poetry, joining the ranks of previous winners including Ted Hughes, Seamus Heaney and Carol Ann Duffy.

 

Polley won the coveted £20,000 award with his fourth collection, Jackself, a sequence of narrative poems partly inspired by his childhood in Cumbria.

The chair of the judging panel, poet Ruth Padel, called Jackself "a firework of a book; inventive, exciting and outstanding in its imaginative range and depth of feeling".

READ ON - INCLUDING A POEM - AT http://www.telegraph.co.uk/books/news/poet-jacob-polley-wins-2016-ts-eliot-prize-jackself-firework/