IT'S A WONDER

Visit The Wonder Book of Poetry at http://wonderbookofpoetry.org/ for a conversation in text, image and music. The recent conversation trail includes work by poets Andrew Burke, Susan Hawthorne, Mathew John Davies and myself, and artists Philip Hammial (also poet) and Pauli Josa. WBP Editor Kit Kelen is one of the artists (also poet) represented in the Macao-Elsewhere Project featured. WBP publishes new work by Australian and international poets and artists – worth keeping your sights on. You can apply to be a contributor.

A POEM ON THE WONDER BOOK OF POETRY

Don't Forget to Water them Geraniums

I get lost a lot. It’s an affliction but sometimes it pays off. Like one of the times I gave a workshop in Gunning and came home via Gundaroo, turning the 72k drive into a 154k trip. People don’t know how I did it – go the way I did that is - but I will find a way without even trying. It was a beautiful drive up and down dale along winding dirt roads with magnificent gums ranging the blue sky. Of course I had no idea where I was or where I would end up or whether I would ever be found again.

I told myself to stay calm. The day was perfect for an off the beaten track drive, there was still plenty of daylight and I had loads of petrol. I almost always have a full tank in preparation for such moments. I was relieved when I found myself in Gundaroo as at least I knew roughly where that was on the map of things and that it was somewhere in cooee of Yass (35k from home). There must’ve been a sign to Yass - or maybe it was a sign to a town in the opposite direction - but I know I took a turn which was as it turned out in more or less the right direction, albeit along more worryingly windy dirt roads. It occurred to me I could be following a river. It felt like it. There were high embankments. There could be a river down there I frequently thought.

Eventually I came to flat bare paddocks and a small lonely house. There was a t-section just ahead, no signs and my brain was in a bigger than ever road-challenged tizz. Nothing for it. I would have to stop and ask. I got out of the car and was almost blown off my feet. By the look of the landscape this wind was relentless. There was not a lick of green. The sheep in the next paddock were the same colour as the eaten down dry grass, the same colour as the dead thistles. Drought. The only other sign of life was a row of geraniums planted in front of the porch and held up by chicken wire. It was a welcoming splash of red. Still, as I walked up the steps all the terrible murder scenes I had ever seen on television flashed before me. I thought of the very large body-size freezers that farmers often have for their bulk home-kills and wondered just what bodies might be in there. More than beef and lamb.

I hesitated. Nothing for it. Knock knock. Relief when a very pleasant gentleman in his Sunday-best under work overalls answered and gave un-begrudging directions. It happens a lot he told me. See! I’m not the only one. I had no idea where he was telling me to go but luckily he demonstrated with his hand snaking this way and that. I remember strict instructions not to turn a particular way and I didn’t (I’m not that bad). Apparently I was very soon going to connect with the expressway but you could’ve fooled me. I was sure I was still in the wilderness then suddenly there I was up and out and on the expressway and in familiar territory. It was a small miracle.

That was a long time ago now but those bloody geraniums have haunted me. What’s that Henry Lawson (?) story about the worn out woman in her slab hut with the dirt floor who lay down on her bed one day and died? The last thing she said to her child was, ‘Don’t forget to water them geraniums.’ Eventually I scratched at a poem. Decided it was a small poem. Scratched some more. Worked at it. Left it alone for a long time. Dragged it out again this year. Some poems just take a while.

Today it was published on The Wonder Book of Poetry. It’s called Wind (funny that) and you can read it here.

  

Writers’ tip: Don’t be afraid to get lost – you might find a poem.

INK UP - SUBMISSIONS OPEN

The UK journal Tears in the Fence is interested in ‘the unusual, perceptive, risk-taking as well as the imagistic, lived and visionary.’ This bi-annual publication includes ‘poetry, prose, translations, reviews and essays by established writers from around the world.’ Visit http://tearsinthefence.com/ to see selections from the current issue. Submissions  are now open for their Autumn 2013.

Thrush Poetry Journal is produced online six times a year with one print issue of ‘best ofs.’  Their taste is eclectic. The March 2013 issue includes poems of a few words, short and long prose poetry and visual poems. Submit any time. Thrush comes out of North America. They also publish chapbooks and broadsides.

If you read or write small shots of poetry you’ll like Shot GlassJournal with its US and international sections. The next issue will be posted online at the end of May. You have until May 15 to submit prose poems of up to 10 lines or other poetry forms up to 16 lines.

  

Prole: Poetry and Prose is a print magazine interested in any style but literary elitism. Submissions are currently being accepted.

Don’t forget to check the submission guidelines. They vary - you know - the usual: email/don't email/attach/paste in/double space/single space ...

MAN 1-4

Man 1: leaning against brick wall

Man 2: walking along street

Man 3: pushing pram

Man 4: giving finger

BREAKING NEWS: JENNIFER MAIDEN

Australian poet Jennifer Maiden is shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize with her collection Liquid Nitrogen published in November by Giramondo Press. She is in the running with Fady Joudah (US), Alan Shapiro (US) and Brenda Shaughnessy (US) for the $65,000 first prize in the international category. David W. McFadden, James Pollock and Ian Williams are the shortlisted poets in the national category of this Canadian prize. Winners will be announced June 13. I read the news tonight in The Canadian Press. Good luck Jennifer.

POETRY I AM READING: PATRICIA SYKES

Judith Beveridge once said - or maybe more than once - that Australian poets write a lot about birds. So we do. How can you not. There are so many ways. Patricia Sykes' collection Modewarre: Home Ground (Spinifex Press 2004) begins with a section titled House of the Bird. It is three roads meeting in the one bird:// modewarre (the indigenous)/ biziura lobata (the colonial)/ musk duck (the common) ... (from Modewarre - ways you might approach it p. 3). It is poetry about language and the way to cut/ water open without forcing a wound (sanctuary: Swan Lake, Phillip Island p. 52). Patricia Sykes' latest book is The Abbotsford Mysteries (Spinifex Press). She will perform at Poetry at the God's in Canberra tonight Tuesday April 9 with Alex Skovron. Hope to see you there.

A POEM I READ TODAY - PS COTTIER

For a poem that will blow your little green feathers away go to PS Cottier. Glad I subscribed and have the pleasure of her Tuesday poems landing in my inbox. Budgerigar is today's poem. It's a must read. Her lines liquid rope pulls you/ and the whole emerald sky is diving is how a good poem can make you feel. Don't you agree?

POETRY & ITS GATEKEEPERS

If you’re interested in Michael Dransfield you’ll find a review of Michael Dransfield’s Lives (Miegunyah Press at Melbourne University Press, 1999) with a round of lively comments at Rochford Street Review. Posted April 20, 2012.

The article is: “Who was Michael Dransfield?” Robert Adamson revisits ‘MichaelDransfield’s Lives: A Sixties Biography’ by Patricia Dobrez.  It’s a big rewrite of an article which appeared earlier in Australian Book Review.

Mark Roberts (RSR editor) and other poets join in the discussion with quite a focus on Robert Adamson’s remarks about gatekeepers. Touchy subject.

Me: If you find yourself keeping a gate – keep it open. Except in the country where the golden rule is to leave a gate as you find it.

The current issue of Rochford Street Review includes reviews of collections by: Joanne Burns, Geoff Page, Josephine Rowe, Julie Watts.

Poets Go Ahead

IT'S A HIT

Thanks so much to poets and others who leave the odd comment or email feedback on A Poet's Slant. It's crossed the 10000 mark. I couldn't find a trumpet anywhere so no fanfare - sorry.  Here I am leading a conga line instead.

Caught in action at All that Jazz
in the Hilltops at nearby Boorowa

WOLLONGONG POETRY FIX

Wollongong Surf Club

A great couple of days in Wollongong workshopping with poets from the Illawarra and the Highlands - artists, teachers, miners, uni students, welders; 20s up to 86 years old. Touching, painterly, moving, entertaining, tender, personal, bilingual... Lines rolling in like waves, words dancing, vivid as paint...must try it. Many thanks to the South Coast Writers Centre for a visit to the Gong and a chance to meet more of their writers and to see some again from earlier workshops. Terrific groups both days.  Used to live there. Got my salt air and seafood fix.

JOANNE BURNS' LATEST BOUNDARY PUSHER

You can read an interesting review of Joanne Burns' amphora at Rochford Street Review right now. Mark Roberts talks about this poet's background which he says is in part what makes her such a fascinating writer. A poet who pushes and breaks boundaries, I've been fascinated by Joanne Burns since stumbling on her short short story collection Blowing Bubbles in the Eighth Lane, thanks to that fabulous national women and reading day (in the 1990s). What was it called? The atmosphere was electric that first day of it at the National Library in Canberra. Women everywhere smiling their faces off. You can buy the book from all good bookshops and Giramondo Publishing where it says The poems in amphora seize on the miraculous moments contained in life and language ... Meanwhile let's go push more boundaries...smile our faces off. 

INK UP. GO TO THE EDGE ...

THE HUNTED AND THE HAUNTED                                                                       

No animals were harmed in the writing of this article

The first light whiskering from the vent. The first warbles from the gum trees. Time for the hunt! Well maybe … let’s give it another hour.

You hope to always have something simmering or simpering. Just waiting for you to sit down in your antique writing room or under your burgeoning apple tree, daffodils at your feet (oh sorry wrong season), puppies vying with your computer for your lap. This is when the routines work well. All day writing because you have found a sugar daddy/mammy (dream on). Or failing that writing feet up on your desk because your employer upon discovering you are a poet, has decided you should be sponsored this way (dream on). Or failing that, how about two hours first thing in the morning even if it means getting up at cock’s crow before all the babies awaken (not me – I dream on). Or two hours late evening after the working day, the homeworks sorted and teens thinking about bed (still dreaming). Or in the middle of the night, when everyone else is asleep (dreaming on). Except for another poet somewhere and the possums playing tag on the roof. Or just an hour in the car while the child or the spouse is playing sport (dreams of extra playoffs and injury times). For many it’s a notebook pulled out of the pocket or the shoulder bag at a bus stop or the traffic lights or leaning on the trolley in the supermarket. If you do it …routinely enough it works.

What if nothing is simmering or simpering! That’s when you go on the hunt. You can’t wait for something to happen to you or around you, to set you thinking and feeling, then creating and writing. You salivate at the thought of it. As someone once said as our local ‘real’ butcher carved the requested order in front of him: ‘I can feel my canines growing.’ You go on road trips, stand on the edge of cliffs, take a helicopter joyride, hang out in unseemly company (sometimes other poets), slice bread without your safety gloves, apply for a residency preferably in a country more turbulent than your own.

On the way to the Calcutta Book Fair I sat beside a pastor returning to India to do good works. He told me about the cleverness of elephants. How night after night the hunters waited, guns at the ready (legal at the time!), for rogue elephants to again raid the village they were helping. Only when they’d given up, slept one night, did the elephants reappear. Silently they consumed everything eatable including the straw roof above the hunters’ heads.

From that chance meeting I gained a micro poem (the elephants that got away) and a curiosity about the history of the Overland Telegraph and the Murray-Darling Basin. I’d shared my flight with a descendant of Sir George Murray.  Of course I’ve also found poems sipping coffee in Civic or chatting to people at bus stops in places like Narrabundah and the Yass Valley.

The poem that happens to someone else can be a tough call. The hunt takes you to the unsavouriness of the evening news, the daily papers, the internet. The horror stories haunt you. Sometimes you do write poems about them. You even have them published. You struggle with whether you have done the person or the issue justice. You struggle with whether you should write them in the first place. After all they are other people’s stories, and you, the clichéd vulture, circling overhead.

Then the public readings. You look at the faces. Everyone has their own story their own struggle. They may have already seen the news too. You think you should write more poems about the beauty of the environment, the good humouredness of the human race. Brighten people’s day. You ask yourself what does it do writing this poem, reading this poem? Sometimes you skip the poem about domestic violence and read the silly one about bra advertising. Or the vegie burger poem instead of the one about asylum seekers suffocating in the back of a truck, or the mass killings or the FGM. No beating vulture wings. No new collective pain.

Something doesn’t sit quite right. You are at pains with it. You turn to Susan Sontag’s Regarding the Pain of Others (p.102, Penguin Books, 2003). ‘Let the atrocious images haunt us.’ Even the tokens are vital. So - every effort, every poem that even touches on the confronting image, the difficult subject. The single disturbing line. The only disturbing poem read at an event. 

In some countries the poets are in prisons. Here, the poet’s struggle is such a small one.

Ink up. Go to the edge. Write. Publish. Read. Poets one and all.

--

This article was first published in the February 2013 issue of ACTWrite by the ACT Writers Centre, Canberra. Poems referenced are published in Six Hundred Dollars (PressPress), Two Lips Went Shopping (Spinifex Press) and Stop Your Cryin (Island Press).

BUY YOUR POEM A DRINK

While we're on the Irish theme - interesting interview if you haven't read it already (and poems) with Belfast's Miriam Gamble during her Vincent Buckley fellowship, published in the November Sotto. Only saw Miriam in an MC role when I was in Belfast, unfortunately, as she was a poet everyone was talking about. It begins: Q. How do you approach a poem? A. I creep up deftly from behind and throw a net over it. Or I tell it I find it attractive and buy it a drink. She talks about poetry and language, Irish poets and Scottish poets, and a whole lot of other poets. You will find it here:
http://www.australianpoetry.org/2012/11/26/poetry-the-conscience-of-language/

Inaugural Yass Show Poetry Prize

Congratulations to everyone at the Yass Show on the success of its first poetry prize and performance, and especially to Binalong poet Robyn Sykes who agreed to take on the task of coordinating the whole program. About a hundred people turned up at Sunday's Poets Breakfast for the announcement of prizes, the St Patrick's Day section and the open mike. The competition included categories for open and bush poetry, children and performance. First prizes of $100 were awarded with smaller cash prizes for places and best local. 'Local' was extended not just to the Yass Valley local government area but to a 100k radius, taking in neighbouring regions from Canberra to Young. Promotes the regional poetry networks and reciprocates with places like Canberra, which frequently gives surrounding regions a welcoming nod in some major literary programs and Goulburn, which has worked in with Yass on occasions to make good poetry happen for both centres. Three very fine published poets were placed in the contemporary section: 1st PS Cottier (Canberra), 2nd Greg Piko (Yass), 3rd Victoria McGrath (Yass). Congratulations to them indeed and of course to the poets placed in other sections. You can see what PS (Penelope) says about the event at http://pscottier.com/ along with a photo of the two of us in front of the competition wool clips. I have photographs as well but I haven't worked out how to get them from my new mobile phone (new but non-smart) to my laptop. I don't have a photo of the Yass Show either yknow sheep, bulls, rodeo ... but here's one of a cloud galloping across the sky...oh am I the only one who sees it?!

PS Good chance the poetry program will become a regular part of the annual Yass Show. Meanwhile you can see lots of Show photos at their website http://www.yassshow.org.au/ - they wasted no time!

YASS VALLEY ARTS & POETRY

For a picture of arts development in the Yass Valley see the article Support from Within by Jenny Kingma in the Canberra Times, Panorama Saturday February 16. It's online here. The Binalong poetry reading mentioned will be held next on March 24 at 2 pm. All welcome.

CALL FOR LOVE POEMS

Inkerman & Blunt's first publishing project is Australian Love Poems 2013 edited by Mark Tredinnick to be published in July. See the website for guidelines and how to submit. Deadline: April 26. (Also see Mark's Rhythm & Muse 'view on this blog.)

INKERMAN & BLUNT - NEW PUBLISHER

Inkerman & Blunt: is a new Melbourne-based Australian press 'dedicated to publishing books of originality, intelligence and beauty: poetry and stories—both real and imagined—that open your mind and let your spirit fly'. No unsolicited manuscripts but they'll take a pitch. Visit their website or see them on Facebook.

ODYSSEY ART & TEXT - MAXIME BANKS

Grandmere Debout Chinese Rouge
by Maxime Banks

Had the great pleasure of meeting artist and poet Maxime Banks in January. Maxime works with art and text so I was determined to catch her exhibition Odyssey in the unique Fractures Gallery at Federation Square. I had a lot of trouble finding the gallery space and did quite a few laps of Fed Square before it finally occurred to me, that the interesting looking woman chatting to a bookstall holder could be Maxime herself. Indeed it was and right behind us – the Fractured Gallery - part of the Atrium’s glass wall structure!

Maxime Banks is a Melbourne based award winning African-American artist and poet who has also lived in Paris. Odyssey is a series of works which feature her poetry hand written on swathes or scrolls of fabric hung from high ceiling points, text on a white sail which she found in the street (talk about luck!), and poetry and prose (in English and French) combined with imagery in small collages, large canvases and printed paper. Her work merges imagery, text and story and explores self-identity, culture and spirituality. Her totem, the rhinoceros, is a recurring motif.

I was constantly drawn back to Grandmere Debout Chinese Rouge a painting of Maxime’s grandmother and the story of this important family figure. I found it a very moving work as well as warm and beautiful. I’m interested in line and love the treatment of it in the mixed media work Femme Esprit – the outlining and the oil pastel overlays give this strong female figure, fleet movement.

Femme Esprit by Maxime Banks

Many thanks to Maxime for providing photographs of these works. You can see something of the exhibition and hear Maxime giving a spontaneous reading of her poem about a girl dreaming and the memory of brothers and sisters …the girl reminds the indigo beetle of laughter... at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brfnmUYdrOA 

                 

Lizz Murphy & Maxime Banks at Federation Square:

Here we are together, happy with our chance meeting. 

– on one of Melbourne’s hottest January days EVER.

A POEM I READ TODAY: PS COTTIER

PS Cottier: Poetry, Writing, Screed is a blog worth visiting and following whether it's for the illuminating poems or their accompanying backstories and disquisitions - the screed - informative and entertaining and frequently punctuated by PS humour.

Poems range from a recent three-liner inspired by a vision of angels in Tilly's Café and The tea-lady's dream, 1970 where No-one wanted tea to Prayer a poem of simple yet squally hope or faith, and Sea - roping, gutting, sighing.

A POETRY WORKSHOP GIFT

Another happy day of writing poetry at the ACT Writers Centre with a roomful of fascinating poets. A first for me: one poet attended because someone gave him an enrolment to The Small Disturbance as a birthday present. (He assures me it turned out to be good gift.) So - do disturb - give poetry books and workshops for those special occasions.

SHOT GLASS #9 NOW ONLINE

The latest issue of Shot Glass with a big selection of short poems from USA and a pile of other countries including Australia, Canada, Ethiopa, Ireland, Nigeria and New Zealand, is now online. Poets are new and established. I have two poems in it: I Am A Fox and Aerials.

BULL IN A (CHINA) SHOP

Bull in a (China) Shop.

China Town, Melbourne. January 2013.

Lizz Murphy

A BUS-BOOK OF POETRY

Want to be part of Canberra's moving bus-book of poetry? You still have a week or so to submit your short poem of up to 8 lines to the Poetry in Action competition. 10 winning poems will be displayed on ACTION buses with the poets receiving $500 each. Another 10 shortlisted poets will receive ACTION Bus MyWay cards and their poems published on the artsACT website. You must be an ACT resident to enter. A panel of three poets will select the poems. Closes February 15. More information at http://www.arts.act.gov.au/arts_grants/act_poetry_prize

NEW ACT POETRY PRIZE OPENS SOON

The re-jigged ACT poetry award offering a $3000 first prize and two runners up of $1000 will open for entries on March 1. More information on the artsACT website from that date. Visit http://www.arts.act.gov.au/arts_grants/act_poetry_prize The competition is now for ACT-based poets/practice. I'm told the line limit is still 28. Good luck everyone.

A POEM FOR AUSTRALIA DAY

PATRIOTISM

Mass media newspaper

Free Australia Day sunhat

Mass audience participation

Mass audience manipulation

© Lizz Murphy

PORTRAITS NOW AVAILABLE

Before I focused on poetry, I worked with oils, acrylics and mixed media. Always a keen sketcher, counsel from Delacroix sticks in my mind – something about being able to draw a man jumping from a fourth storey window before he meets the ground. My new PressPress collection, Portraits is a series of quick sketches mainly from life in the street. The poems are inspired by my painting days and in some cases drawn from images of that time. I love ironic framing when it happens and my attention is frequently caught by the hard knock of life I see around me.

See more at PressPress -  http://www.presspress.com.au/Murphy.html - and how to order the book. A6 32pp ISBN 978-0-9808656-9-1 $9.90 including postage.

NEW POEM PUBLISHED ON WONDERBOOK

Just had a poem titled Sisters posted on The Wonder Book. To read it click here. The Wonder Book is a conversation in text, image and music. Names you may know; some you may not know. From Australia and other places. To find out more visit http://wonderbookofpoetry.org/about/ 

HAPPY HEALTHY 2013

Happy New Year everyone. I'm off to a good start with my next PressPress collection being produced as we speak. Thank you publisher and poet Chris Mansell. I also moved into a terrific writing phase just before  Silly Season after a very piecemeal couple of years - I swipe my brow hard. Shhhh don't speak too soon.

Will update blog and website in coming weeks including info on book release and poetry workshops.

WOMAN SCREAM: POETRY

'The Woman Scream festival - http://womanscream.blogspot.com.au/ - aims to bring together men and women poets in various countries, to pay a fitting tribute to women and to contribute with self-steem messages  and messages against violence. Musicians, actors, and other artists are welcome to contribute in the events to work together in favor of the cause.' Visit the website to find out about holding events March 1-31, 2013.

Poetry in Action Now Open

The Poetry in Action program which puts poems in ACTION buses in Canberra has been opened up to anyone who is a resident of the ACT. Submissions are now invited for poems of up to 8 lines on the themes Canberra/Centenary/Birthday. Deadline: February 15. Winners receive $500 each. More information at http://www.arts.act.gov.au/arts_grants/act_poetry_prize By the way 10 shortlisted poets get a $40 MyWay ticket - better than a kick in the teeth. Think of the poems you might find on the buses (that's how I started).

Award Winning Australian Writing 2012

'... perpetuate and recharge the conversation literature carries on ...'

— Mark Tredinnick

Award Winning Australian Writing 2012: The Best Winning Writing from Short Story & Poetry Competitions Nationally edited by Adolfo Aranjuez has arrived. It's a smart looking collection that would make a great Christmas present for anyone interested in writing or reading or heaven forbid - both! It has a choice selection of poetry and prose not to mention my own Rosemary Dobson Award poem The Architecture of Pear. Very pleased!

• Paperback 336 pages   $29.95 plus $9.95 postage in Australia

Now in its fifth edition, Award Winning Australian Writing (AWAW) continues its commitment to showcasing the best short stories and poems that have won prizes of all sorts - from the Blake to ZineWest. Includes a foreword by Mark Tredinnick worth reading on its own. Here's the full url in case the link doesn't ... well ... link: http://www.melbournebooks.com.au/awaw2012.html

Jailed poet: urls

Thanks Penelope for the alert (comment to post below) to links that don't work. I now test diligently but still no guarantee. Here they are:

The Reuters article is at:
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/29/us-qatar-poet-court-idUSBRE8AS11320121129

The letter written by Human Rights Watch is at:

http://www.hrw.org/news/2012/09/06/qatar-drop-charges-against-poet-ibn-al-dheeb

Cheers Lizz 

More on jailed poet

Click here for Letter to the Attorney General Al-Marri on the Detention of Qatari Poet Muhammad Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami from Human Rights Watch. This was sent in September protesting the poet's 12-month imprisonment pre-trial. It outlines the situation up to that date. 

Poet Imprisoned for Life

A shocking verdict of life imprisonment for poet Muhammad Ibn al-Dheeb al-Ajami, from Qatar, a country which has been helping other countries become more democratic and prides itself on freedom of expression (Doherty 2012). The poet Ajami celebrated the Arab Spring revolt that toppled four dictators in his poem Jasmine posted on YouTube... Read more at Reuters.

Photo via Creative Commons courtesy: epSos.de

Last poetry gigs for the year

One of the last chances this year to catch up with friends - and hear three terrific poets! Poetry at the Gods, ANU Arts Centre, Tuesday December 11, features Keith Harrison, Hal Judge and Kathy Kituai. Bookings essential: dinner at 6.30 pm and non-eating seats at 8 pm for a prompt start with coordinator Geoff Page bringing on the poets. Phone: 02 6248 5538.

We had a good crowd at Binalong's Mulling & Musing on Sunday 25th in spite of holiday season busyness building up, an overlap with the Golf Club's big weekend and harvesting. Poets and other writers came from Temora, Young, Yass, Wee Jasper, Wombat and of course Binalong. Local champion bush poet Robyn Sykes whizzed back from a performance in Ulladulla and will be off to Tamworth as a featured poet in January. The General Store/Top Shop is supporting this event on a regular basis. Every second month starting up again March 24 at 2 pm. Of course you've already bought your 2013 diary...