Friday Night Karaoke with F.

May 21, 2010 at 7:00 pm | Posted in australian poetry, contemporary poetry, ekphrasia, genre isn't dead yet but it should be, performance, writing | 7 Comments
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Happy Birthday Albrecht Durer. They tell me you were also prone to crankiness inherent in the precision obsession being such a perceptive mathematician of perspective.  We are still enjoying your mass reproduction revolution collapsing the distinction between the low art and the high culture. I would clasp my hands and pray if I still felt that was an appropriate response to soldiers  advancing through the mists of time and various other ridiculous apparitions. These days, I measure lines of sight only in decibels.  Approximate the distance between the letters involved in, “It’s only typing,

Sillyness, willinilliness, numbers have meaning only in context, “why is it pouring rain”, slamming his glass down on the piano, get some perspective, son, Rousseau had tiggers too and the softness in their eyes as they watch us watch her rise. I’m only typing “the 736 bus will be 14 minutes late again” and I do, remember those blue berets must be on the manifest, oh hey presto, I remember Durer he said, fancy hatted fellow, now count me in,

I looked down at the keyboard and thought one two three four, you make me feel like

(Albrecht Durer (1471), Henri Rousseau (1844) and Leo Sayer (1948)  share todays birthday May 21st)


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The Speed Poets Gig

May 6, 2010 at 6:53 am | Posted in performance, poetry, video blog, writing | 20 Comments
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It’s a very different experience performing for an audience of people and standing around in front of a video camera waving your arms around. The former is exciting and enjoyable and unique and the latter makes me feel very silly.

I really must get back into exercising and eating fewer cakes.

Podcast for Pool

April 28, 2010 at 6:43 pm | Posted in australian poetry, performance, podcast, poetry, writing | 10 Comments
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I have been enjoying myself at Pool which is a project coordinated by the ABC, Australia’s national broadcaster. They have requested pieces about birds and rivers, so I thought I would podcast a couple of poems, sunonheads exit and The Scrub Turkey. You can hear them at Pool under the link above or here at my podcast site.

It was good practice for my featured performance at Speed Poets this Sunday where I will be doing twelve minutes from memory. Wish me luck!

The Braul

April 4, 2010 at 4:02 pm | Posted in australian poetry, performance, poetry, video blog, writing | 18 Comments
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Episode Two – Paul Squires poem “Three-legged Dog”

Watch Episode One, Brad Frederiksen “In Vitro Alienation” here.

The Year Of Doing (even more) Things.

December 28, 2009 at 8:15 am | Posted in performance, writing | 27 Comments
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(it is raining gently

literally whispering

we create ourselves)

Lurking behind many of my verbal ramblings is the idea that the only resource of much value to humans is experience, both individual and collective. And in that spirit I dub this the year of getting up off your arse, Squires and jumping up and down.

That is to say, I must start performing the poetry live. As most of you know, this is something I dread and it would be so much easier if Maxine Clarke, Australia’s finest performance poet was standing beside me with a sharp object threatening to transform it from a thought into a shiny metal object poking me in the ribs saying, “Squires, if you don’t get out there right now…

It would be easier if I could sidle up to Graham Nunn and say, “Graham, I’m gonna make very few live appearances in my life-time, lets charge them a fiver for half an hour. Then we could reinvest the surplus in the Buckmonster Filler Program we stole, I mean the old shuffleroo, Sir Marcus Westbury, what a gent.”

But, as usual, I am getting way ahead of myself. I must choose the first piece for the performance, then I was thinking of group sourcing the rest, that is to say, taking requests,

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