pickpocket song
February 10, 2010 at 7:06 pm | Posted in australian poetry, contemporary poetry, poetry, writing | 12 CommentsTags: poetry, writing
“I like the idea of someone pursuing the idea of beauty all their life… perhaps not necessarily a pursuit of romance but of wonderment.” Kiersty Boon
noone does a fagin like my fagin she snarls
smiles and bites an apple
singing and skipping then slowing
seeing a large redfaced creature
lumbering sweatily toward her
Sunday morning slowly passing
passed by s’light
of hand
taking breath from whom as secret,
dancing
eye before e except after sea
(immaculate)
replete
some sing in shades
February 1, 2010 at 7:01 pm | Posted in australian poetry, contemporary poetry, links, poetry | Leave a commentTags: australian poetry, contemporary poetry
I am reading The Best Australian Poems (ed. Robert Adamson). I am always behind in my reading, so I tend to pick up books as I pass by. Today the book fell open on a incredibly beautiful poem by Peter Minter called, “The Latter Shall Prevail”.
A poem like this is a fabulous surprise and I don’t want to give away any secrets. It is one of those works of art which should be allowed to unfold unfettered in the reader’s mind. A kind of gift from the poet to the reader.
It sings and the pitch with which it sings is perfectly matched to the colours it describes which reflect an emotional tone. It has a kind of musical narrative below the words which are carried on a rhythm that they never quite define. It has a great respect for form without being constrained by it. The poem seems to sit so comfortably within itself. It does not attempt to be something it is not.
And I hesitate to say, it would survive translation into many languages. If you want to experience Australian poetry as it is being written by our finest poets (or just buy it for this one gorgeous Peter Minter poem…
jazz – a frictionless universe
December 21, 2009 at 4:00 pm | Posted in australian poetry, contemporary poetry, poetry, senti-mentality, writing | 28 CommentsTags: draft, energy has momentum
I couldn’t disentangle the fight. I kept losing track of whether I was fighting for me or for people like me. But it turns out those two things are always the same. There were times when it was pure survival of my individual ego, but the context, the reason I was there and doing it, was very simple.
It was for creatures like me. We longed for a world in which this was not necessary but could not create one. The pressure from outside, the rapidly reducing resources as the forest fell and was churned into hamburger insistently required response.
Waking at dawn to the sound of leaf-blowers destroying the micro-ecosystem for no reason at all. Suburban tanks driven six blocks with one person in them. Every year less rain.
the eye will add images each further from the thought
there is only one soul and we are manifestations of it
passes through us radiant
over and again in the poems, the old man with his arm around his son looking up at the stars, different every time though, so each is unique. The weight of opinion is irrelevant and every one is equal. It’s like a series of Ned Kelly paintings, the eyes looking out from the desert a thought projected through the characters, through the observatory, fractures like light through language, save draft in which floats life
sense of place and uniqueness of time then someone says soul
raft the truth is indri
hear that existence it
self is a miracle we
rejoice in it
Protected: Pam Brown agrees with a drunk bastard.
November 15, 2009 at 1:50 pm | Posted in blogging, contemporary poetry, memoirs, writing | Enter your password to view comments.Tags: australian sentences, memoirs, Pam Brown
Tom’s new spectacles
November 7, 2009 at 3:07 pm | Posted in australian poetry, contemporary poetry, poetry, writing | 15 CommentsTags: c, poetry, writing
Right, like you are looking him
straight, in the eye of the
obvious, hustling pool in
the Pineapple Hotel
pools of strange languid creatures
for whom the function of colour is
not abstraction but attraction
nines’in the corner pocket declared
thus tacitly doubling the risk
crossing the bar
always a complex
exercise in skiff
w/- crosswind
the barrister lying
in with his new tax free
dime a half hour reward which
licked its tongue
into the corners of the evening,
The pianoplayer plays “Ham and Cheese Sandwich”
October 10, 2009 at 9:37 am | Posted in australian poetry, contemporary poetry, links, memoirs | 9 CommentsTags: australian sentences, define rock, Pam Brown
‘Surprises and Apologies’ perhaps reminded of ‘Ornithology’.
Sometimes he just drifts around til he finds a boat
But I remember saying over and over that you rock those
and paddling around on a flat sea without an F# is quite boring.
Boing splat, some semi-aquatic half amphibian, ripple e dee, I have decided it is best I never arrive in Melbourne.
But any time you are up in Brisbane or perhaps in some New York basement nightclub art gallery with a black baby grand
I am going to do what ever I can
to get you roaring drunk, Pam Brown. Cin cin,
It’s a wonderful life lived in gratitude
September 26, 2009 at 7:15 pm | Posted in australian poetry, contemporary poetry, poetry, writing | 15 CommentsTags: poetry, writing
He thinks stumbling over clothes discarded
suddenly his hands forgotten. His mind
flirts with larger words whose echoes
like redemption rarely now
ring bells like vindication
free from endless red horizons
picking up the phone
he realises he has no idea
what kind of thing she eats.
Room Service, one of everything
and turns again to sleep.
The Puzzle Box
gingatao, the podcast- An error has occurred; the feed is probably down. Try again later.
- The Australian Poet Laureate
- another quote from Robert Adamson January 31, 2010
- Three Quotes from Robert Adamson October 22, 2009
- The copyright question (2) October 7, 2009
legal formalities
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