Sunday, October 23, 2011

Australian poet to have words published in Australia


I have a poem due out in November with The Best Australian Poems 2011. The annual anthology is this year edited by John Tranter. He writes of his selections:  ‘What a rich, strange and diverse lot these poems turned out to be … I suspect that these baroque and potent imaginings can only have come into existence as fragments of dreams or nightmares.’


Jill Jones writes about the mix of writers appearing in this year’s anthology on her blog Ruby Street, there she puts forward that the anthology ‘picks up on work that has either been published overseas or was fresh but unpublished’ and that ‘online international venues are often where the more interesting work is being featured’ and that Australia-based poets are now not so parochial and the anthology will represent this.

The Suns Fall at Zero, first published by The Delinquent in the United Kingdom, will be in the anthology and I look forward to reading the poems it will be alongside. 

Friday, October 14, 2011

BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! @ The Phoenix, 730PM Wednesday 19 October

THIS IS THE OCTOBER TWENTY-ELEVEN INSTALMENT OF BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT!

And while my car doesn’t fly, in fact it doesn’t even move anymore, and I still have to eat my caramel space food sticks on earth because I am not a billionaire

THIS IS THE FUTURE!

And in this future we give you a microphone, 2 minutes, a Score Adder and Time Keeper, an audience, A MASTER OF CONFLICT, five judges, a stage, and a pub full of beer, whiskey, cider and rye, and two MCs

ALL SO YOU CAN GIVE US YOUR WORDS.
BECAUSE THIS IS A POETRY SLAM, WITH PRIZES!

‘cause glory is not enough this month we have prizes from:
Impact Comics
Mind Games
Smiths Alternative Bookstore
Anything someone gives us to give away and the Master of Conflict does not successfully steal
Whatever we find going cheap outside the fruit and vege shop
And stuff from our newest sponsor, THE OXFAM SHOP!
YES YOU READ CORRECT, INSTEAD OF BUYING THINGS FROM THE OXFAM SHOP SO CHILDREN IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES CAN GROW CROPS AND GO TO SCHOOL YOU CAN WIN IT
FOR FREE.
Thanks Oxfam Shop.

Now we know it is all about the prizes but stay with us because this month

we bring you a feature act of POETRY
but not just any PERFORMER of POETRY
not just any WORDS of POETRY PERFORMANCE
not just some poet whose mum told him he was special too much or not enough and he believed it

NO

This performer is one of the founders of performance poetry and slam in Australia
He has featured at the Brisbane Writers, Sydney Writers, Byron Bay Writers, Tasmanian Poetry, Broken Hill Poetry, Woodford Folk, and QLD Poetry Festivals
This poet is the unholy ghost of Iggy Pop and Marc Kelly Smith (so what!!)
He has featured at the birthplace of slam, the Green Mill in Chicago, and where one mid-wife of slam hangs-out, the Bowery Poetry Club in New York
This spoken word artist is Ghostboy

And Ghostboy is Spoken Weird.

So be at BAD!SLAM!NO!BISCUIT! 730pm at the Phoenix, sign-up for words, sign-up for judging, sign-up for prizes, sign-up for yelling, sign-up.
And remember no props, no music, original material and 2 minutes.

THIS IS THE FUTURE!


Sunday, October 09, 2011

The ABC recording of Where is the Werewolf?


My poem Where is the Werewolf? was recorded for the ABC podcast CanberrArts: Take 11 by Melanie Tait.

I was very excited about this recording as Melanie has previously recorded four of my favourite Canberra performers for the ABC podcasts: Adam Hadley, The Ellis Collective, Alison McGregor and Nigel McRae.

Melanie asked for recommendations for other poets, I recommended Anthony Hayes and Ryan Schipper. Hopefully they appear in future podcasts.

On the podcast the poem is titled Where is the Wealth?  it must be my Central Coast of New South Wales accent.

You can find Where is the Werewolf? published at Verity La.


Wednesday, October 05, 2011

Words @ Verity La

Verity La has published Duck Part 2.


As they say: “Whether it’s fiction, poetry, comment or review, we want high-quality text, and by ‘high-quality’ we mean thoughtfully composed, a focus on words, words with impact.

So I like that Duck Part 2 follows Where is the Werewolf? and The Mother Poem into their creative arts journal.

And in other news the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) satellite allows us to see the Universe.

A view of the spiral Andromeda Galaxy
built from a mosaic of images from WISE