Dear Poets Union Members and Friends,
Congratulations to Jordie Albiston winner of the NSW Premier’s Award for Literature, Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry for her collection ‘the sonnet according to ‘m’. See links (below, under ‘Other News for Poets’)
Details of the Poets Union events at the Sydney Writers’ Festival are now up on the Poets Union website and in our e-newsletter. Exciting stuff and please see those that need tickets – they are selling fast! www.poetsunion.com
Please don’t wait for this email anymore! The e-news for poets is now posted and updated on the website each week – please press control and click www.poetsunion.com to visit the Poets Union website and collect your e-news for poets at a time to suit you!
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POETRY, EVENTS, FESTIVALS AND READINGS
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Sydney Writers’ Festival event p.6 (10 am – 5.30 pm)
The Book of Water: A Collection of Video Poetry
SWF program : Exhibitions, p.6 - The Book of Water: A Collection of Video Poetry
The Book of Water is an exhibit of local and national video poems. Poems vary in length from 30 seconds to 5 minutes (A complete viewing might require 40 minutes.) The collection showcases the work of a variety of poets. Notes on their work will be incorporated into the video program.
The exhibition will collect work from the many scattered sources where media poetry is currently found (from the net; from new media grant recipients and graduate students; from traditional poets trying their hand), to enable people to have an idea of what is happening in this field.
Curation by Angela Stretch in consultation with organisations that promote or house media poetry.
Dates: duration of the Sydney Writers’ Festival
Venue: Heritage Pier Upstairs
Entry: Free
Open: 10am – 5.30pm
Angela Stretch is a visual artist and poet. She was the curator of New Directions, a collection of video poetry screened at The Australian Poetry Festival 2008 and more recently at the Australian Centre for Moving Image. Angela is the founder of Wordjammin', a Sydney based organisation that fosters poetry and spoken word. She toured as an emerging poet in the 2007 Statelines Project through NSW and VIC. and is the coordinator of the Poets Union monthly reading at Sydney’s Brett Whiteley Gallery. She was awarded the Australia Amnesty International Freedom Art Prize 2009. She holds a Masters degree in Journalism from the Sydney University of Technology and is a freelance radio producer.
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In Melbourne Wed. 19th May – Asialink Winter Writing Series
Six Poets Speak Softly
Asialink kicks off a new event series over the winter months exploring writing, travel, life and politics in Asia. It’s a kind of rolling, mini-festival covering Anti-travel-writing, Asian-Australian piss-take pop culture, extreme endurance protest from Japan, a Mumbai mutiny from early 19th century child performers … among many other things.
Event : First up is Six Poets Speak Softly: a night of subtle speed-dating-style Asian poetics.
Six of Australia’s best poets, six small tables, six small audiences, and a whole lot of mulled wine and spiced chai. Gather close for some face-to-face poetic journeys through Japan, China, Vietnam and Indonesia.
Featuring: John Mateer, Peter Bakowski, Michael Farrell, Steve Kelen, Terry Jaensch and Jennifer MacKenzie.
Date: Wednesday 19th May 2010
Time: 6.00 - 7.30pm
Venue: Yasuko Hiraoka Myer Room,
Address: Level 1, Sidney Myer Asia Centre, The University of Melbourne
Inquiries: Adam Hills, a.hills@asialink.unimelb.edu.au or phone Tel. (03) 9035 4026
Register: http://www.asialink.unimelb.edu.au/calendar/events/featured/asialink_winter_writing_series_six_poets_speak_softly/registration
Cost: It’s all free, it includes delicious winter warming beverages.
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SWF + UNSW – event 25. Ireland to and from Australia: The Imaginative Connection
Date: Thursday, May 20 2010
Time: 10:00 am - 11:00 am
Where: Bangarra Mezzanine, Pier 4/5, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay
Cost : Free - no bookings
Participants : Ronan McDonald, Geordie Williamson, poet Nessa O’Mahony with Justin O’Brien (facilitator)
Ronan McDonald, a leading Beckett scholar and historian of Irish modernism, has recently moved to Australia to head the John Hume Global Irish Studies Institute at UNSW.
In her verse novel, ‘In Sight of Home’, the poet Nessa O’Mahony uses a cache of nineteenth-century letters as the basis for a subtle imagining the experience of migration from Ireland to Australia.
The Australian’s Geordie Williamson maintains a watching brief over contemporary Irish fiction. What does it mean to relocate a critical perspective on Irish literature to Australia? How can Australia be imagined from Ireland? What is the salience of the Irish tradition to Australian literary culture? This panel explores the imagined diaspora of modern Irish literature in Australia. Presented with UNSW.
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SWF program event no. 45 Thurs. May 20 (1.00 – 2.00pm)
Stephanie Dowrick : In the Company of Rilke
Can visionary poetry save the world - or merely change your life? What are poets for in these destitute times? Are there inward questions that can only be answered by poetry? Stephanie Dowrick speaks to Blanche d'Alpuget about her latest book ‘In the Company of Rilke’, and how this 20th-century poet speaks to our yearning for inwardness, beauty and spiritual connection.
Participants: Stephanie Dowrick, Blanche d’Alpuget (facilitator)
When: Thursday, May 20 2010
Time: 13:00 - 14:00 (1.00 – 2.00pm)
Venue: Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay
Address: 22 Hickson Road
Walsh Bay .
Cost: $15/$10
Bookings: 9250 1988 Sydney Theatre Box Office
Stephanie Dowrick (Australian) PhD, has the rare distinction of writing critically acclaimed fiction and non-fiction that have also been best sellers. Her books include ‘Intimacy & Solitude’, ‘Forgiveness and Other Acts of Love’ and ‘Choosing Happiness’. Formerly a publisher and founder of The Women's Press, London, she writes and teaches on a variety of spiritual, psychological and ethical issues, is an ordained interfaith minister and an adjunct fellow with the Writing and Society Research Group at the University of Western Sydney.
stephaniedowrick.com
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PU + SWF program event no. 57 – Thurs 20 May, 4.00-5 pm: The Sydney Poetry Reading
SWF program no. 57 - The Sydney Poetry Reading
For the past few years, the Poets Union has organised a series of readings whose purpose has been to highlight the quality of poetry produced in Sydney, and to promote the idea of Sydney as a creative city. A one hour program featuring three respected Sydney poets: Martin Harrison, Anna Kerdijk-Nicholson and David Musgrave
Date: Thursday May 20th
Time: 4.00-5.00 pm
Venue: Bangarra Mezzanine
Duration: One hour
Entry: Free, no bookings
MC: Martin Langford
Martin Harrison is a poet and critic. His selected poems Wild Bees: New and Selected Poems was published by University of Western Australia Press in 2008, and was short-listed for the Adelaide Festival Poetry Prize. A selection of his poetry in Mandarin parallel text, A Kangaroo Farm, appeared that same year. He divides his time between Sydney and the Hunter Valley. He teaches writing at the University of Technology.
David Musgrave is the publisher at Puncher & Wattmann. He has published three books; Open Water, a cd of a selection of his poetry, was released in 2007 as part of the River Road series.
In 2008 he won both the Newcastle and Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prizes. He teaches at the University of Newcastle. His most recent publication is Phantom Limb (John Leonard Press, 2010).
Anna Kerdijk Nicholson's first book, The Bundanon Cantos, is a series of poems about Australian landscape. Anna went on to receive the 2001 Arts Queensland Award for Unpublished Poetry (The Val Vallis) with one of the poems from the book and The Bundanon Cantos became a Sydney Morning Herald Best Book of 2003. Her most recent book, Possession [FIP, 2010], is about Captain Cook's Endeavour voyage and colonial appropriation.
Martin Langford (MC) is the author of five poetry books, the most recent being The Human Project, a Selected and New, published by Puncher and Wattmann in 2009. He is the editor of Harbour City Poems (P&W, 2009), an anthology of poems about Sydney.
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Wollongong - launch of Kate Llewellyn’s ‘Selected Verse’ 4 pm
Event: Reading and Booklaunch - Kate Llewellyn’s Selected Verse
Date: Thursday 20 May 2010
When: 4pm
Venue: UniCentre Bookshop, University of Wollongong,
Address: Northferlds Avenue, Gwyneville
Free event, all welcome!
University of Wollongong Press are pleased to announce the launch of Kate Llewellyn's selected verse, edited by Paul Sharrad. The collection includes essays on her poetry by David Gilbey, Susan Sheridan and Anne Collett. The launch will feature a reading by Kate Llewellyn.
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Ali Smith – Director : South Coast Writers Centre
Professional development, networks and resources for writers and readers on the South Coast of New South Wales. Supported by Arts NSW and Wollongong City Council.
PO Box 32 Wollongong East NSW 2520
Tel/Fax: 02 4228 0151
Email: scwc@1earth.net
Web: http://www.1earth.net/~scwc
Blog: http://www.southcoastwriters.wordpress.com
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SWF program event no. 65 – Thurs. 20th May 5.30 -6.30 pm
Tribute to Vicki Viidikas
Participants: Robert Adamson, Kerry Leves, Ingrid Lisners, Robyn Ravlich, Barry Scott, Michael Wilding (facilitator)
When: Thursday, May 20 2010
Time: 17:30 - 18:30
Where: Bangarra Mezzanine
Address: Pier 4/5, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay
Cost: Free - no bookings
Australian author Vicki Viidikas died tragically in 1998. An iconic member of the Sydney-based “generation of ‘68” her work continues to be influential and much anthologised. ‘New and Rediscovered’ has just been published. Her friend Robert Adamson has described her writing as “organic, holistic, courageous, adventurous, foolhardy, delightful, dangerous, non-conformist”. Her critically acclaimed books include ‘Condition Red’ (1973), ‘Wrappings’ (1974) and ‘India Ink ‘(1984). The latter reflects her love of India where she lived and travelled for over a decade, and continued to write prolifically. This special event includes readings and commentary from Robyn Ravlich, Ingrid Lisners, Kerry Leves, Robert Adamson and Barry Scott. Chair: Michael Wilding.
Robert Adamson has published twenty volumes of poetry in Australia, the UK and the USA. His most recent collection is ‘The Golden Bird’, and his previous volume of poems, ‘The Goldfinches of Baghdad’, won the ‘Age’ Book of the Year Award for poetry and the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry and was short-listed for the New South Wales and Queensland premiers’ literary awards and the State Library of NSW Biography Award. In 2009, Robert edited the ‘Best Australian Poems’. In 1995 he received the Christopher Brennan Award for lifetime achievement in poetry.
Kerry Leves’ poetry book, ‘A Shrine to Lata Mangeshkar’, was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Awards in 2009. A member of Margaret Bradstock’s group, Harbour City Poets, Kerry performed in ‘Conversations from the Bottom of the Harbour’, at SWF 2009. His work is represented in ‘The Best Australian Poems 2009’ and ‘The Best Australian Poetry 2009’. Kerry has reviewed poetry for ‘Overland’ journal for ten years, and also for ‘Australian Book Review’, ‘Blue Dog’, ‘Boxkite’, ‘Five Bells’, ‘Mascara’ and ‘Southerly’.
Ingrid Lisners is the sister of Vicki Viidikas and lives in London with her family where she studied art and photography. From an early age the sisters’ lives took different paths although both were involved in artistic and literary pursuits; Ingrid with photography and media, Vicki with writing and travelling. The sisters kept in touch and would link up either in England or at Turramtalone, their mother’s property in northern NSW. Vicki’s tragic death brought Ingrid briefly back to Australia where she organised Vicki’s unpublished work and assisted with the publication of ‘Vicki Viidikas - New and Rediscovered’ as a tribute to her sister.
Robyn Ravlich published a collection of poems ‘The Black Abacus’ and performed at various events including the annual Balmain poetry readings alongside poets such as Robert Adamson, Kerry Leves, and Vicki Viidikas in the late 1960s and ‘70s. She became a long-time broadcaster at ABC Radio National where she wrote, presented and produced award-winning cultural features and documentaries and was executive producer of ‘The Listening Room’ and Radio National’s Music Unit. Among her radio portraits of writers were ‘Chatwinesque’, ‘Prévert Performed’ and ‘Vicki’s Voice’.
Barry Scott is a co-publisher and editor at Transit Lounge and the author of ‘Love and Wigs: Poems of Bangkok, Bollywood and Beyond’.
Michael Wilding's recent fiction includes ‘Superfluous Men’, ‘National Treasure’ and ‘Wild Amazement’ and ‘Academia Nuts’. His crime novel ‘The Prisoner of Mount Warning’ is forthcoming, along with the anthology ‘Heart Matters,’ co-edited with Peter Corris. As an editor of ‘Tabloid Story’ and ‘Stand’ magazine he published Vicki Viidikas' early stories, and as a partner in Wild & Woolley he published her books ‘Wrappings’ and ‘Knabel’. He is emeritus professor at the University of Sydney.
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SWF event – Auburn Poets and Writers’ Group (APWG) 20th May
Zalzala: Inner quakes and after-shocks 6.00pm
Event: ZALZALA: Inner Quakes and After Shocks
Date: Thursday 20 May
Time: 6.00 pm
Venue: Riverside Theatre
Address: Parramatta
Entry : Free entry
Earth Quakes:
Listen as APWG goes under the skin of culture shock.
Cultures within cultures: intersexions of body and soulful words, dislocations of place and inner languages, a collidescope of climate changes in the whether.
Tremors of the heart: A collaborative spoken-word performance in English, Tamil, Arabic and Farsi, creating rhythms and linkages between the experience of change in culture and climate.
Shocking:
For further information please phone Auburn Community Development Network (ACDN) on
Tel. (02) 9649 5559 or
Email: Alissar Chidiac at ACDN auburnarts@acdn.org.au
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SWF + Laureate Productions + PU - SWF program event no. 69 Thurs 20 May: a season of ‘Love at the Bar’ (opening) (6.30pm)
SWF event nos. 69, 134 & 193 - A Season of Love at the Bar
Love at the Bar is a night of Australian love poems set to music by Ashley Chatto, and presented by Kath Ellis, Dave Stephenson and a band of quality musicians.
The performances will be hosted by Laureate Productions, a small arts company which was formed to mount entertainment based in a variety of ways on Australian verse – with a particular focus on quality contemporary material.
Patrons will have the choice of watching the show with a meal – or with a complimentary glass of wine.
Venue: Sydney Dance Cafe
Dates: Thurs 20th May
Time: 6.30-9pm.
Cost:: $45 for meal and glass of wine, or $25 (incl complimentary glass of wine).
Bookings: 9250 1988 or sydneytheatre.org.au
Media enquiries: Angela Stretch, Laureate Productions: 0434 898 578
Email: angela.stretch@gmail.com
Please see: www.laureateproductions.com.au for poems and further details
Did you miss An Evening of Darlinghurst Nights, last year’s tribute to Kenneth Slessor held over 5 nights at the Tap Gallery? Don’t even think about making the same mistake... Book now!
The Laureate Productions team is an offshoot of the Wordjammin’ Poetry Ensemble, which presented Darlinghurst Nights at the 2009 SWF. The production team is comprised of: composer Ashley Chatto, producer Angela Stretch, poetry consultant Martin Langford and visual artist DJ Young.
Production Crew:
Ashley Chatto is a composer, jazz and classical guitarist, and pianist who has worked with some of the Australia’s leading jazz players. He has composed music for theatre, film and big bands. His last major work was writing the music to An Evening of Darlinghurst Nights, by Kenneth Slessor, which premiered in association with the 2009 Sydney Writers Festival.
Geir Brillian Gunnarsson is a native of Iceland, and a musician of sorts. He has been producing and composing music for the last 22 years. Recipient of the Best Original Score award at Tropfest 2009, and producer for many albums in including; Ophelia of the Spirits, Harii Bandhu, Oka, Favourite Son, Kiko etc. He writes music for theatre, and is always on the lookout for new avenues for his endeavors. Currently he is producing a variety of singer/songwriters, as well as putting the finishing touches on his album "Friends Lovers & Others" under the moniker of "Pearldivers of the Subconcious".
Katherine Ellis is a singer, performer and a visual artist. She has been a pregnant ribbon dancer after an awesome foursome with the Olympics swimming team, a devout Christian house wife with a copy of Oprah Winfrey’s wise quotes, a nazi leotard wearing physical education instructor and a perpetual brides maid out for revenge as the front woman for Sydney bands Hubris and Kathellisism. Her performance style is very theatrical using costumes and characters. She has performed at festivals around Australia, Europe and Java, Indonesia with her bands and as a guest performer. She co-devised and performed in a theatrical performance with Vashti Hughes and Trash Vaudeville for the Kings Cross Festival. She has M.C.’d events such as the Newtown Festival and various gigs and corporate events around Sydney. Kath also performed in An Evening of Darlinghurst Nights by Kenneth Slessor in association with the 2009 Sydney Writers Festival.
Martin Langford has published six books of poetry, including The Human Project:New and Selected Poems (P&W, 2009). Thematically, he is interested in the way we try to imagine ourselves beyond our biological inheritance, and in the evolution of our social and imaginative spaces. He lives on the northern outskirts of Sydney, and the landscape of that area often features in his work.
In Microtexts (Island 2005), which is a book of poetics, he argues for poetry’s engagement with the other, and against the enlargement obsessions of our standard narratives. He is the editor of Harbour City Poems: Sydney in Verse 1788-2008 (P&W, 2009).
Scott Leishman studied music at The Sydney Conservatorium of Music, he has played with many of the leading Jazz musicians in Sydney. He worked with Jackie Orszaczky for over a decade and was part of Jackie's most influential bands 'The Godmothers'. He is also in demand as a Bass player working in any musical style.
Dave Stephenson is a Sydney musician, writer and teacher. He is a founding member of the contemporary folk band Waiting for Guinness, with whom he has performed at major music festivals around Australia, including the Woodford Folk Festival, the Port Fairy Folk Festival and the Adelaide Fringe Festival. Dave performed in the production of An Evening of Darlinghurst Nights by Kenneth Slessor in association with the 2009 Sydney Writers Festival.
Angela Stretch is the founder of Wordjammin’, a Sydney based organisation that fosters poetry and spoken word. Angela’s work extends to visual art that explores text with audio-visual technologies and was awarded People’s Choice Award at the 2008 Australian Ethical Art Prize. Staged an audio-visual poem Five Buoys, housed in a 44 foot geo-desic dome, River Beats Festival 2008. She was awarded Highly Recommended in the Marrickville Council Art Prize 2009. Curator of New Directions, a collection of video-poems for the Australian Poetry Festival 2008 and Overload Poetry Festival 2009. Produced, Directed and performed in An Evening of Darlinghurst Nights by Kenneth Slessor in association with the 2009 Sydney Writers Festival.
Marc Van Doornum is one of the leading Flamenco Guitarists in Australia he has worked with many of the top Flamenco artists in Australia including many years working with Diana Reyes Flamenco Dance Company. He has also recently finished studying guitar in Spain with some of the best flamenco guitarists in the world. When not playing flamenco he plays jazz and composes music.
Kathleen Williamson is a versatile singer-songwriter who has worked with a range of local and international acts over the last decade, from early collaborations with The Herd to sharing the stage with Josh Groban, Delta Goodrem, Evermore and Abi Tucker. From a classical and jazz vocal background, Kathleen is emerging in the world of independent music, releasing her debut album “Little While” in August 2009. Earmarked by Kathleen’s keening vocals and delicate arrangements, her cartwheeling original songs are “a little bit folk-rock and a little bit blues-pop”. Kathleen has performed for audiences across Sydney, the UK and France.
J D Young is a Sydney based visual artist who has practiced for twenty years as a painter and for the last ten years in video. He has collaborated with other artists in experimental projects such as the Australian collective Deprogram, and generates a mix of live and recorded material that challenges traditional approaches. His work typically accompanies live music, poetry, installation and site specific pieces.
The Poets and Poems (Notes by Martin Langford)
1. Dorothy Hewett (1923-2002)
Hewett was both a playwright and a poet. In The Golden Mean, a great romantic and feminist looks back: time has passed (she has lost her power as a young beauty) – but rather than being sentimental, she is proud of how hard she played the game. This was written by an old woman who had always loved love, men, eros; who had taken great risks to pursue what she saw as her right to erotic happiness – someone who remembers the pleasures and risks of love, but also the pressures to be strait-laced and sensible, like the frogmouth in the poem. For all her pride, however, in her energy and her attractiveness – in the poem it is she who carried Cupid’s arrows – there was something paradisal about the world she played in as a girl, and that continues to
haunt her, even now.
2. Julian Croft – The Bar at the Rock Garden
Julian Croft was born in Newcastle, and now lives in New England. In much of his work he has honoured the working class lives and landscapes he grew up in, but in this poem – though it still has a working-class groundedness – he finds himself thinking about the nature of the energy at a classic rock venue – The Rock Garden, in England. It is the early eighties, and he has come to see some of the bands of the time – The Flats, The Clash. What strikes him, however, is that even while the bands play on “blasting the black paint off soft gut walls”, the girl behind the bar just goes about her business, and no-one seems to see how the whole purpose of the place is to put that loud male energy out there, to get through to girls like her, to impress her, to make her aware of their need.
3. Lesbia Harford (1891-1927) - untitled
Harford was a sexual and political radical – a brave, livewire voice. Brought up by her mother after the family’s fortunes collapsed, and her father had to leave for laboring work in WA, she graduated in law from Melbourne. Instead of practising, however,she worked in textile factories to be closer to the people whose cause she fought for politically. Born with defective valves of the heart, she battled ill-health all her life, and eventually died at thirty-six. Very little of her work was published during her lifetime. This poem shows her resistance to being taken for granted, and her sense of herself as someone independent, and not just a reflection of the male.
4. John Jenkins – Why I Like You.
John Jenkins (b. 1949) is a Melbourne poet. He has published eight books of poems, including the recent long meditation on life in the fifties, Growing up with Mr Menzies. As well as poetry, he has written extensively in other areas, including travel and music, and on music-theatre. He has also worked on many collaborations – often across different media. Why I Like You is not a typical John Jenkins poem, but we selected it for its attractive idiosyncrasy of tone: the lightness of touch with which it finds a way to praise the poet’s partner in a way that isn’t corny – and that is not always an easy thing to do.
5. Geraldine McKenzie – Sleeping Together
Geraldine McKenzie is a Blue Mountains poet who wrote a book called Duty (Paperbark Press, 2001). In many of the poems, she is concerned with the play of language and ideas, and with exploring these experimentally, but Sleeping Together is a straightfoward celebration of the joy of sleeping with a loved partner – not conscious, but not completely unconscious either: never quite letting go, but letting the ocean of feeling and proximity wash around her.
6. Kate Llewellyn – Finished and Sassy
Kate Llewellyn is one of a slightly earlier generation of writers who began as great romantics, enjoying the freedoms that opened up for women of her generation – but who, when those perspectives collided with the feminism of the seventies, had the honesty to examine what her life might mean in their light. Like all good writers about love, she wrote bravely about her experiences, and it is this courage which gives strength to her work. Later, she wrote several bestselling diary-style reflections, such as The Waterlily, in which she revisited some of this material in prose.
7. MTC Cronin – I Am In Love, The Specifics of Love, There is No More Time
MTC Cronin is a mid-career poet who, as well as being a prolific writer of poetry (she has published 17 books of poems, counting translations and collaborations) is also a great experimenter with related forms – such as essays and prose poems. At various stages of what still seems like a short writing career, Cronin has written large numbers of love poems – particularly in The World Beyond the Fig (Five Islands, 1998), and in My Lover’s Back (UQP, 2002). The three poems we have chosen all come from My Lover’s Back. As with all good writers of love poems, she is not afraid to own her own emotions – as in the first two of the poems we will be featuring. There is No More Time, on the other hand, is as bleak a picture of the nullity that comes at the end of love as one could imagine.
8. Kevin Hart – I think that hardly anyone
This is another poem insisting on the half-heartedness – the pusillanimity – with which love is too often pursued. Kevin Hart is a Professor of English based much of the time, these days, on the east coast of America. He has been an important presence on the Australian writing scene since the 1980’s, and particularly since Peniel, a book of masterly meditations on negative theology. Born in the UK, Hart was raised in Brisbane, and memories of that city figure prominently in his work. A selection of his poems is available in Flame Tree (Paperbark, 2002).
9. Russell Erwin – Awaiting Resolution
Russell Erwin is a farmer and teacher on the Southern Tablelands of NSW. The poem we selected is from a book called From Here (Indigo/Ginnenderra, 2001). It is a poem about an image which the poet has been haunted by – perhaps from a dream, perhaps from a movie: a man is riding towards a “high, cold sierra”; a girl is feeding chickens. They are not part of a story, they do not seem to know each other, let alone be lovers. But something about them makes them represent, for Erwin, all the relationships which could have occurred, but which don’t; all the distances between people which never get bridged – in short, the love that doesn’t happen.
10. John Forbes (1950-1998) – Love Poem
This is widely regarded as a classic contemporary love poem. John Forbes was a shrewd and acerbic critic of contemporary culture, but sometimes he would write poems which drew a relationship between the power-games and craziness of the broader culture, and the difficult travelling he was doing himself. In this poem, he implies there is a link between the sexual losses and unhappiness of Western males, and the way the media-management of wars by politicians like Bush help them to forget such things. Despite this, the loneliness of the person watching is never really lessened by the distant vindication of his ego in Iraq , or his knowledge about the weaponry.
11. Marcella Polain – You Are My Absurdist Angle
Marcella Polain is a contemporary poet from Western Australia. You Are My Absurdist Angle is a poem which is absolutely charged with erotic feeling. This is one of the poems we were thinking of when we said that women had a new freedom to explore the erotic: in fact sometimes it seems they are more willing to explore such material than men – who can be a little coy about such things!
12. Gwen Harwood (1920-95) – The Owl and the Pussycat Baudelaire Rock
Gwen Harwood was a small, twinkling lady who led a very conventional life, but who was also outrageously mischievous. As a girl, during the war, she drove her bosses crazy at the Brisbane requisitioning depot where she worked, because of the Goonstyle games she played; she caused a scandal in the sixties when it was found out that it was she, sweet Gwen, who had been taking the piss out of editors with her various pseudonyms, all mailed from different locations around Australia (with the assistance of friends). A bigger scandal occurred when it was found one of her poems was printed (in The Bulletin) without anyone realising that the first letters of each line
spelt F-U-C-K-A-L-L-E-D-I-T-O-R-S. Mostly, her material was relatively mainstream – well-crafted, intellectually confident, increasingly direct and moving in later years. But this poem, from her last book, but written twenty years earlier, just about defines “left field”. It is a desperate love song – an invocation to keep going, to keep loving each other, even though the night is coming, and no-one knows where they are going – even though, if she is heading towards heaven, she has always found it hard to believe in the resurrection of the body – a body such as her lover’s “at my side in the rocking darkness”. It is both an assertion of love, and perhaps even of faith (of the expectation of heaven) but also of despair, of the end coming and not knowing what that means. Why the title? One guess is that something she saw in the directness of emotion in rock music gave her a way of speaking with the directness she needed herself. Presumably the owl and the pussycat are there because they too “went to sea” – off into the great unknown – though the absurdity of the nonsense poem may also have suited her sense of absurdity. And Baudelaire? It is partly a crack at people who invoke Baudelaire’s name as a sign they are doing something poetic – without necessarily having read him – but it is also a nod to the world of Baudelaire’s extreme imagination, one she is going to enter herself in this poem. By the time she did publish it, she had developed the cancer that would eventually kill her, so perhaps she thought that it was an appropriate time to air such a confronting work.
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Personnel Summary:
Poetry by: Julian Croft, MTC Cronin, Russel Erwin, John Forbes, Lesbia Harford, Kevin Hart, Gwen Harwood, Dorothy Hewett, John Jenkins, Kate Llewellyn, Geraldine McKenzie and Marcella Polain
Produced and Directed by: Angela Stretch
Composed by: Ashley Chatto
Video art by: JD Young
Performers: Kath Ellis, David Stephenson, Kathleen Williamson
Music by: Ashley Chatto, Scott Leishman, Marc Van doornum
Sound & Lighting: Geir Brillian Gunnarsson
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SWF program event no. SR21 – Blacktown Arts Centre 20th May
Goomeda Darug: Spirit of the Darug (8.00-9.00pm)
The Darug are the original inhabitants of Western Sydney. In this event, Darug poets come together to share their thoughts and musings, reflecting on loss, love and belonging.
Readings by poets Robyn Caughlan, Stacey Et Al, Leanne Tobin, Chris Tobin, Greg Smith, Larraine Sullivan, Karen Maber and Dianne Ussher.
When: Thursday, May 20 2010
Time: 20:00 - 21:00 (8.00 - 9.00 pm)
Where: Blacktown Arts Centre
Address: 78 Flushcombe Road, Blacktown
Cost: Free
Presented by Blacktown Arts Centre. Venue and Transport Info
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SWG program event no. 74 Thurs 20th May (9.30 -11.30 pm)
Late Nights at Number One
Enjoy a post-event drink or bite and listen to Pasha Malla, Jill Jones and Lionel Fogarty read their poetry at the contemporary and relaxed Quayside wine bar, Number One (numberonewinebar.com).
Participants: Pasha Malla, Jill Jones, Lionel Fogarty, Patrick Muhlen-Schulte (facilitator)
When: Thursday, May 20 2010
Time: 21:30 - 23:30
Where: Number One Wine Bar
Address: Goldfields House
1 Alfred Street, Circular Quay
Cost: Free
Your host: Patrick Muhlen-Schulte.
Pasha Malla : Pasha Malla’s first book of stories, ‘The Withdrawal Method’, won the Trillium Book Award and the Danuta Gleed Literary Prize, was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Book Award, longlisted for the Giller Prize, and chosen as a ‘Globe and Mail’ and ‘National Post’ book of the year. He has contributed to CBC Radio, ‘Esquire’, ‘Nerve’, ‘Salon’ and ‘The Walrus’, and writes frequently for the ‘Globe and Mail’ and McSweeney's Internet Tendency. In 2006 he founded Now Hear This, a writers-in-school program based in Toronto. Pasha teaches at the University of Toronto. His first novel, ‘People Park’, is forthcoming. Supported by the Canada Council for the Arts.
Jill Jones : Jill Jones’ latest book ‘Broken/Open’ was shortlisted for both ‘The Age’ Poetry Book of the Year in 2005 and the Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize in 2006. She won the Kenneth Slessor Prize in 2003 for her fourth full-length book, ‘Screens Jets Heaven’. Her latest book is ‘Dark Bright Doors’.
Lionel Fogarty is a Queensland Murri poet of international acclaim. He has published ten books of poetry, and an award winning children’s book. He is well respected for his activism for the rights of Aboriginal Australians, and for 'conquering' the English language through his poetic voice.
Patrick Muhlen-Schulte has worked as a political advisor for a decade and has been a key contributor to the successful Shanghai Literary Festival.
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SWF program event no.76 Friday 21st May (10.00 – 11-00 am)
Poetry on the Harbour
Participants: Kim Cheng Boey, Adam Aitken, Judith Beveridge, Ivor Indyk (facilitator)
When: Friday, May 21 2010
Time: 10:00 - 11:00
Where: Bangarra Mezzanine
Pier 4/5, Hickson Road
Walsh Bay
Cost: Free no bookings
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SWF program event no. 102 Friday 21st May (1.00 - 2.00 pm)
The Poetry of Witness
Participants: Michael Palmer, Robert Adamson, Lionel Fogarty, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Susan Hayes (facilitator)
When: Friday, May 21 2010
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Where: Sydney Theatre, Richard Wherrett Studio
Address: 22 Hickson Road
Walsh Bay
Cost: $15 / $10
Bookings: 9250 1988
Sydney Theatre Box Office
Poets Michael Palmer, Robert Adamson, Ali Cobby Eckermann and Lionel Fogarty have all written poetry from certain boundaries, and along edges where they have observed the interaction between the political world and the natural world. They have approached their subjects with writing attuned to the spoken voice, the written voice and the broken voice. They have all experienced, in different ways, what Hart Crane called “the broken world” but from their experiences, they have made poetry that is highly visionary, socially aware and critical. Above all, their poetry uses language to sing.
Michael Palmer, a poet and translator, was born in Manhattan and has lived in San Francisco since 1969. He has worked with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company for over thirty years and has collaborated with many visual artists and composers. His most recent poetry collections are ‘Codes Appearing (Poems 1979-1988)’ and ‘Company of Moths’. His selected essays and talks, ‘Active Boundaries’, was published in 2008. In 2006, he received the Wallace Stevens Prize from the Academy of American Poets. He has taught at various universities in the United States and Europe, and his writings have been translated into more than 25 languages. Supported by the University of Western Sydney.
Robert Adamson has published twenty volumes of poetry in Australia, the UK and the USA. His most recent collection is ‘The Golden Bird’, and his previous volume of poems, ‘The Goldfinches of Baghdad’, won the ‘Age’ Book of the Year Award for poetry and the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry and was short-listed for the New South Wales and Queensland premiers’ literary awards and the State Library of NSW Biography Award. In 2009, Robert edited the ‘Best Australian Poems’. In 1995 he received the Christopher Brennan Award for lifetime achievement in poetry.
Ali Cobby Eckermann is a nunga poet and writer from the Northern Territory, now living in the “intervention-free” South Australian village of Koolunga. Her poetry charts a long journey to reconnect with her Yankunytjatjara family. ‘little bit long time’ was first published by the Australian Poetry Centre as part of their New Poets series.
Lionel Fogarty is a Queensland Murri poet of international acclaim. He has published ten books of poetry, and an award winning children’s book. He is well respected for his activism for the rights of Aboriginal Australians, and for 'conquering' the English language through his poetic voice.
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SWF program event no.112 Friday 21st May (2.30 – 3.30 pm)
Les Murray
One of the world’s greatest contemporary poets writing in English, Les Murray has in his poems “a brook-no-argument preference for the rural life over the sterile and corrupting urban environment” (‘The Oxford Companion to Australian Literature’). But he also writes prose, most notably his account of the crippling depression that has befallen him. In this rare event Les Murray talks with Michael Duffy about the black dog and reads from his latest volume of poems, ‘Taller When Prone’.
Participants: Les Murray, Michael Duffy (facilitator)
When: Friday, May 21 2010
Date: 14:30 - 15:30
Where: Sydney Theatre at Walsh Bay
Address: 22 Hickson Road
Walsh Bay
Cost: $15/$10
Bookings 9250 1988
Sydney Theatre Box
Les Murray has published some 30 books in Australia, including ‘Killing the Black Dog’, ‘Fredy Neptune’ and ‘The Biplane Houses’. His work has been translated into 18 languages. In 1996 he was awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize, in 1999 the Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry, and in 2009 the Mondello Prize. His most recent collection of poetry is ‘Taller When Prone’. lesmurray.org
Michael Duffy published six of Les Murray's books. He now writes for the Sun Herald and the Sydney Morning Herald and co-presents Counterpoint on Radio National.
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SWF program event no.116 Friday 21st May (4.00 – 5.00 pm)
Poetry: The Last Genre Standing?
Will poetry outlast the novel in the digital age? Some say it’s the novelists who should be worried and that poetry ? unique among writing forms ? cannot be superseded. Robert Gray, Michael Palmer and Jennifer Maiden join Mark Tredinnick in discussing the likely effect of digital technologies on poetry.
Participants: Robert Gray, Michael Palmer, Jennifer Maiden, Mark Tredinnick (facilitator)
When: Friday, May 21 2010
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Where: Bangarra Mezzanine
Pier 4/5, Hickson Road , Walsh Bay
Cost: Free - no bookings
Michael Palmer, a poet and translator, was born in Manhattan and has lived in San Francisco since 1969. He has worked with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company for over thirty years and has collaborated with many visual artists and composers. His most recent poetry collections are ‘Codes Appearing (Poems 1979-1988)’ and ‘Company of Moths’. His selected essays and talks, ‘Active Boundaries’, was published in 2008. In 2006, he received the Wallace Stevens Prize from the Academy of American Poets. He has taught at various universities in the United States and Europe, and his writings have been translated into more than 25 languages. Supported by the University of Western Sydney.
Jennifer Maiden has published 15 books, including 13 poetry collections. Her awards include the Kenneth Slessor prize (twice), the C.J. Dennis Prize and the Christopher Brennan Award for lifetime achievement. Her most recent collection, ‘Friendly Fire’ won the ‘Age’ Book of the Year Award.
Mark Tredinnick, author of ‘The Blue Plateau’ and ‘The Little Red Writing Book’, is an award-winning poet, essayist and writing teacher. His first book of poems, ‘Body Copy’ and ‘The Little Black Book of Business Writing’, which he wrote with Geoff Whyte, will both be published in 2010. Mark is at work on a second a volume of poems, a memoir on the reading life and the consolations of literature in a frantic age, ‘Reading Slowly at the End of Time’, and a novel.
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PU + SWF program event no. 128 ‘Voices from Underground’
– Friday 21 May: Harbour City Poets 5.30 – 7.00pm SWF Program no. 128 - Voices from Underground
An interactive performance by the Sydney-based group, Harbour City Poets, presenting all-new poems and a new chapbook. These edgy readings feature buried Sydney, from the city margins to the centre. Political, ecological and social issues surface from its history to disturb the smooth façade. Expect sewers and cemeteries, the Police Museum, convicts and larrikins of the nineteenth century, The Rocks (earliest Chinatown), rat plagues, jails, in fact anything subterranean (literally and metaphorically) that our poetic ventriloquy can re-create.
Date: Friday May 21
Time: 5.30-7pm
Venue: Sydney Philharmonia Choir Studio
Cost: $5 at door (cash only)
MC: Margaret Bradstock
HARBOUR CITY POETS have been performing together for three years, basing their presentations on the premise that it is the poems (rather than the poets) that have something to say to each other. With multiple voices, the result is cumulative and cutting-edge.
The group has made successful appearances at the Riverside Theatre, Parramatta, and at Live Poets, North Sydney, in 2006; at Sydney University in 2007; at the Baulkham Hills Artsfest, and the Brett Whiteley studio in 2008 and 2010; and at the Sydney Writers’ Festival and Baulkham Hills Artsfest in 2009. Each performance uses different material, and themes and conversations vary accordingly.
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PU + SWF program event no. SR22 in Gosford on Fri. 21st May:
Poetica: Five Arrivals 7.30 – 8.30 pm
SWF program events SR22 & SR23 - Poetica: Five Arrivals. A joint presentation of Gosford City Council, the Poets Union and Arts NSW.
Devised, written and performed by poet Gillian Telford, composer Solange Kershaw and dancer/choreographer Francoise Angenieux, this unique soiree is structured along the lines of a symphony. For the prelude, stroll through the enchanted surroundings of the Edogawa Commemorative Gardens at Gosford Regional Gallery, where digital installations mix with live music and poetry readings to bring to life the themes of voyage, displacement and migration.
The second half of this event takes place inside the art gallery. Through dance, music and the poetic voice, Gillian, Solange and Francoise perform the five movements of their symphony, elaborating the theme of arrival and interweaving stories from personal, social and mythical levels.
Dates and times: Fri May 21, 7.30-8.30;
Time: 7.30-8.30 (note: different time for Sunday 23 May performance is 4.30 – 5.30 pm)
Venue: Gosford Regional Gallery, 36 Webb St, East Gosford (show begins in Edogawa
Commemorative Gardens and concludes in the art gallery).
Tickets: $20/$15.
Bookings: Tel. (02) 4323 3233, laycockstreettheatre.com
Poetica: Five Arrivals - Personnel:
Gillian Telford is a poet. Born in England of Irish parents, Gillian migrated to Australia after completing her secondary education. She has lived and worked in NSW and Tasmania in the fields of health and education as a speech pathologist, ESL teacher and administrator. Her poetry has been published regularly in literary journals and anthologies. Her longer poem sequences have twice been selected for inclusion in the Newcastle Poetry Prize anthologies ‘The Honey Fills the Cone’ and ‘Roadworks’. Her first collection of poems, ‘Moments of Perfect Poise’ was published in 2008.
Solange Kershaw is a sound artist and composer who explores working with different ways of hearing. Her fascinating creations are composed utilising the unique combination of found sounds and computer technologies. When Solange is not at the computer, it is the piano that fundamentally drives her compositions.
Francoise Angenieux is a West African-born dancer whose extensive training spanned nine years across two continents including Dance Studies in Dakar Senegal, Africa and the Conservatoire de la Danse in Grenoble, France. Her career as a dancer began with Ballets de Monte Carlo and touring Germany with Schweizer/Tourne Theatre. After moving to Australia, Francoise was employed as a dance teacher at the University of New South Wales while dancing with Kinetic Energy Dance Company and Sydney City Ballet. In 1979 she joined the Sydney Dance Company, where she remained for 11 years.
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Laureate Productions + PU - SWF program event no. 134
– Frid 21st May: ‘Love at the Bar’ (second night – 6.30 pm)
SWF event nos. 134 & 193 - A Season of Love at the Bar
Love at the Bar is a night of Australian love poems set to music by Ashley Chatto, and presented by Kath Ellis, Dave Stephenson and a band of quality musicians. The performances will be hosted by Laureate Productions, a small arts company which was formed to mount entertainment based in a variety of ways on Australian verse – with a particular focus on quality contemporary material.
Patrons will have the choice of watching the show with a meal – or with a complimentary glass of wine.
Venue: Sydney Dance Cafe
Dates: Fri 21st May (2nd night of the season)
Time: 6.30-9pm.
Cost:: $45 for meal and glass of wine, or $25 (incl. complimentary glass of wine).
Bookings: 9250 1988 or sydneytheatre.org.au
Media enquiries: Angela Stretch, Laureate Productions: 0434 898 578
Email: angela.stretch@gmail.com
Please see: www.laureateproductions.com.au for poems and further details
The Laureate Productions team is an offshoot of the Wordjammin’ Poetry Ensemble, which presented Darlinghurst Nights at the 2009 SWF. The production team is comprised of: composer Ashley Chatto, producer Angela Stretch, poetry consultant Martin Langford and visual artist DJ Young.
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SWF event no.131 - REDROOM COMPANY in collaboration with Corban & Blair present ‘Poems to Share’
You are warmly invited to celebrate seven years of The Red Room Company and contemporary Australian Poetry at the 2010 Sydney Writers' Festival.
Eleven prominent Australian Poets will gather for one night only to read their works, share stories about poetry and their adventures with the RED ROOM COMPANY.
Participating poets all feature in 'Poems to Share', our new set of poetry cards produced in collaboration with our design partners, Corban & Blair. Hosted by Johanna Featherstone
Date: Friday, May 21st
Time: 6.00-7.30 pm
Venue: Walsh Bay Precinct,
Address: Heritage Pier (Upstairs), Pier 2/3, Hickson Road,
The Rocks, 6-7.30pm
Bookings: To guarantee your seat at a table, with a poet,
Please contact: email or ph 02 9319 5090
Entry: Something to share; a gold coin donation at least!
More information please visit the RED ROOM COMPANY website: redroomcompany.org
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SWG program event no. 140 Fri 21st May (May 9.30 -11.30 pm)
Late Nights at Number One
Enjoy a post-event drink or bite and listen to John Tranter, Robert Adamson and Michael Palmer read their poetry at the contemporary and relaxed Quayside wine bar, Number One (numberonewinebar.com). Your host: Patrick Muhlen-Schulte.
Participants: John Tranter, Michael Palmer, Robert Adamson, Patrick Muhlen-Schulte (facilitator)
When: Friday, May 21st 2010
Time: 21:30 - 23:30
Where: Number One Wine Bar
Address: Goldfields House
1 Alfred Street
Circular Quay
Cost: Free
Your host: Patrick Muhlen-Schulte.
John Tranter has published more than 20 collections of verse. His collection of new and selected poems, ‘Urban Myths: 210 Poems’ won the Victorian state award for poetry in 2006, the New South Wales state award for poetry in 2007, the South Australian state award for poetry in 2008, and the 2008 South Australian Premier’s Prize for the best book overall. His next book is ‘Starlight: 150 Poems’. He is the founding editor of the internet magazine ‘Jacket’.
Michael Palmer, a poet and translator, was born in Manhattan and has lived in San Francisco since 1969. He has worked with the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company for over thirty years and has collaborated with many visual artists and composers. His most recent poetry collections are ‘Codes Appearing (Poems 1979-1988)’ and ‘Company of Moths’. His selected essays and talks, ‘Active Boundaries’, was published in 2008. In 2006, he received the Wallace Stevens Prize from the Academy of American Poets. He has taught at various universities in the United States and Europe, and his writings have been translated into more than 25 languages. Supported by the University of Western Sydney.
Robert Adamson has published twenty volumes of poetry in Australia, the UK and the USA. His most recent collection is ‘The Golden Bird’, and his previous volume of poems, ‘The Goldfinches of Baghdad’, won the ‘Age’ Book of the Year Award for poetry and the Grace Leven Prize for Poetry and was short-listed for the New South Wales and Queensland premiers’ literary awards and the State Library of NSW Biography Award. In 2009, Robert edited the ‘Best Australian Poems’. In 1995 he received the Christopher Brennan Award for lifetime achievement in poetry.
Patrick Muhlen-Schulte has worked as a political advisor for a decade and has been a key contributor to the successful Shanghai Literary Festival.
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SWF event – Auburn Poets and Writers’ Group (APWG) 22nd May
Zalzala: Inner quakes and after-shocks 10.00am
Event: ZALZALA: Inner Quakes and After Shocks
Date: Saturday 22 May
Time: 10.00 am
Venue: Bangarra Mezzanine
Address: Walsh Bay, Sydney
Entry : Free entry
Earth Quakes:
Listen as APWG goes under the skin of culture shock.
Cultures within cultures: intersexions of body and soulful words, dislocations of place and inner languages, a collidescope of climate changes in the whether.
Tremors of the heart: A collaborative spoken-word performance in English, Tamil, Arabic and Farsi, creating rhythms and linkages between the experience of change in culture and climate.
Shocking:
For further information please phone Auburn Community Development Network (ACDN) on
Tel. (02) 9649 5559 or
Email: Alissar Chidiac at ACDN auburnarts@acdn.org.au
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SWF event program no. 165 - 22nd May (1.00-2.00pm)
Three Australias
Three poets, three voices, three views of our country: Les Murray, Ali Cobby Eckerman and Kim Cheng Boey read from their work.
Participants Ali Cobby Eckermann, Les Murray, Kim Cheng Boey
When Saturday, May 22 2010
Time: 13:00 - 14:00
Where Sydney Dance Company, Studio 4
Pier 4/5, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay
Cost: Free - no bookings
Ali Cobby Eckermann is a nunga poet and writer from the Northern Territory, now living in the “intervention-free” South Australian village of Koolunga. Her poetry charts a long journey to reconnect with her Yankunytjatjara family. ‘little bit long time’ was first published by the Australian Poetry Centre as part of their New Poets series.
Les Murray has published some 30 books in Australia, including ‘Killing the Black Dog’, ‘Fredy Neptune’ and ‘The Biplane Houses’. His work has been translated into 18 languages. In 1996 he was awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize, in 1999 the Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry, and in 2009 the Mondello Prize. His most recent collection of poetry is ‘Taller When Prone’
Kim Cheng Boey was born in Singapore and migrated to Australia in 1997. He has published four award-winning collections of poetry, and teaches at the University of Newcastle. His latest book is ‘Between Stations’.
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Laureate Productions + PU - SWF program event no. 193
– Sat. 22nd May: a season of ‘Love at the Bar’ (3rd night) 6.30 pm
SWF event no. 193 - A Season of Love at the Bar
Love at the Bar is a night of Australian love poems set to music by Ashley Chatto, and presented by Kath Ellis, Dave Stephenson and a band of quality musicians. The performances will be hosted by Laureate Productions, a small arts company which was formed to mount entertainment based in a variety of ways on Australian verse – with a particular focus on quality contemporary material.
Patrons will have the choice of watching the show with a meal – or with a complimentary glass of wine.
Venue: Sydney Dance Cafe
Dates: Sat 22nd May
Time: 6.30 -9pm.
Cost:: $45 for meal and glass of wine, or $25 (incl complimentary glass of wine).
Bookings: 9250 1988 or sydneytheatre.org.au
Media enquiries: Angela Stretch, Laureate Productions: 0434 898 578
Email: angela.stretch@gmail.com
Please see: www.laureateproductions.com.au for poems and further details
The Laureate Productions team is an offshoot of the Wordjammin’ Poetry Ensemble, which presented Darlinghurst Nights at the 2009 SWF. The production team is comprised of: composer Ashley Chatto, producer Angela Stretch, poetry consultant Martin Langford and visual artist DJ Young.
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Perth Poetry Club: 22nd May – some seriously poetic blokes: Stewart Hunt & Raymond Grenfell
2-4 pm at the Moon Café
Guest poets this Sat. 22nd May : some seriously poetic blokes: Stewart Hunt & Raymond Grenfell
+
Plus open mike. Professional sound. Come listen and hang out with poetry lovers in the comfy back room of The Moon http://www.themoon.com.au/
Venue: The Moon Café,
Address: 323 William Street, Northbridge.
More info (yes, more!) : http://www.perthpoetryclub.com
Enquiries email: perthpoetryclub@gmail.com
Phone: Janet 0406 624 578
COMING UP AT PERTH POETRY CLUB:
29 May: Molly Hall (from Margaret River)
5 June: ACR (any performance by this powerful woman is NOT TO BE MISSED)
12 June: philosophical lines: Jo Clarke + Jonothon Twist
19 June: SPECIAL DOUBLE FEATURE: Mad hatters from Melbourne: Randall Stephens & Steve Smart
26 June: Kevin Gillam (the much-loved cello-playing poet himself)
Have you seen our Perth Poetry Links ? Readings, groups, poets, journals, publishers... WA poetry. Perth Poetry club lineups until 12 June are now online at
http://perthpoetryslam.com/perthpoetryclub/node/71
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SWF program event no. 208 – Sun. 23rd May 11.30-12.30 pm)
Poetry Anthology Overload?
For a small country we sure have a lot of poetry anthologies ? four at last count and more on the way. Two of them are represented here: Robert Adamson edited ‘Best Australian Poems 2009’ and Geoffrey Lehmann and Robert Gray have just completed a thousand-page anthology. They explain their respective approaches to Susan Hayes.
Participants - Robert Adamson, Robert Gray, Geoffrey Lehmann, Susan Hayes (facilitator)
When: Sunday, May 23 2010
Time: 11:30 - 12:30
Where Bangarra Mezzanine
Address: Pier 4/5, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay
Cost: Free no bookings
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PU + SWF program event no. 218 – Sun. 23rd May The Sydney Reading – New Voices (1.00 – 2.00 pm)
SWF program no. 218 - The Sydney Poetry Reading
For the past few years, the Poets Union has organised a series of readings whose purpose has been to highlight the quality of poetry produced in Sydney, and to promote the idea of Sydney as a creative city.
New Voices featuring Craig Billingham, Jo Featherstone & Roberta Lowing
Event: The Sydney Reading – New Voices
Time and Date: Sun May 23rd, 1-2pm
Venue: Bangarra Mezzanine
Duration: One hour
Entry: Free, no bookings
MC: Anna Kerdijk Nicholson
The Sydney Reading – New Voices:
Craig Billingham emigrated from England at age fourteen. He studied Philosophy at Macquarie University before living overseas, first in Kobe, then Brussels, London, and Frankfurt. Since returning to Australia in 2003 he has completed an MA at the University of Sydney. His first collection of poems, Storytelling, was published in 2007. His work has been featured on ABC Radio National’s Poetica series, A Pod of Poets, and new poems have appeared in HEAT, Meanjin, Blue Dog, Going Down Swinging, and Famous Reporter. He lives in Katoomba.
Jo Featherstone established the RED ROOM COMPANY in 2003. Her poetry has featured in journals such as Quadrant, Best Australian Poems (Black Inc) 2006 and 2009, Papertiger and Mascara. In 2006 she created a series of literary TV shows, The Wordshed, in partnership with The University of Western Sydney where she is a research associate. Johanna is an honorary associate of The University of Sydney's School of Letters Arts and Media. In 2008, she received a fellowship from the St James Ethics Centre.
Roberta Lowing’s poetry has appeared in Meanjin, Blue Dog, Five Bells and Overland. From 2006 to 2010, she convened Sydney’s monthly PoetryUnLimitedPress Poetry Readings; in 2007, she edited PULP’s Ilumina Journal. Roberta’s sequence on the Iraq War, Ruin, will be published by IP in June. Her first novel, Notorious, will be published in September by Allen & Unwin.
Anna Kerdijk Nicholson's first book, The Bundanon Cantos, is a series of poems about Australian landscape. Anna went on to receive the 2001 Arts Queensland Award for Unpublished Poetry (The Val Vallis) with one of the poems from the book and The Bundanon Cantos became a Sydney Morning Herald Best Book of 2003. Her most recent book, Possession [FIP, 2010], is about Captain Cook's Endeavour voyage and colonial appropriation.
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PU + SWF program event no. 229 – Sun. 23rd May (2.30-4pm)
Afternoon Tea and Readings
A Sydney Writers’ Festival institution. A civilised and relaxing high tea with readings from poet Les Murray and novelists Brian Castro and Kirsten Tranter. Hosted by Geraldine Doogue.
Participants: Les Murray, Brian Castro, Kirsten Tranter, Geraldine Doogue (facilitator)
When: Sunday, May 23
Time: 14:30 - 16:00
Where Heritage Pier, Upstairs
Pier 2/3, Hickson Road
Walsh Bay
Cost: $45
Bookings 9250 1988
Les Murray has published some 30 books in Australia, including ‘Killing the Black Dog’, ‘Fredy Neptune’ and ‘The Biplane Houses’. His work has been translated into 18 languages. In 1996 he was awarded the T.S. Eliot Prize, in 1999 the Queen’s Gold Medal for poetry, and in 2009 the Mondello Prize. His most recent collection of poetry is ‘Taller When Prone’
Brian Castro was born in Hong Kong in 1950 of Portuguese, Chinese and English parentage. His book ‘Shanghai Dancing’ won the Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction, the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction and the NSW Premier’s Book of the Year Award. His most recent novel, ‘The Bath Fugues’, was shortlisted for the Adelaide Festival Awards for Fiction.
Kirsten Tranter’s debut novel ‘The Legacy’ has been one of the most acclaimed fiction debuts of 2010. Kirsten grew up in Sydney and lived in New York from 1998 to 2006, where she completed a PhD on English Renaissance literature at Rutgers University. As daughter of literary agent Lyn Tranter and poet John Tranter, Kirsten is heir to her own literary legacy. She currently lives in Sydney with her husband and son.
Geraldine Doogue is one of Australia’s most respected and popular TV and radio broadcasters. Starting in print journalism, her career soon extended to TV and radio. She played a major role in ABC TV's coverage of the Gulf War. Her radio and TV credits include the ABC’s ‘Life Matters’, ‘Compass’ and ‘Saturday Extra’. In 2000 Geraldine was awarded a Churchill Fellowship for social and cultural reporting. In 2003, she was recognised with an Officer in the Order of Australia for services to the community and media.
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PU + SWF program event no. 239 – Sunday 23rd May: (3-4.30pm) A Poetic Response - DiVerse at the SH Ervin Gallery
239 - DiVerse at the SH Ervin: A Poetic Response
Poets from the group DiVerse respond to images in the SH Ervin gallery, which this year will be from the Salon des Refuses. Their poems will be performed at the gallery, and the audience will receive chapbooks of their work.
Event: A Poetic Response - a reading of ekphrastic* responses to the exhibition at the SH Ervin, presented by the eight talented and experienced members of the poetry group, DiVerse. *(Ekphrastic: one art form into another).
Date: Sunday 23rd May.
Time: 3.00 - 4.30pm
Venue: S.H. Ervin Gallery,
Address: Watson Rd, Observatory Hill, Sydney.
Entry to SH Ervin gallery: $7 / $5
Door: Reading and booklet included free for cost of normal entry to SH Ervin gallery: $7 / $5
Contact at SH Ervin Gallery: Leah Haynes: Media & Public Programs
Tel. (02) 9258 0150 or Email lhaynes@nsw.nationaltrust.org.au
MC and Event Co-ordinator: Robert Kennedy
DiVerse, which includes some extremely well-known poets, started in 2000, and has performed over 60 times in galleries and other institutions around Australia. Performances/exhibitions in 2006 include John Constable at the National Gallery of Australia, and Margaret Olley, Witness to War and The Sydney Printmakers Group at the National Trust: S.H. Ervin Gallery. In 2007 DiVerse performed at the Janet Dawson Survey, the Portia Geach Portrait Exhibition (both at S.H. Ervin) and the Sidney Nolan Exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW. In 2008, the exhibitions DiVerse responded to were the Led Zeppelin World Tour and the Artworks of John R. Walker.
Each new performance is accompanied by the production of a booklet of poetry and images which is given away free to each member of the audience. In its ten years’ existence, DiVerse has produced almost twenty booklets of poetry.
The current poets in DiVerse are Jill Jones, Marcelle Freiman, Carolyne Bruyn, Margaret Bradstock, Louise Wakeling, Paula McKay, Sheryl Persson, Jo Wade and Robert Kennedy (facilitator).
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Poets Union monthly poetry reading at Brett Whiteley Studio – guest poet Brook Emery Sunday 23rd May 2.00-3.30 pm
What a wonderful way to celebrate the last day of the Sydney Writers’ Festival...our very own Chair of the Poets Union, poet Brook Emery will be the featured poet at Brett Whiteley Studio in Surry Hills on Sunday 23rd May.
Sunday: 23 May, 2 pm – guest poet + open mic.
Date: Sunday 23 May 2010
Time: 2.00 -3.30 pm (4th Sunday of every month)
Guest poet: Brook Emery
Venue: Brett Whiteley Studio
Address: 2 Raper Street,
Surry Hills (off Devonshire Street, via Esther Street and Esther Lane)
Entry: Free entry. Open Mic included.
The Poets Union thanks the Brett Whiteley Studio staff and the Art Gallery of NSW for their support and we thank Rosnay wines for their wonderful wine and sponsorship.
Convenor: Angela Stretch for Poets Union Inc.
Enquiries for 2010 : 0438 898 578
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SWF program event no. 238 - Sunday 23rd May: (2.30-3.30pm)
The Art of Slam
It’s the most popular poetry movement in the world and most of it is not written down. Who are slammers? What is slamming? And why do poetry slams scare academics? An exploration of the artform with performances. Featuring slam champions Omar Musa (ACT), Sarah Taylor, Marc Testart (Melbourne) and Bravo Child. Hosted by the founder of the Australian Poetry Slam, Miles Merrill.
Participants: Sarah Taylor, Marc Testart, Omar Musa, Bravo Child, Miles Merrill (facilitator)
When: Sunday, May 23 2010
Time: 14:30 - 15:30
Where: Wharf 2, Sydney Theatre Company
Pier 4/5, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay
Cost: Free no bookings
Marc Testart is a teacher, lawyer, student, academic, actor, director, singer-songwriter, guitarist and comedian who lives and breathes poetry. In 2007 he became the first Australian National Poetry Slam Champion and in 2008 represented Australia at the Individual World Poetry Slam Championships. In 2007 wrote and performed in the Melbourne International Comedy Festival in the musical tragicomedy ‘Piglet’, as well as directing Shakespeare's ‘Macbeth’ for Eagle's Nest Theatre and acting at the prestigious Malthouse Theatre in UHT's ‘Rageboy’. He is currently compiling his first collection of poetry, ‘Stark Raving Sane’.
Omar Musa is from Queanbeyan, NSW and is of Malaysian-Australian heritage. He has lived in London and California and spends most of his time on the road, performing and writing. His first hip-hop record, ‘The Massive EP’, was released in 2009. He also published his first book of poetry, ‘The Clocks’, in 2009. He has won numerous awards for poetry and music, including the Australian Poetry Slam in 2008. He releases his full length album ‘World Falls to Pieces’ in 2010.
Bravo Child is a storyteller who treasures the breath, rhythm, tone and shape of living words. He has presented in Newcastle’s National Young Writers Festival, Woodford Folk Festival, Melbourne’s Overload Festival and the Sydney Opera House as well as in pubs, cafes and community halls. Running writing/performance workshops and freestyle jams, Bravo passionately encourages all to play with words, voice, ideas and experience to continue the tradition of storytelling as a valid form of expression in this modern electronic age.
Miles Merrill writes and performs monologues and poems for venues and festivals internationally. His productions, including ‘The Night Words Festival’ and ‘Slamming’ have won outstanding critical acclaim. Merrill is also the founder of Australia’s largest literary performance competition - The Australian Poetry Slam. He publishes on CD, DVD, online and in print but is best experienced live.
Sarah Taylor is the current Australian Poetry Slam Champion. She is a writer who came to slam poetry by chance. The slam allowed her a free run of ideas and permission to rant. ‘A Disgraceful Old Woman’, her winning slam poem, encapsulates the shock of becoming an old woman and is part of a quartet including ‘The Missing Libido’. If invited to dinner and the topics of sex, religion and politics are banned, she’ll leave. ‘Slamming is the best fun. Just give me that microphone’, she says.
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SWF program event no. 247 - Sunday 23rd May: (4.00 – 5.00pm)
Josh Pyke, Lyricist
The singer/songwriter whose 2006 debut album ‘Memories and Dust’ won an ARIA for best adult contemporary album talks to ‘Sydney Morning Herald’ music critic Bernard Zuel.
“[Pyke] knows how to construct music and lyrics into a form that is more than the sum of its parts ... And there’s never enough of that kind of writer around.” - Bernard Zuel
Participants: Josh Pyke, Bernard Zuel (facilitator)
When: Sunday, May 23 2010
Time: 16:00 - 17:00
Where: Wharf 1, Sydney Theatre Company
Pier 4/5, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay
Cost: $15 / $10
Bookings: 9250 1988
Josh Pyke is a Sydney singer, songwriter and musician, and one of Australia’s leading musical talents. His first EP ‘Feeding the Wolves’ was ARIA nominated and his 2006 debut album ‘Memories and Dust’ entered the ARIA charts at number four and subsequently went Gold. He has since toured the UK three times, headlined national tours of Australia and played at some of the country’s biggest music festivals. His second album, ‘Chimney’s Afire’, was released in 2009.
Bernard Zuel is a senior writer for ‘The Sydney Morning Herald’ and the paper's chief music critic. He has written about music for more than 20 years and happily is still learning and still getting excited by new and old music. But he can still bore you for hours on sport, the films of Woody Allen and why ‘Deadwood’ and ‘The Wire’ is the new Shakespeare.
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SWF In Gosford – SWF program no. SR23 - Sunday 23rd May:
Poetica: Five Arrivals (4.30-5.30 pm)
SWF program events SR22 & SR23 - Poetica: Five Arrivals. A joint presentation of Gosford City Council, the Poets Union and Arts NSW.
Devised, written and peformed by poet Gillian Telford, composer Solange Kershaw and dancer /choreographer Francoise Angenieux, this unique soiree is structured along the lines of a symphony. For the prelude, stroll through the enchanted surroundings of the Edogawa Commemorative Gardens at Gosford Regional Gallery, where digital installations mix with live music and poetry readings to bring to life the themes of voyage, displacement and migration. The second half of this event takes place inside the art gallery. Through dance, music and the poetic voice, Gillian, Solange and Francoise perform the five movements of their symphony, elaborating the theme of arrival and interweaving stories from personal, social and mythical levels.
Date: Sunday May 23rd
Time: 4.30 – 5.30 (note: different time for Friday 21 May performance is 7.30-8.30)
Venue: Gosford Regional Gallery, 36 Webb St, East Gosford (show begins in Edogawa
Commemorative Gardens and concludes in the art gallery).
Tickets: $20/$15.
Bookings: Tel. (02) 4323 3233, laycockstreettheatre.com
Poetica: Five Arrivals - Personnel:
Gillian Telford is a poet. Born in England of Irish parents, Gillian migrated to Australia after completing her secondary education. She has lived and worked in NSW and Tasmania in the fields of health and education as a speech pathologist, ESL teacher and administrator. Her poetry has been published regularly in literary journals and anthologies. Her longer poem sequences have twice been selected for inclusion in the Newcastle Poetry Prize anthologies ‘The Honey Fills the Cone’ and ‘Roadworks’. Her first collection of poems, ‘Moments of Perfect Poise’ was published in 2008.
Solange Kershaw is a sound artist and composer who explores working with different ways of hearing. Her fascinating creations are composed utilising the unique combination of found sounds and computer technologies. When Solange is not at the computer, it is the piano that fundamentally drives her compositions.
Francoise Angenieux is a West African-born dancer whose extensive training spanned nine years across two continents including Dance Studies in Dakar Senegal, Africa and the Conservatoire de la Danse in Grenoble, France. Her career as a dancer began with Ballets de Monte Carlo and touring Germany with Schweizer/Tourne Theatre. After moving to Australia, Francoise was employed as a dance teacher at the University of New South Wales while dancing with Kinetic Energy Dance Company and Sydney City Ballet. In 1979 she joined the Sydney Dance Company, where she remained for 11 years.
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RhiZomiC Poetry Party – guest poet and songwriter, Kate Fagan
Poetry Party + open-mic Featuring: Kate Fagan
Date: Wednesday May 26,
Time: 7-9 PM
RhiZomiC Poetry is held on the last Wednesday of every month
Venue: Kerrie Lowe Gallery
Address: 49 King Street, Newtown
Kate Fagan is a writer, editor and musician whose books of poetry include The Long Moment, Thought’s Kilometre and return to a new physics. She wrote a doctoral thesis on Lyn Hejinian and is a former editor of How2, a US-based online journal of innovative poetry and poetics. She is also an established songwriter and performer whose album Diamond Wheel won the National Film & Sound Archive Award for Best Folk Album.
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26th May ‘Live Poets @ Don Bank’
with guest poets Jess Cook and Fadel Khayat + open mic.
Wednesday, May 26th Live Poets @ Don Bank 6 Napier St North Sydney
SPECIAL GUESTS: JESS COOK will perform in her unique style and talk about her current projects. FADEL KHAYAT will read his poems and discuss his journey to Iraq to document the return of the Marsh Arabs to their homelands.
As usual there is an Open Section where anyone is welcome to recite, sing, tell a story or play an instrument.
Doors open 7.30. $7 entry includes supper and drinks.
Further info: (02) 9896 6956 or Mobile 0422 263 373 or via
dannylivepoets@yahoo.com.au
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Melbourne Emerging Writers’ Festival
and presentation of the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets –
Date: 29th May.
A national prize held in honour of Australian poet Judith Wright has been awarded to Charles Sturt University (CSU) postgraduate student, Mr Derek Motion. The 2010 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets, valued at $3 000, has been won by the poet and PhD student for his work, ‘forest hill’.
The successful poets will feature at a presentation event at the Melbourne Emerging Writers’ Festival on Saturday 29 May, alongside Keri Glastonbury and Gig Ryan (poetry editors of Overland and The Age respectively).
In addition to the prize money, Mr Motion’s poem will be published in the next issue of Overland, a quarterly e-bulletin about events, politics and literature. He will be presented the poetry award at the 2010 Emerging Writers’ Festival in the Melbourne Town Hall on Saturday 29 May.
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PLAN TO BE PUBLISHED: two poetry workshops with Les Wicks
In Sydney at NSW Writers’ Centre
Date(s): Saturdays 5 & 12 June
Workshop: PLAN TO BE PUBLISHED with Les Wicks
Venue: at the NSW Writers’ Centre,
Address: Callan Park (off Balmain/Lilyfield Road), Rozelle NSW 2039
Time: 10am – 4pm
More details: http://www.nswwriterscentre.org.au/html/s02_article/article_view.asp?keyword=june2010
or Tel. (02) 9555 9757
One of the best known poetry workshop templates in Australia will be on offer in Sydney.
Be inspired! Be published!
“Exceptional, supporting yet challenging, showing (and earning) respect, a privilege to
attend this leader’s workshop”; “serendipity but fabulous”; “contributed very generously-¬ great value for money”; “I got more from two days with Les’ workshop than I did over a postgraduate year at university”
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Poetry at The Gods: Tuesday 8th June - LK Holt (Melbourne) and 90th Birthday Tribute to Rosemary Dobson (Canberra)
In Canberra - Tues 8 June - Poetry at The Gods is the monthly reading at the Gods Café/ Bar and Restaurant at the Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra.
The guest poet on Tues 8 June 2010 will be LK Holt and a 90th Birthday Tribute to Rosemary Dobson.
Event : Poetry at The Gods
Venue: The Gods Café/Bar
Address: ANU Arts Centre (across the quadrangle from the Student Union near Sullivans Creek).
Date: Tues 8 June
Time: Patrons intending to eat please arrive by 6.30 to ensure that the readings can begin at 8pm.
Poetry: reading from 8.00 pm. Entry fee: $5.
Dinner: Light meals are available from 6pm.
Bookings: Please book directly by phoning the Gods Café/Bar Tel.6248 5538
Seating: is limited to 80 people.
To be sure of hearing a particular poet it is advisable to eat at the venue beforehand but ‘listening only’ 'non-eating' seats can also be booked.
Organiser Geoff Page - email Geoff if you want to join one of his tables at gpage40@bigpond.net.au
Poets for the rest of 2010:
Tues Jul 13 Dennis Wild (Adelaide), Mark O'Connor (Canberra), Adrian Caesar (Canberra)
Tues Jul 27 Dead Poets’ Dinner
Tues Aug 10 Andrew Lansdown (Perth), Michele Cahill (Sydney)
Tues Sep 14 Alan Wearne (Wollongong), Kate Llewellyn (Adelaide)
Tues Oct 12 Elizabeth Lawson (Canberra), Leon Trainor (Canberra), Jeremy Nelson (Braidwood)
Tues Nov 9 Andy Jackson (Melbourne), Harry Laing (Braidwood)
Tues Dec 14 joanne burns (Sydney), Robyn Rowland (Torquay, Victoria)
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In Sydney – Ron Pretty’s collection ‘Postcards from the Centre’ will be launched by Brook Emery
Event: the launch of Ron Pretty’s seventh book of poetry, ‘Postcards from the Centre’
Launch: will be launched by Brook Emery
Venue: at the ‘Friend in Hand Hotel’,
Address: 58 Cowper Street, Glebe
Date: Sunday, July 25.
Time: 2.30pm for 3.00pm.
Entry: Free entry. All welcome.
“Here is a poet who knows about boxing, drinking cheap reds, the way music works on us, that it’s our doubts that bring us alive, and how hair might fall on a pillow. Ron Pretty is one of Australian poetry’s most admired figures and his generous new book reminds us of all the reasons for this.”
– Kevin Brophy
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Byron Bay Writers Festival 6th- 8th August
Admission to the Festival on a weekend pass covering Friday 6 August to Sunday 8 August.
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COMPETITIONS AND SUBMISSION DEADLINES
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Winners of the NSW Premier’s Literature Awards have been announced including the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry, won by Jordie Albiston. Visit http://www.pla.nsw.gov.au/
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2010 Poets Union Members’ Anthology
Members: $25 per page.
Due date NOW EXTENDED to 21st May. Members, previously published poems accepted.
Poets Union Anthology 2010
Call for submission of poems
1 Members of the Poets Union are invited to submit a poem for publication in this year’s Anthology, which is due to be launched at the 2010 Australian Poetry Festival in September. For years now, a popular member activity has been to be published in the Anthology. Recent ones have been Prismatics (2008), Sun and Sleet (2006), Ask the Rain (2004), From the Annabranch (2002) and No River is Safe (2000).
2 To be in the new collection, send us a hard copy of your poem and payment of $25 per page of single-space Times New Roman 12-point typing in PC Microsoft Word 2003 (not 2007. If necessary, when using 2007 save the file into 2003) or Microsoft Word 2004 for Apple. Do not send it in pdf. You may submit more than one poem , but payment needs to be made at $25 per page. Make your cheque or money order out to Poets Union Inc.
3 In addition to hard copy, please send your poem if possible as an Attachment in an email with Subject: Poets Union 2010 Anthology. Please also provide a mail address and a phone number so we can check details where necessary. Send your email to info@poetsunion.com
4 Please supply a four-line biography, concentrating on your life in poetry, to be published in the Anthology.
5 Your poem may be a new one, never before published, or it may be prepublished.
6 If your poem has previously been published, you need to provide us with an acknowledgement, including reference details of where it was published, year, volume number, and page numbers.
7 Type your name on the poem sheet, the poem title, and the poem in single column format.
8 Please name electronic files with your surname and one key word of the poem title.
9 Please mark your envelope Anthology, Poets Union, PO Box 755, Potts Point NSW 1335 and make your cheque or money order out to Poets Union Inc. at $25 per page or pay by credit card (download form from the website please)
All poets featured in the Anthology will be entitled to a copy.
10 Closing date to submit your poem is 21 April 2010. Members, please download the entry/payment form from the website www.poetsunion.com under ‘Competitions and Prizes’ on the left hand side of the home page.
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2010 BUSH LANTERN AWARD
– submissions for bush verse due 21 May
Fancy yourself as the reincarnation of Henry Lawson or Banjo Patterson? Bush verse to 100 lines showing good rhyme and rhythm, and Australian theme.
First prize $200. Entry $8. This year the club has also decided to run a written competition for Primary & Secondary school children.
Entry forms for both competitions from NTWC or email the competition contact (see below):
E: lees@fastel.com.au
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Shoalhaven Literary Award (2010 for poetry)
submissions due 28 May.The Shoalhaven Literary Award for 2010 is now open.
Judge: This year it is for poetry and our judge will be Kate Llewellyn.
Prizes: The first prize is $1000 plus a two-week residency at Bundanon, Arthur Boyd’s gift to the nation on the beautiful Shoalhaven River,
+ four second prizes of $200 and highly commended and commended as nominated by the judge.
The closing date is 28th May 2010 and winners will be contacted after 25th September 2010.
Members please get any information you require from www.fawnswshoalhaven.org.au and download an entry form from http://www.fawnswshoalhaven.org.au/Our_Competitions/our_competitions.html
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2010 PRESSPRESS CHAPBOOK AWARD (POETRY) due 31 May
The PressPress Chapbook Award is for an original manuscript of poetry between 20-40pp.
The winning manuscript will receive $600 and chapbook publication with PressPress. The Award will be announced in July 2010 on the PressPress site.
The manuscript must be unpublished and not on offer to another publisher in Australia or elsewhere (except that individual poems can be already taken or on offer to journals, sites or anthologies where you keep the copyright).
Have a look at the website to see what sort of thing we've done in the past and what the judges said last year.
Entry conditions and form from the website.
W: http://members.ozemail.com.au/~writerslink/PressPress/PressPress_Award_conditions.html
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2010 Blake Poetry Prize
Submissions invited and due 11 June .
The 2010 Blake Poetry Prize presented by the NSW Writers’ Centre and Blake Society is now open for entries. This national award, generously supported by Leichhardt Council, offers a cash prize of $5,000 for a new poem that best explores the religious or spiritual.
The prize is non-sectarian and encourages Australian poets to write a new work of up to 100 lines displaying a critical awareness of issues relating to the religious or spiritual. Poems sympathetic to those concepts are also equally welcome.
Entries must be received by 5.00pm, Friday 11 June 2010 and the winner will be announced on Thursday 2 September 2010. Entry forms and more information are available at www.nswwriterscentre.org.au
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Poets Union 2010 Youth Fellowships
- applications due 29 June
The Poets Union, in conjunction with the Australian Poetry Centre, is pleased to announce the return of these outstanding Fellowships, offering one Young Poets Fellowship in 2010 for a poet between the ages of 19 and 30.
The Fellows will receive:
1. A mentorship with an experienced poet – the choice to be made
in consultation with the incoming Fellow.
2. The publication and launch of a chapbook.
3. Publication on the Poetry Australia website.
4. The opportunity to present work at a Poetry Australia reading.
Some money may be available for assistance with travel costs, where necessary.
In return, fellows are asked to write one review-article on the work of a poet of their choice for publication in a Poetry Australia outlet, as a way of encouraging poets to contribute towards the critical discourse in Australian verse.
The purpose of the Fellowship is to enable an outstanding young poet to further develop his or her skills with input from an experienced mentor, and to provide opportunities for publication at the beginning of their careers. It is designed for young poets who have already made significant progress in the development of their writing, but who have yet to make the final steps towards full publication.
Closing Date for applications is 29th June, 2010. The Fellow will be notified in August, and the announcement made public at the Australian Poetry Festival (Sep 3/4/5). In most cases, mentorships will continue into 2011. See the Poets Union website for more details and an entry form.
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Poets Union 2010 Poetry Prize
– entries open to all and due 30th June. Please download the entry forms from the Poets Union website www.poetsunion.com
The Poets Union Poetry Prize 2010 - First Prize: $3000
Plus
Up to Five Short-Listed Poems @ $100 Each.
Winner to be announced at the Australian Poetry Festival 5 September 2010.
Conditions of Entry
• The prize will be awarded for a single poem of no more than 100 lines.
• Entries must be typed on single-sided A4 paper. Manuscripts will not be returned. Faxed or emailed entries will not be accepted.
• Previously published or prize-winning poems are ineligible. Entries should not be on offer to other publications.
• 3 copies of the poem must be submitted. The title of the poem should appear on each page but the poets name must NOT appear anywhere on the manuscript.
• Multiple entries may be submitted but each entry must be accompanied by a separate entry form. Additional entry forms are available on the Poets Union website: www.poetsunion.com or by sending a stamped, self-addressed envelope to the Poets Union.
• Each entry must be accompanied by an entry fee of $15 ($10 for financial members of the Poets Union).
• Cheques should be made payable to The Poets Union Inc and posted to The Poets Union, PO Box 755, Potts Point, NSW 1335. Clearly mark the envelope ‘Poetry Prize’. Alternatively, credit card details can be supplied on the entry form.
• The closing date for entries is 30 June 2010. Late entries will not be accepted.
• Entrants must reside in Australia or be Australian citizens living overseas.
• Committee members or staff of the Poets Union are not eligible to enter.
• The judges’ decision is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
• Results, the winning poem, and short-listed poems will be posted on the Poets Union website after 5 September 2010 and appear in the journal Five Bells. Should you require a hard copy of the results and/or a receipt please include a stamped, self-addressed envelope, clearly marked ‘Receipt and/or Results’.
Presented in collaboration with the Australian Poetry Centre
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The Poets Union joins National Science Week to present
Science Made Marvellous – submissions invited and due 30 June
The Poets Union invites submissions of poems to Science Made Marvellous, a collaborative national poetry and science project involving State, Territory and regional poetry and writing organizations for National Science Week in 2010.
Poets are asked to submit poems that take up science matters in the fields of Engineering, Chemistry, Biology, Mathematics, Physics, scientific discoveries, scientists or any other scientific thing you can think of.
Submit up to five poems, as either text or as audio for consideration for an anthology of four chap books and an audio program.
Selection: The poems selected will be available both as a book and as downloadable PDF and audio file from the Poets Union, APC and partners websites. Successful submissions will be notified in mid July. The selected poems will be launched at a series of events coordinated in each state and territory in National Science Week, 14-22 August, 2010.
Deadline: The deadlines for submission is 30 June 2010.
Guidelines for Submission:
1. Pre-published poems accepted - poems may be previously published.
2. Up to five poems submitted as text should be emailed as a single word document attachment to their email.
3. Email the poems - the emails should have the subject heading : Science Made Marvellous submission + Your Name
4. In the body of the email: Contact details, the title of the poems, acknowledgements from previous publication where relevant and a 25 word biographical note should be included in the body of the email. Where a poem is available as an audio recording please indicate this in the covering email.
5. Send by email: Submissions should be emailed to: ScienceMadeMarvellous@gmail.com
6. Or send by mail : Submissions + (on a separate sheet) your contact details, the title of the poems, acknowledgements from previous publication where relevant and a 25 word biographical note should be included. Address to ‘Science Made Marvellous Submission’ , Poets Union Inc, PO Box 755, Potts Point, NSW, 1335.
7. Successful submissions will be notified in mid July, 2010.
8. The ‘Science Made Marvellous’ project will be launched at National Science Week, 14-22 August, 2010
Now entering its thirteenth year, National Science Week has well and truly cemented itself as Australia’s largest festival, with last year’s calendar offering over 1,000 events throughout Australia, reaching an audience of over a million people.
In 2010, National Science Week events are expected to be held right throughout Australia from Dubbo, Davenport, Darwin and everywhere in between, offering an array of activities with everything from science festivals, music and comedy shows, interactive hands-on displays, open days and online activities.
The festival is proudly supported by the Australian Government, as well as partners CSIRO, Australian Science Teachers Association and the ABC.
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The Kitchen Table Poets ‘All Poetry’ competition
The Kitchen Table Poets 'ALL POETRY' Competition - OPEN NOW
- Closing date June 30 2010,
No entry form required
A competition for all genres of original, unpublished poetry, 14- 40 lines.
Written in English.
And not to have won a cash prize in any other competition.
Send two copies of each poem.
First Prize:$150. Second Prize:$80 Third prize $50.
Entry Fee $6 per poem. Cheques or money orders made out to All Poetry.
No names on the manuscript. Instead please use a cover sheet showing name of author, poem, address, phone, (e-mail.)
Feedback comments will be forwarded to thirty or more entrants - Include ssae for this and/or results: (optional)
Entrants must be 18yrs or over.
Entries to
: All Poetry PO Box 3268 North Nowra 2541
Each winner to receive a copy of Tangents a collection of poetry written by The Kitchen Table Poets, cover drawing by Robert Dickerson.
Conducted and judged by members of The Kitchen Table Poets, Shoalhaven.
More information: Irene 02 4421 8267 , e-mail iwilkie@shoal.net.au
See ArtsRush Magazine Shoalhaven www.artsrush.com.au (Poetry News)
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Australian Poetry Centre (APC)/RMIT Poet-in-Residence 2010/2011
APC & RMIT Poet-in-Residence
The Writing Program, School of Media and Communication, RMIT, and the Australian Poetry Centre are pleased to announce a poetry residency in 2010/2011.
The Poet-in-Residence will be engaged for a two-month and will provide mentorship, contribute to publications, speak at literary or poetry-related public events, contribute to the poetry community locally, nationally and internationally, deliver personal and public outcomes of the residence and become ambassadors for poetry and the project.
For more information and application details, download this form or go to the APC website.
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THE REASON-BRISBANE POETRY PRIZE
submissions due 2 July
Reason-Brisbane Poetry Prize – open to budding and established writers across Australia.
Closing date: 2 July (for Words in Winter, Daylesford, 14 August)
This is the competition's seventh year.
Open theme.
Prizes: 1st $1500, 2nd $500, 3rd $300.
Judge: Ross Gillett, multi-award winning poet, will judge the entries
Winner: winners will be announced at the morning poetry event of Words in Winter, Daylesford on 14 August.
For guidelines, see
or send a SSAE to Rules, PO Box 545, Daylesford, VIC 3460. Sheila Hollingworth, Competition Organiser.
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‘The Nib’: CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature
Nominations due by 9 July – fiction and non-fiction.
The 2010 'The Nib': CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature which recognises excellence in research. The Award's major sponsor, Copyright Agency Limited's Cultural Fund , provides a winner's prize of $20,000 + trophy and all shortlisted authors receive the Alex Buzo Shortlist Prize.
All genres of writing including fiction and non fiction, published between 1 July 2009 and 30 June 2010, are eligible. The closing date for nominations is 9 July 2010.
If you would like additional information about the Award, please have a look at the website www.waverley.nsw.gov.au/library/award or contact Denis Moore , Project Officer,
'The Nib': CAL Waverley Library Award for Literature Waverley Library
32-48 Denison Street, Bondi Junction NSW 2022
Telephone (02) 9386 7709 ( usually Mon & Thur )
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QLD Poetry Festival
to be run from 27-29 August 2010
The Queensland Poetry Festival invites proposals from poets and other performers and artists interested in being part of the 14th annual festival in 2010. QPF 2010 runs from 27-29 August and will be held at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts in Brisbane.
QPF would like to hear from both individuals and groups for performances at the festival and for other projects in association with the festival. While all projects should have a relationship to poetic language, we encourage applications from artists wishing to explore the relationship between poetry and other art forms. An expression of interest form is now available for download from www.queenslandpoetryfestival.com.
For further information please email info@queenslandpoetryfestival.com
Graham Nunn - Chair, QLD Poetry Festival
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Sentences Annual Literary Competition 2010
The Bridge Foundation is a charity based in Sale and advocates for prisoners, and their families on release.
SENTENCES ANNUAL LITERARY COMPETITION 2010 - entries are invited in the following sections:
SECTION 1 OPEN SHORT STORY Limit 2,500 words
SECTION 2 OPEN POETRY Limit 40 lines
All entries to be previously unpublished work.
PRIZES : lst - $100 2nd - $75 3rd - $50
Entry fees $5 for one entry $12 for three entries
No entry form necessary. Separate cover sheet with name and address please.
Winners notified by mail. Results published on our website www.bridgefoundation.net.au
Entries to : The Bridge Foundation, P O Box 9279, Sale, Victoria 3850
Closing date : August 31st, 2010
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The Nature Conservancy Australia - NATURE WRITING PRIZE
A Biennial national prize of $5000
NATURE WRITING PRIZE –entries close 30 September
Inaugural winner published in indigo journal
Judges: literary journalist, Sally Blakeney and poet and nature writer, Mark Tredinnick.
Entries Close: 30 September 2010
The prize will be awarded for an essay between 3000 and 5000 words set within an Australia landscape and exploring the author's sense of 'place'.
Founded in 1951, and with more than 1 million members worldwide, The Nature Conservancy is the leading conservation organization working around the world to protect ecologically important lands and water for nature and people. Working in partnership with Australian conservation organizations, Indigenous landholders and government, TNC Australia programs include the biodiversity rich Gondwana Link in WA, Central Australian deserts and Northern Australian grasslands.
indigo journal is dedicated to promoting Western Australian writers and their writing.
Find out more by visiting www.indigojournal.org.au
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Islet on-line magazine
call for submissions to a new on-line magazine www.islet.com.au from Island...
Are you an emerging writer or visual artist?
Island magazine is very pleased to call for submissions to lslet, its new online publishing space.
Islet publishes a free, quarterly collection of small works by emerging writers and visual artists.
For pay rates, maximum word lengths, and detailed submission guidelines, please visit the website: www.islet.com.au
Check out the current issue www.islet.com.au and pop in to our Conversation page while you’re there!
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2010 Mary Gilmore Poetry Prize
Entries are invited for the 2010 Mary Gilmore Poetry Prize.
The Prize is awarded every two years by the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) for the best first book of poetry published by an Australian in the preceding two years – in this case the calendar years 2008 and 2009.
This is a prestigious poetry prize which has helped the careers of many now well-known poets, including Jan Owen, Judith Beveridge, Alison Croggon, Lucy Dougan, and David McCooey; the prize also draws attention to their publishers. ASAL will meet the cost of the winning poet attending and providing a reading of his or her work at its conference to be held in early July 2010.
Eligible publishers or poets are asked to submit three copies of each eligible book to:
Dennis Haskell, English & Cultural Studies (M202), University of Western Australia
35 Stirling Highway, CRAWLEY WA 6009
Any queries about the prize can be sent to Dennis Haskell at the above address or dhaskell@cyllene.uwa.edu.au
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Mascara Literary Review (Mascara Poetry has expanded! )
Submissions invited to Mascara Literary Review
Mascara Poetry has recently expanded into Mascara Literary Review and is now accepting submissions of short fiction and essays (as well as poetry).
We also have a new website: www.mascarareview.com
Mascara Literary Review is an online literary journal particularly interested in the work of contemporary Asian (as well as Australian and Indigenous) writers.
We are able to pay: $75 for two or more poems, $50 for reviews and essays.
For full submission details visit: www.mascarareview.com/submissions.html
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Cordite Poetry Review
Submissions now open for Cordite Poetry Review. Writing haikus, snryus or other ultra-short poems?
Submissions are now open for the 31st issue of Cordite – EPIC.
Details available at www.cordite.org.au
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The Margaret Reid Poetry Contest
- re-opened on November 15! Call for submissions to Margaret Reid Poetry Contest.
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Jazz and Poetry section of annotated discography on jazz and literature
- Submissions invited
From PU member Peter JF Newton :
I am nearing completion of the jazz & poetry section of a three-part annotated discography on jazz & literature which I expect to publish next year. The scope of this section includes recitation accompanied by jazz in any of its many varieties, poems converted to jazz vocal performances and instrumental compositions inspired by the work of individual poets. The emphasis here is on poetry with jazz and improv music as I know them; I have no wish to stray into the world of rock, rap, hip-hop and so on because they are well beyond my domain of competence.
I have adequate access to the world literature for this type of work and am in touch with a number of major overseas jazz poets working in this field, so I am looking specifically for Australian and New Zealand information which sadly seems to escape the literature.
The details sought are as follows: Band or artist name, recording dates and locations, identification of poets and composers, accompanying musicians and their instruments (including the voice), poem or song titles, type of recording medium together with recording company names, catalogue numbers, and album titles. A reference point for accessibility to these products would be a useful addition.
The recording medium can be any type of modality and of commercial, private or archival provenance.
Details should be sent to me (Peter Newton) as Chair, NSW Jazz Archive Inc., 30 Boorea St, Blaxland, NSW 2774.
E-mail jpnewton@tpg.com.au Tel: (02) 4739-1715.
All advice received will be acknowledged in the book when it appears.
Best regards, Peter J.F. Newton.
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e-zines and e-anthologies for poets
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ABC radio at the Sydney Writers’ Festival – digital radio
ABC Sydney Writers on Digital Radio
ABC Sydney Writers is the next special event broadcast offered on digital radio by the ABC.
For the first time, ABC Radio is able to take the Sydney Writers’ Festival across Australia. ABC Sydney Writers will broadcast from 20 – 23 May on digital radio in Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne, Perth and Sydney. Audiences outside of these cities can tune in to ABC Sydney Writers as audio on demand at abc.net.au/sydneywriters
During the Festival, the broadcast will comprise Festival sessions, highlights, interviews and behind-the-scenes glimpses of what’s happening in around Sydney for the Festival. 702 ABC Sydney (Conversations with Richard Fidler) and ABC Radio National (The Book Show with Ramona Koval) will also present live broadcasts from the Sydney Writers’ Festival that will be available on analogue and digital radio.
“ABC Sydney Writers is our most ambitious project using the digital extra channel and it will be a treat for Australian lovers of books and writing,” said Kate Dundas, Director ABC
Radio.
“Our small production team, on-site at the Sydney Wharf precinct over the four biggest days of the event, will create radio that captures the excitement and wealth of diverse conversation that the Festival encourages.”
ABC special event digital radio has already revisited the historic Apollo 11 moon landing mission; taken listeners on a musical trip back to Woodstock; brought together the excitement of the 2009 Melbourne International Arts Festival; marked the 10th Anniversary of East Timor’s independence referendum; celebrated Australian music month by highlighting triple j’s Unearthed artists; given listeners the perfect Christmas holiday soundtrack with Classic Season; commemorated the break-up of the Beatles and celebrated new music at the ISCM World New Music Days Festival. ABC Sydney Writers is yet another example of the unique content and specialised programming that can be offered by the ABC through digital radio.
Audiences with a digital radio should look for ABCSydneyWriters on their radio’s screen. ABC Sydney Writers is also available as an audio stream at abc.net.au/sydneywriters
For more information please contact:
Nicola Fern, Marketing Manager, ABC Radio National on 0418 494 252 or fern.nicola@abc.net.au
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Jacket Magazine – Number 39
now available http://jacketmagazine.com/39/index.shtml
Visit our 900-page current issue: [»»] Jacket 39 at http://jacketmagazine.com/39/index.shtml
Feature: Ron Silliman
Feature: Nathaniel Tarn
Feature: Bob Perelman
Feature: Douglas Barbour
Sister Sites: Vincent Katz on «Vanitas» magazine
Interview: James Sherry
Interview and poems: Bob Arnold
Mark Silverberg: The New York School Poets and the Neo-avant-garde: Introduction: “A Lot of Guys Who Know All About Bricks”
Feature: Rewriting Canonical Australian Poems
Poems: Bob Arnold, Aaron Belz, Vincent Katz, Robert VanderMolen Reviews of books by Rae Armantrout, Eric Baus, Miles Champion, Kevin Davies, Carla Harryman, Larry Price, Susan Howe and Simon Pettet stoat portraits…
And for news about Jacket's exciting future, see the homepage at http://jacketmagazine.com/00/home.shtml
Editors: John Tranter, Pam Brown
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POETICA – ABC Radio National. Saturdays and Thursdays in MAY:
Australia-wide Poetry program- Saturdays at 3.05 pm and repeated Thursdays at 3.05 pm
May program:
1st The Writing on the Wall – a suite of poems by Anne M. Carson about the freeing of slaves in Ancient Greece.
8th Robert Gray – Robert Gray talks about his life and work and we hear a selection of his poetry.
15th Scar Tissue – the writing of American poet, Charles Wright.
22nd Australian Haiku 1 – an anthology exploring this popular miniature form in Australia.
29th Australian Haiku 2 – the haiku and the senryu in contemporary Australian poetry.
POETICA is presented by BRENT CLOUGH and MIKE LADD - For further details please contact the producers of Poetica: Mike Ladd (08) 8343 4928 Krystyna Kubiak (08) 8343 4271
Or visit the Poetica website at www.abc.net.au/rn/arts/poetica/
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FROM THIS BROKEN HILL http://brokenhill.tripod.com/BrokenHill.htm
Meuse Press has released an e-anthology titled “From This Broken Hill” – a unique combination of writing from some of the country’s top writers (past & present) combined with a dazzling array of photography. A place of near mythic proportions, this city deep in the outback. A mine that put the money into Melbourne. Arts hub while simultaneously isolated by distance.
But in some ways Broken Hill was the experiment that became multicultural Australia – it had the country’s first mosque, many communities continue to thrive within its boundaries. The rough heart of Unionism still stands strong. People escape to this city, others escape a childhood there. It has its horrors and highlights, once there you’ll never forget.
Read an excerpt from a Napoleon Bonaparte set in the city, read the view back from leading poet Rae Desmond Jones who grew up there and wonder at the mining waste turned into a thing of beauty surrounded by red soil. Edited by Barbara De Franceschi, Marvis Sofield and Les Wicks.
Supported by Broken Hill Regional Writers’ Centre, Broken Hill City Council, Countrylink & ArtsNSW Available at http://brokenhill.tripod.com/BrokenHill.htm
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Islet Magazine
–new online publishing www.islet.com.au
Are you an emerging writer or visual artist?
Island magazine is very pleased to call for submissions to lslet, its new online publishing space.
Islet publishes a free, quarterly collection of small works by emerging writers and visual artists.
For pay rates, maximum word lengths, and detailed submission guidelines, please visit the website: www.islet.com.au .
Check out the current issue and pop in to our Conversation page while you’re there!
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Guide to Sydney Beaches - http://sydneybeaches.tripod.com/guide.htm
Guide to Sydney Beaches – a driftwood concept. A new web anthology saunters the sand with some of Australia’s leading poets.
Guide to Sydney Beaches - http://sydneybeaches.tripod.com/guide.htm - is aimed at an audience that may not normally access this artform.
This is a driftwood concept – people seeking information about a certain beach stumble across this collection & discover fine Aust poetry. 20 great beaches, 30 superb poets. Hit numbers indicate it is already a huge success. This will increase as we move into Spring. The anthology is from Meuse Press, edited by PU member Les Wicks.
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Melaleuca – monthly e-zine of Australian poetry
MELALEUCA is a free e-zine of Australian poetry, delivered monthly
through your email in-box. For submissions and subscriptions, contact
the editor, Phillip A. Ellis, at phillip.a.ellis@gmail.com
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Folk Odyssey – The Magazine http://www.folkclub.com/folkodyssey/
As you browse Folk Odyssey – the Magazine, you will discover that several sections offer an invitation for you to contribute your work to this enterprise. You may do this in the form of:
-a Letter to the Editor, -an article for Features,
-information for Event Horizon,
-photographs for FolkShot Gallery,
-poetry
-autobiography for Poet in Profile
-a story for StoryBoard.
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Longlines e-anthology
Now up on the Poets Union website www.poetsunion.com : the 2008 Longlines e-anthology (from the 2008 Australian Poetry Festival is now up on the Poets Union website. The 2008 Longlines Fellows were:
Ali Cobby-Eckermann, Helen Hagemann, Kimberley Mann and Andrew Slattery.
What is Longlines? In 2008, the Australian Poetry Centre, together with the Varuna Writers’ Centre, devised a fellowship for poets who lived more than 100 kilometres outside Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane or Canberra. Four Fellows were invited to spend a week at Varuna workshopping their poetry with Ron Pretty. The manuscripts were then published in a series which effectively became a continuation of the Five Islands New Poets collections.
The New Poets Series 2009, comprises:
- little bit long time by Ali Cobby Eckermann
- Evangelyne & other poems by Helen Hagemann
- Awake During Anaesthetic by Kimberley Mann
- Canyon by Andrew Slattery
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PIFF - Poetry in Film Festival
launched – INVITATION TO JOIN THEIR MAILING LIST
PIFF (Poetry in Film Festival) is officially launched. Invitation from the APC (Australian Poetry Centre in Melbourne) to join their mailing list for the Poetry in Film Festival. Click here to subscribe to their mailing list www.poetryinfilmfestival.com.au
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Poetry Lab by email with poet Julie Chevalier
POETRY LAB BY EMAIL With Julie Chevalier (10CHEV4)
Course dates: Thurs. 29 April – Thurs. 9 September
Full price: $450
Venue: on-line course
Enquiries: NSW Writers’ Centre Phone (02) 9555 9757
Email: workshops@nswwriterscentre.org.au
Want to write poetry but can’t make it to a course or workshop? Need individual feedback on your work without leaving the house? Join widely published poet and teacher Julie Chevalier for an online, interactive poetry writing course.
This course is suitable for someone who is interested in writing contemporary poetry and has reliable email. It fills the gap between working through exercises in a book (although books are recommended) and working with a mentor. It enables people who are unable to access courses and workshops because of isolation, time or distance to receive personal feedback to improve their poems. Students are offered the opportunity to contact each other. HSC students are welcome.
Enquiries: NSW Writers’ Centre
Phone (02) 9555 9757 Fax (02) 9818 1327
Email: workshops@nswwriterscentre.org.au
Website: www.nswwriterscentre.org.au
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Knopf’s National Poetry Month http://poem-a-day.knopfdoubleday.com/
If you register with Knopf’s National Poetry Month, they will email you a poem every day in April...Every year in celebration of National Poetry Month, Knopf Poetry offers a free poem—along with bonus features like beautiful broadsides, audio clips, and signed books—each day during the month of April through our Poem-a-Day emails.
Enter your email address to sign up http://poem-a-day.knopfdoubleday.com/
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OTHER NEWS FOR POETS
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Congratulations to Jordie Albiston winner of the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry (NSW Premier’s Award for Literature)
for her collection ‘the sonnet according to ‘m’
Jordie Albiston lives in Melbourne, where she was born in 1961. She is a poet whose work frequently reflects historical research. Australian composer Andrée Greenwell has adapted two of her books (Botany Bay Document, 1996 - retitled Dreaming Transportation - and The Hanging of Jean Lee, 1998) for music-theatre: both enjoyed seasons at the Sydney Opera House. Nervous Arcs won the Mary Gilmore Award for a first book of Australian poetry in 1995, and was also shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Prize. Her fourth collection, The Fall, was shortlisted for Premier's Prizes in Victoria, NSW and Queensland. Here fifth, Vertigoa cantata was published by John Leonard Press, in 2007. She holds a PhD in literature.
The letter ‘m' is emblematic of recurrence and precipitousness in these poems. They emerge with the wantonness of sensations in everyday life. In this case three lives: maternal grandmother, paternal great-great grandmother and the poet. Jordie Albiston, with characteristic delicacy and zest, limns these very different women as perspectives to each other.
Recurrence is intrinsic to sonnets. They are patterned internally, and are often paroxysmal: a perfect form and formation for poems which worry the distinction between the fatal and the banal. The sequence tells what happens when you admit the existential into everyday life, in small or large doses. The results can be desolate, or sublime. And comedic as well: Albiston knows how to play between darkness and send-up, when it comes to an arduous and animating tension between body and mind.
The Sonnet According to 'M' is published by John Leonard Press
Jordie Albiston, the sonnet according to ‘m'
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Derek Motion - winner of the Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets for his work “forest hill”
07 Apr 2010 : A national prize held in honour of Australian poet Judith Wright has been awarded to Charles Sturt University (CSU) postgraduate student, Mr Derek Motion. The 2010 Overland Judith Wright Poetry Prize for New and Emerging Poets, valued at $3 000, has been won by the poet and PhD student for his work, ‘forest hill’.
The successful poets will feature at a presentation event at the Melbourne Emerging Writers’ Festival on Saturday 29 May, alongside Keri Glastonbury and Gig Ryan (poetry editors of Overland and The Age respectively).
In addition to the prize money, Mr Motion’s poem will be published in the next issue of Overland, a quarterly e-bulletin about events, politics and literature. He will be presented the poetry award at the 2010 Emerging Writers’ Festival in the Melbourne Town Hall on Saturday 29 May.
Commenting on the winning entries including Mr Motion’s work, judge Dr Keri Glastonbury found, “…this loose-knit community is where a lot of the energy and action in Australian poetry is, and I look forward to seeing these poets release first books”.
Mr David Gilbey, Senior Lecturer in English at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at CSU in Wagga Wagga said, “I'm delighted at Derek's continuing success in the lists of Australian letters. Derek's poetry is concentrated, allusive, multi-faceted, drawing on literary traditions and contemporary cultural and technological practices. It is also finely human and wittily self-facing - a pleasure to read.
“Like Judith Wright's poetry, Derek combines metaphysical, personal and social concerns. He richly deserves this award and it's a mark of the modernity and integrity of the judging that his poetry has been recognised.”
Mr Motion named his poem ‘forest hill' after the area on the outskirts of Wagga Wagga where he spent some of his early years and where went to primary school.
“In particular I think I was concerned with locating imagery surrounding the time when you start to become who you are; a kind of site of individuation and thinking about what this means for the adult me,” Mr Motion said.
It is not the first time the CSU postgraduate student has had his work honoured at the national level.
In October 2009, Mr Motion received an Australia Council 2010 Emerging Writers’ and Illustrators’ Initiative Grant, valued at $15 000. Read more here.
Mr Motion is doing his PhD through the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at CSU in Wagga Wagga. His research focuses on his own poetry in the context of Australian poets, Christopher Brennan (1870-1932) and Michael Dransfield (1948-1973).
Living in Wagga Wagga with his young family, Mr Motion is also Director of the Booranga Writers’ Centre at CSU.
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Jean Kent WINNER of The Dorothy Porter Poetry Prize
Congratulations to PU member Jean Kent. Meanjin is delighted to announce that the inaugural winner of the Dorothy Porter Poetry Prize for 2009 is Jean Kent, for her poem ‘The Polish Guitarist’s First Paris Concert’ (Vol 68/4).
The prize was run this year as a tribute to much-loved Australian poet, Dorothy Porter, and her legacy of work, and is co-sponsored by Porter’s agent, Jenny Darling & Associates. Kent’s poem was chosen by judges Andrea Goldsmith and Kristin Henry out of all the poems accepted for publication in Meanjin throughout 2009. She was presented with a $1,000 cash prize at an awards ceremony to be held at Gleebooks in Sydney on Saturday 14 November at 4pm. The event featured readings from Porter’s most recent collection, The Bee Hut, which was published by Black Inc. in September 2009. ‘The Polish Guitarist’s First Paris Concert’ will also be published in the forthcoming December edition of Meanjin. Jean Kent has released three books of poetry, including Verandahs, which was recently republished by Picaro Press in its Art Box Series. Her fourth collection, Travelling with the Wrong Phrase Books, was highly commended for the 2008 Alec Bolton Prize. She lives at Lake Macquarie in NSW. Meanjin is pleased to announce that the Dorothy Porter Prize will run again in 2010
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Christine Paice WINNER of The Josephine Ulrick Poetry Prize 2009
Congratulations to Christine Paice poet and long term member of the Poets Union who was the winner of the 2009 Josephine Ulrick Poetry prize with her poem The Ministry Of Going In. Sorry we are so late in acknowledging it Christine – it’s wonderful news! A copy of the poem is on the Poets Union Website under Festivals and Competitions.
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Lucy Holt WINNER of the 2009 Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry
Congratulations to Lucy Holt - The 2009 NSW Premiers Literary Awards were announced at the Sydney Writers Festival.
Congratulations to Lucy Holt on her receipt of the Kenneth Slessor Prize for Poetry for her collection ‘Man Wolf Man’. Lucy was a 2004 Poets Union ‘Australian Young Poets Fellowship’ holder and was mentored by the Poets Union. In 2005 the Poets Union published a chapbook of Lucy’s poems ‘Stories of A Bird’. The Poets Union is committed to raising funds to develop our mentoring, Poetry Fellowships, Poetry Scholarships, Residencies and Prizes. The full list of winners of The NSW Premier’s Literary Awards and more information about the awards can be found here: http://www.pla.nsw.gov.au/
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Emma Jones WINNER Best First Collection, FORWARD PRIZE for her collection ‘The Striped World’
Congratulations to Australian poet, Emma Jones. Emma Jones's The Striped World, inspired by her home country of Australia, was named winner of the £5,000 best first collection prize. Hart called her "an ambitious and intriguing new voice" whose poems "are both elliptical and visionary – inhabiting a parallel world of strange disjointed images within which we nevertheless find echoes of familiar experience".
+
and congratulations to Forward Prize Winner: Don Paterson Scottish poet Don Paterson has triumphed over one of the strongest poetry shortlists in years to take the Forward prize for best collection with Rain. Paterson, 45, beat a line-up of acclaimed poets including Peter Porter, Sharon Olds and Glyn Maxwell to win the £10,000 award for Rain, a continuation of his personal and philosophical exploration of the world around him.
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Congratulations to Jean Valentine - Jean Valentine has been selected as the recipient of the 2009 Wallace Stevens Award from the Academy of American Poets.
The $100,000 prize recognizes outstanding and proven mastery in the art of poetry.
and to Harryette Mullen Harryette Mullen has been selected as the recipient of the 2009 Academy Fellowship. The Fellowship is awarded to a poet for distinguished poetic achievement and provides a stipend of $25,000. The Academy’s Board of Chancellors, a body of sixteen eminent poets, selects the Wallace Stevens Award and Academy Fellowship recipients. Who says poetry isn’t profitable? Full story is here: http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/21013
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VOICEWORKS MAGAZINE
TURNED 21 - The Words We Found: the best writing from 21 years of Voiceworks magazine.
Edited by Lisa Dempster, The Words We Found: the best writing from 21 years of Voiceworks magazine is Express Media’s coming-of-age anthology and, like all good 21st celebrations, it’s a fierce, flirtatious and furious record of our life so far.
The Words We Found available through all good bookshops and online at www.expressmedia.org.au http://www.expressmedia.org.au/ Extract rights are also available. For all media enquiries, please contact Bel Schenk, Artistic Director on 0431 054 190 artisticdirector@expressmedia.org.au
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Best wishes,
Cathy Bray
for Brook Emery and the Poets Union committee,
Poets Union Inc,
PO Box 755,
POTTS POINT NSW 1335
Tel. (02) 9357 6602 (Tuesdays & Wednesdays)
Email: info@poetsunion.com
Please visit the Poets Union website: www.poetsunion.com and our new blog: www.poetsunioninc.blogspot.com
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