Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Does anyone know what's happening with National Poetry Week

Hi
I've been trying to contact Jayne Fenton Keane to find out what's happening with National Poetry Week this year, as the website hasn't been updated for a long time, but I can't seem to find her. Does anyone know if events are happening around Australia for National Poetry Week and how I might contact Jayne. We have a lot organised here in Perth. See the following web address for details of what's happening in Perth: http://www.maureensexton.com.au/Pages/waspringpoetryfestival2008.html
I would appreciate any information.
Cheers
Maureen Sexton

Saturday, July 26, 2008

2008 Australian Poetry Festival

State of Play - Australian Poetry Now!

6th Australian Poetry Festival
5, 6, 7 September 2008

Sydney Mechanics School of Arts, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney

Opening Night Party and Performance
Poets from around Australia and overseas
Panels on the State of Play in Contemporary Oz Poetry
Performance Night
The Judith Wright Lecture (to be delivered by Bruce Dawe)
The $3000 Poets Union Poetry Prize
The Scanlon Prize for Indigenous Verse
Launch of the Poets Union Anthology
Pre-Festival Events (Monster Open Reading; Reading Seminar)

All to be recorded in a special double edition of Five Bells which will be a significant contribution to thinking about the craft of contemporary Australian poetry.
http://www.poetsunion.com/apf/2008

I'd like to say hello to any poets attending this festival. I'll be reading at the Friend in Hand Hotel, Cowper St Glebe, as part of the Varuna LongLines Regional Poets Program

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

writing project - field trip photos

I recently spent some time at Stanage, northern reach of Shoalwater Bay in Queensland. I've been writing, taking photos and fishing. I received a grant to develop a writing project as a 'poetry cycle' based on my interpretation of the issues and environment surrounding Shoalwater Bay which has been a military training area for combined ADF and US military forces since the Vietnam conflict. I thought that you might like to catch some of the first lot of photos I've posted on my blog herehttp://lou-waves.blogspot.com/

In the mid nineties the ADF assisted in keeping sand mining out of Shoalwater, now they may have to assist to stop a major coal loading port being situated there. During joint military training exercises every second year, the ADF and US use live firing in the area, (the beast you know hey). Many migratory bird breeding areas, turtle and dugong habitats, humpback whales and other flora and fauna life could be in a very precarious state, (if not already) should any further major industrial inroads be made.

I'm not a nature poet, but I do live in and around it, and appreciate that the environment is all around me (the landscape within and without) and I recognise it's important to respect what is there, before it becomes degraded and beyond self repair. There are so few pristine areas left in the world.

Sunday, July 20, 2008

A Crab Wanders as a Lonely Cloud

Crab Convoy

Softer than light
soldier crabs navigate an early world.
From their drilled trenches they hover;
transparent bodies, miniature helicopters
airing a blue line across mud flats,
portable radio antennas
attuned to the sea’s bandwidth.
A lone soldier divides from the troops,
gathers in her sand rosette,
latches down.
Missiles of bird-song blast overhead;
sounds of the enemy,
digging.


This is a poem from my soon to be published collection "Country Girl" - but may not make it in.

Saturday, July 19, 2008

Retrieved poem: Hot Days

in this town
summer days are songless
brute sun in a silent sky

banksias stand like stringless cellos
warbler whistles his choked phrase
from a melaleuca’s dry neck

in the cracked silence
a string player buries his fingers
in the soil

feeling for song



This is a poem from over a year ago, but I only found it again when I went trawling through my blog for another poem my wife wanted me to find.

Thursday, July 10, 2008

foam:e submissions now open

For anyone interested in sending work - issue #6 foam:e http://www.foame.org/ to be edited by Angela Gardner is now open for submissions. You can read the current issue and previous ones and also link via the submissions link on the main page or through the link on the current issue's editorial page.