Australian Book Review opened its official blog site this month, with contributors including editor Peter Rose and other ABR staff and guest bloggers from the world of letters.

Thursday 19th October, 2006

LAUNCESTON POETRY CUP - OCTOBER 2006

Festival director Cameron Hindrum lays down the rules for Saturday evening’s Launceston Poetry Cup. ‘Festival policy dictates that any bribes made to the festival committee will be kept, especially chocolates.’ Bated breath awaits the announcement of the first contestant, considered an unlucky slot given the audience will have barely had time to warm up. A hand in the box pulls out a name … contestant number one for the 2006 Cup is Liz Winfield. She puts on a brave show, but – sorry Liz, you’ll need to bide your time till next year. The ice broken, it’s now on for young and old.

Valerie Tinmouth is an early frontrunner, as is Ros Lewis. A number of entrants mistime their entry but prefer disqualification and the opportunity to finish their piece: Joy Elizabeth, Jimmy Everett, and Georgie Todman among them. Iggy McGovern puts in a credible performance, and then it’s the turn of the fifteenth competitor: Tim Thorne. 'After the stingray got stuck into Steve,' Thorne begins. When he finishes, applause sweeps the room; a new benchmark's been set. Yet competitor sixteen - Geoff Page – receives similar thunderous acclamation, as does Bruce Penn, competitor seventeen. Entry eighteen settles for another disqualification, whereon Peter Minter at nineteen chimes in with yet another strong performance. For a Sydneysider, he’s certainly done his homework on what’s considered topical. ‘Pulp … is a four-letter word’, and ‘Have mill will pulp, have beer will gulp’…. ‘Thank you Peter Minter; there’s a petition for you all to sign at the table at the back. Next, contestant number twenty…’ intones Hindrum. With contestant number twenty-two - Gary Stannus - comes a play on the acronym SNAG. Does he refer to sensitive new age guy? Or perhaps to sensitive new age Gunns? ‘What do you think / about that pulp mill they’re going to build? / I says – just between you and me mate…’ - but his revelations are interrupted by the discordant note of the asthmatic goose. A collective sigh of dismay sweeps the room. ‘Perhaps we can hear Gary’s entry again at the end of the Cup,’ Hindrum decides, ‘and did I mention there’s a petition to sign?’ Even Canadian visitor Jacqueline Turner is pulpmill-aware. Her visit to the podium is again followed by Hindrum’s patter advising of a petition to be signed: divisions over the twin issues of the pulp mill and the Victorian Supreme Court battle, (pitting corporate concerns against those of John Citizen), have bitten deep in the North. Colin Berry, twice winner of the event, is the twenty-ninth and penultimate entrant, but neither he nor final contestant David Jones manage to worry the judges.

Any number of fine poets dot the room – Carolyn Fisher, Gina Mercer, Andrew Peek, Sue Moss, Kate Fagan, Jane Williams, 1993’s winner Lyn Reid amongst them – who’ve declined to enter the competition, though perhaps they’re concerned at the evening perambulating on into time at the Thorne's traditional post-Cup party. In their deliberations, one judge is unable to distinguish between Tim Thorne and Bruce Penn in a tie for first place, both poets ever so barely shading Geoff Page and Peter Minter in a tie for equal third. A second judge has arrived at a choice between the same four contestants, but cannot choose between Thorne and Minter for the winner. The third judge’s short list is decidedly dissimilar - ‘perhaps I heard things differently from where I sat’ – but nominates Thorne as the clear champion. Thus for the first time, the Launceston Poetry Cup is Thorne’s - and he’s euphoric. ‘I’ve finally won the Cup!!!' Nevertheless, he makes no great claims for his poem. He's written better in the past but gotten nowhere, he says. ‘This one was specially written for the event and was called "Revenge", dealing with the response to Steve Irwin's death, and how we see nature as the enemy. It was not a great poem, by any means, but it must have hit a chord … anyway, it's easier to get a loud response when the audience has had a few drinks." For his troubles, he’s won a bottle of champagne and ... a mint copy of the new Tim Thorne chapbook Best Bitter. And the Cup is back in the North once more; back where it belongs, some might say.

                                              Revenge

After the stingray got stuck into Steve

someone had the bright idea to leave

dozens of killed rays stranded on the beaches:

‘eye for an eye’, a bright idea that reaches

back to the old bloodthirsty bits of the Bible,

when everything was primitive and tribal.

When Top End crocs make lunch of German tourists

the rifles come out. ‘Sentimental purists’

is what us conservationists get called.

Like Sunnis and Shiites, peace talks all have stalled.

Now Brocky’s gone will someone tell me please:

do we wipe out more Holdens or cut down more trees?

Thursday 7th September, 2006

LAUNCH OF ROB WALKER'S POETRY COLLECTION MICROMACRO

South Australian poet rob walker's new poetry collection micromacro will be launched by poet & ABC poeticA presenter Mike Ladd at South Australian Writers' Centre, 187 Rundle Street, Adelaide on Saturday September 30 at 6pm. micromacro was winner of the Onkaparinga Poetry Unhinged Single Poet Collection Competition for 2006.

rob walker has had work published in Quadrant, Famous Reporter, Best Australian Poems, 2005 and broadcast on poeticA. Hundreds of his poems have found publication on internet sites, but this is his first major collection in print.

"rob walker combines sharp perception, compassion and humour to create crisp intersections of time and place" (Jan Owen)

"...witty, incisive and nicely attuned to the 'mouthfeel' of language. His black sense of humour is a bonus. " (Mike Ladd) ..

"grabs you by the scruff of the neck and pulls you up through a chemical mosaic of earth and ocean until you confront your earliest evolutionary ancestors." (Graham Rowlands.)

micromacro will be on sale online after the launch through Seaview Press.

Wednesday 6th September, 2006

 

2007 WATERMARK LITERARY MUSTER - NSW

 

Tuesday 2 October - Saturday 6 October , 2007

The following Australian writers have accepted invitations to attend the 2007 Muster. They will be joined by Eric Rolls, Patron of the Society, David Rothenberg (USA www.whybirdssing.com) and Judith Binney (NZ) and will explore the topic of migration. An invitation has also been extended to Indigenous writer, Pat Torres, from Broome.

Jeannie Baker (NSW)
Barbara Brooks (NSW)
Helen Cushing (Tasmania)
Adrian Franklin (Tasmania)
John Hughes (NSW)
Nick Jose (South Australia)
Dorinda Hafner (South Australia)

Graeme Kinross-Smith (Victoria)
Melissa Lucashenko (NSW)
Sandy McCutcheon (NSW)
Gina Mercer (Tasmania)
Jill Morris (Queensland)
Tessa Morris-Suzuki (ACT)
Nathalie Nguyen (Victoria)

Catherine Padmore (Victoria)
Andrew Riemer (NSW)
Eva Sallis (South Australia)
George Seddon (Western Australia)
Peter Skryznecki (NSW)
Deb Verhoeven (Victoria)

Wednesday 6th September, 2006

COLIN THIELE: 1920 - 2006

"You’ll no doubt have heard by now that the much-loved South Australian writer and educator, Colin Thiele, died on Monday." [Wendy James, 'Sarsaparilla', 6th September, 2006)

 

Sunday 9th July, 2006

IN MEMORIAM, LISA BELLEAR

"I had the great fortune, in my life, to know writer and Aboriginal activist Lisa Bellear.
Lisa died two days ago, in her sleep, causes - as yet - unknown. She was 45."

(From the blog 'Thoughts on Freedom" , a post by skepticlawyer)

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Thursday 6th July, 2006

EUCALYPT: A TANKA JOURNAL

Announcing Eucalypt: a tanka journal, Australia's first journal dedicated to this ancient form of Japanese poetry which has become of increasing interest to poets writing in English. All details are available on www.eucalypt.info   The inaugural issue is due before the end of 2006.

Tuesday 6th June, 2006

TASMANIAN POETRY FESTIVAL, 2006

Some emailed notes from the festival's Cameron Hindrum:

Firstly and most IMPORTANTLY, the DATE for this year's Festival is October 13-15. Please have this tattooed somewhere prominently upon your person so that you DO NOT FORGET them and MISS THE FESTIVAL. (Or failing that, if you're scared of needles, just write it in a diary or something.)

This year we will be joined by...

Geoff Page (ACT)

Peter Minter (NSW)

Sam Wagan Watson (Qld)

Kaye Aldenhoven (NT)

Gina Mercer (Tas)

Esther Ottaway (Tas)

Jim Everett (Tas)

... and our international guest this year, who will read at the Festival conduct a workshop in Launceston as part of her month-long residency here in October, will be

... Jacqueline Turner (Canada). (Profound thanks to the Tas Writers Centre and the University of Prince Edward Island in Canada for making this residency possible. A Tasmanian writer will be selected to undertake a residency in Canada--on Prince Edward Island--next year).

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Thursday 18th May, 2006

BROADWAY POETRY PRIZE

• $3,000 prize
• Judges: Elizabeth Webby & Peter Kirkpatrick
• Winner to be announced at the Australian Poetry Festival, 1-10 September, 2006

The Broadway Poetry Prize is one of Australia's most prestigious competitions for poetry. Sponsored by the Broadway Shopping Centre and the Poets Union, this year the prize for the winning poem is $3,000. It will be published in the Poets Union journal Five Bells, and on the Poets Union website at www.poetsunion.com. The winning entry, together with the shortlisted poems, will be published by Picaro Press in booklet form and be available from the Union for $6.

Conditions of Entry

• The competition is open to all citizens and permanent residents of Australia. (Committee members of the Poets Union are ineligible).
• Poems must not have been previously publsihed, or be under consideration for publication, or for another poetry competition.
• No personal details may appear on the manuscript. Attach a separate entry form or cover sheet to each entry. The entry form can be downloaded from www.poetsunion.com Feel free to copy the entry form.
• Send three copies of each entry. Each copy must be typed, single-sided, on plain A4 paper. Faxed or emailed entries cannot be accepted.
• Include an SSAE for results and a receipt.
• The maximum length of each entry is 100 lines. The fee for each entry is $10, of $7 for financial members of the Poets Union. Make cheques and money orders payable to The Poets Union Inc.
• The deadline for submissions is 28 July 2006; entries postmarked after this date will not be accepted.
• Submissions will not be returned.
• The decision of the judges will be final, and no correspondence will be entered into.

Send your entries to:

The Broadway Poetry Prize

Poets Union

PO Box 91

Balmain   NSW   2041

Thursday 27th April, 2006

ISLAND 104

Thursday 27^th April, 2006 – 5.30pm, Hobart Bookshop, Hobart.

Island 104 was launched in Hobart this evening by Norman Reaburn, Chair of Island’s Management Committee.

Norman spoke of the procedures followed for finding a new editor, how in the past the committee had met behind shut doors and scratched its collective head till coming up with a name. This time, they’d decided to do things differently, instigating a national search for an editor by networking through friends and colleagues across the whole of the continent. And the response, said Reaburn, amazed and astounded, there was a significant number of people interested in the job.

Secretly, in its heart of hearts, the committee had hoped to be able to find an editor who lived in Tasmania. Gina Mercer’s application had been one of the early ones, and in Reaburn’s mind was the vague notion that even at this early stage of proceedings they’d found their applicant. Gina possessed a strong academic background, had published a novel, a poetry collection, had acted as a judge for literary competitions and won critical and academic attention for her work. ‘We took great pride and pleasure in offering her the editorship of Island, and took great delight when she accepted.’

David Owen, retiring editor, spoke of Island as ‘an unpredictable magazine’, but with so much communal support and goodwill ‘it is impossible to see how it could fail’. He named and thanked the work of previous editors who’d brought good things to Island and made it a truly national magazine. ‘I’ve had a few handover sessions with Gina, the magazine is in very, very good hands, I’m absolutely thrilled to be handing over to her.’

‘As for anecdotes,’ David continued ... 'well there were the occasional difficulties, such as with the second issue I edited. A reference I made in the editorial was – I realised – basically a big mistake on my part. This was at eight o’clock at night, just after we’d taken the magazine to the printers. I rang them first thing next morning, "I hope you haven’t started printing yet?" '

‘Yeah, just about finished….’

‘So I told them my problem, and they said don’t worry, we’ll just cut the page out, do a cut and paste job & no one will notice, you might at most see a little join.’

Owen said he lived with - and learned from - the experience.

‘And then there’s Island’s letterhead masthead,’ he continued, ‘which on one side says "excellence’ and on the other "variety". I’ve had quite a few letters just addressed to The Editor, Island Excellence Variety. Or addressed to Rodney Croome; this will happen to you too Gina, so when they come your way, simply reply mentioning Rodney left about nine years ago….’

Owen went on to relate a wee mishap in a portaloo, remarking that ‘if there’s any writer who I felt worthy of pissing on my leg it was him: that’s the way I’ll remember Island!’

Gina Mercer spoke of her vision for Island as a ‘national conversation’, rooted and composted in Tasmania with writing diverse and rich. ‘Tasmania has been a fantastic and welcoming place to come to, as has been the experience of coming to grips with editing the magazine. I’ve always been a reader, but now I’m reading Island six or seven times before publication – and it’s David’s turn to be able to relax and enjoy the magazine for what it is without the responsibility of editing it into print.’

Gina wished David well and invited a half-dozen contributors to read from Island 104. ‘The next Island launch will be on Friday 23^rd June’, she continued, ‘as part of The Tasmanian Writers Centre’s Ice Cold Words Festival dealing with writing about the Antarctic.’ Gina encouraged continued support for the magazine. ‘All my family and friends know what they’re getting for Christmas … Island in their stockings. And if you ever feel the need to contact and converse with me, feel free – particularly if it’s at the time I’m stuffing Island magazine into envelopes to contributors and subscribers, I’d love your help.’

23rd April, 2006

LAUNCH, ISLAND 104

Norman Reaburn, accompanied by David Owen and Gina Mercer, will launch Island 104 at 5.30pm on Thursday 27th April at Hobart Bookshop, 22 Salamanca Square, Hobart.

Island 104 will be the last to appear under David Owen's editorship, with Thursday's launch an opportunity both to farewell David and to welcome new editor Gina Mercer.

23rd March, 2006

ONLINE WORKSHOP: EIGHT WEEKS TOWARD BUILDING THE BETTER POEM

 

Interested in an online poetry workshop? Here are details forwarded to us of a workshop commencing 2nd April 2006, costing US$200 :

Are you interested in improving your poetry writing techniques? Would you like to learn how to negotiate the complex world of getting your poetry published in journals? Build a community with other poets online? The Online School of Poetry, whose faculty includes the renowned poets Quincy Troupe, Patricia Smith and Regie Gibson, is offering a poetry writing workshop led by poet and educator Tom Daley, "Eight Weeks Toward Building the Better Poem," starting April 2, 2006.   Through exercises, readings and critiques by the instructor and your fellow workshoppers, you will learn techniques for crafting better poetry. Each week you will be given an assignment in poetic forms and/or poetic techniques. We will be studying the modern sonnet as developed by practitioners such as Gwendolyn Brooks and John Berryman, the relatively new (and shorter) variant of the sestina called the tritina and crafting our own poems in these forms. Other exercises will deal with using anaphora (the repetition of words or phrases at the beginning, middle or end of a line), exploring the possibilities of metaphor, exploding clichés, writing dramatic monologues and writing about music, painting, sculpture, film and other works of art. You will have the opportunity to post two additional poems each week besides the exercise for critique by the instructor and your peers. In addition to critiquing your poetry, the instructor will offer suggestions for further reading based on your work and will make recommendations about strategies for getting your work published and/or performing your work. The class is open to novice poets and experienced hands alike. Tuition for the course is $200. Go to http://onlineschoolofpoetry.org/TomDaleyWorkshop.html for more information about the course and how to register. The class is limited to twelve participants.

20th March, 2006

ISLAND'S NEW EDITOR

 

Island magazine has a new editor, Gina Mercer. This follows the resignation of David Owen.

Some thoughts:

Given that her previous editorial stint with LiNQ magazine was of nine years duration,  Gina may well have taken on the job for the long haul.

Her extended experience with LiNQ will give her the confidence to make quick directional changes for the magazine, if in fact she has any in mind.

Listening to the selection of poems Gina read yesterday - whereby she made plain her response to the results of the previous day's Tasmanian state elections - there's no doubting she'll make a passionate, feisty Island editor.

1st March, 2006

BROKEN HILL'S 'SILVER TONGUED FERALS'

Poetry by Barbara De Franceschi, Alan Duffy and Geoff Saunders - members of Broken Hill's performance poetry group the 'Silver Tongued Ferals' - features on-line this month in Poems Niederngasse, edited by Pasquale Capocasa of Switzerland. It's a good showcase for a hard-working writing community described by  Barbara De Franceshi as sometimes ignoring their environment - writing about oceans, rain forests, skyscrapers and city life - but who in the end, are inexorably pulled back "to arid landscape so raw it tantalises every creative image, every intangible feeling".

17th February, 2006

FRIENDLY STREET PUBLICATIONS TO BE LAUNCHED AT ADELAIDE WRITER'S WEEK 2006

All writers, their friends and families are invited to the official launch of three new publications

Friendly Street Poets 2006 Reader  - THIRTY,

NEW POETS 11

& WOMEN WITH THEIR FACES ON FIRE

at the West Tent, Pioneer Women’s Memorial Gardens (behind Government House), Adelaide

5:45pm Sunday March 5^th,

day 1 of Adelaide Writers’ Week 2006.

The anthology THIRTY, edited by local poets rob walker and Louise Nicholas, contains the 100 best poems read at Friendly Street (Australia’s longest-running continuous community poetry reading) throughout 2005.

 

THIRTY will be launched by ABC Radio National broadcaster, author and poet Sandy McCutcheon.

 

The NOVA prize (awarded for the best poem by a new, unpublished poet) will be presented by innovative Queensland poet Jaya Savige.

 

NEW POETS 11, containing the first published collections of Cameron Fuller, Patricia Stringer & Rachel Manning will be launched by poet, novelist and academic Marion May Campbell.

 

The Friendly Street Single Poet Volume Women with their Faces on Fire by Annette Marner will also be launched.

Admission is free.

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16th February, 2006

2006 FESTIVAL AWARDS FOR LITERATURE SHORTLIST - ADELAIDE WRITERS' FESTIVAL (MARCH 2006)

The 2006 Festival Awards for Literature will be announced at Adelaide Writers’ Week in the East Tent on Sunday 5 March 2006 at 4.30pm.

Of local (Tasmanian) interest is the shortlisting of Robert Dessaix's Twilight of Love in the non-fiction section, and Kathryn Lomer's The Spare Room in the children's literature section. Not a bad effort when you consider these are shortlists chosen from Australian books published over the past two years. The shortlisting of Lomer 's book follows the shortlisting of her poetry collection Extraction of Arrows (University of Queensland Press) in this festival two years ago.

• The Running Man by Michael Bauer (Omnibus Books)
• Fireshadow by Anthony Eaton (University of Queensland Press)
• Jetty Rats by Phillip Gwynne (Penguin)
• Soraya the Storyteller by Rosanne Hawke (Lothian Books)
• It’s Not All About You, Calma! by Barry Jonsberg (Allen & Unwin)
• The Spare Room by Kathryn Lomer (University of Queensland Press)

• The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers by Delia Falconer (Picador)
• The Ghost Writer by John Harwood (Vintage)
• Sixty Lights by Gail Jones (Random House Australia)
• The White Earth by Andrew McGahan (Allen & Unwin)
• The Marsh Birds by Eva Sallis (Allen & Unwin)
• The Last Ride by Denise Young (HarperCollins Publishers Australia)

• <More or Less Than> 1-100 by MTC Cronin (Shearsman Books)
• The Lost Thoughts of Soldiers by Delia Falconer (Picador)
• The Bone House by Beverley Farmer (Giramondo)
• East of Time by Jacob G. Rosenberg (Brandl & Schlesinger)

$15,000 Award for non-fiction (154 entries)

• Papunya: A Place Made After the Story by Geoffrey Bardon (deceased) and James Bardon (Melbourne University Press)
• Twilight of Love by Robert Dessaix (Picador)
• Joe Cinque’s Consolation by Helen Garner (Picador)
• Professional Savages by Roslyn Poignant (UNSW Press)
• Velocity by Mandy Sayer (Vintage)

• Wolf Notes by Judith Beveridge (Giramondo)
• Walking to Point Clear by David Brooks (Brandl and Schlesinger)
• Totem by Luke Davies (Allen & Unwin)
• Friendly Fire by Jennifer Maiden (Giramondo)
• Freehold by Geoff Page (Brandl and Schlesinger)
• The Well Mouth by Phillip Salom (Freemantle Arts Centre Press)

• Black Crow Lullabies by Duncan Graham
• The Uncharted Hour by Finegan Kruckemeyer
• The Sea Bride by Caleb Lewis

• Life Before Plastic by Libby Angel
• Black Dust Dancing by Tracy Crisp
• Anthems for Before by Sonja Dechian
• The Quakers by Rachel Hennessy
• Play the Devil by Henry Sheppard

9th February, 2006

CONFERENCE: 'RELAXED AND COMFORTABLE? CHALLENGING JOHN HOWARD'S AUSTRALIA'

Organised by Overland - a conference to mark the tenth anniversary of the election of the Howard government to office in 1996.

Guest Speakers are Julia Gillard (ALP), Christine Milne (Greens), Brian Boyd (Trades Hall), R.W. Connell (University of Sydney), Carol Johnson (Adelaide University), and Alice Garner (Actors for Refugees)

The organisers are currently calling for papers from interested parties. A call for papers and event details can be found at http://www.overlandexpress.org/overevents.html

9th February, 2006

LAUNCH THE BREW # 5

Thursday 16 Feb 5:30pm at Suttons Cafe, Salamanca Arts Centre, Hobart, the launch of The Brew issue # 5. Come along to hear readings from some of Tasmania's newest literary talent.

9th February, 2006

NEW EDITOR FOR ISLAND?

The latest issue of Island magazine (# 103) has hit the streets.

In his editorial, editor David Owen writes it's his last issue as editor.

7th February, 2006

FABIAN FORUM: Minority Government: Who wins?

Dr Tony McCall
Dr Kate Crowley
Bob Cheek
Michael Field

Chair: Kim Boyer
School of Sociology
University of Tasmania

Where:  Backspace Theatre
(Behind the Theatre Royal)
Campbell Street
Hobart

When:  Tuesday 21 February 2006

Time:  7pm

Cost: 

$3 Members
$5 Non-members
$2 concession

30th January, 2006

OXFAM TASMANIA EVENTS

Timor Leste (East Timor) Talks

 

Meet Tasmanian woman Sieneke Martin, Oxfam Australia's Program Coordinator for Timor Leste. All events - RSVP to tasenquiry@oxfam.org.au or 6331 6770

 

Burnie Tues 31st Jan 143 Brickport Rd, 6 pm

 

Launceston Wed 1st Feb. Launceston College (Paterson St. entrance) 2.30 pm and 6 pm.

 

Hobart Thurs 2nd and Fri 3rd Feb. Tas. Centre for Global Learning, 4 Battery Square, Battery Point. 6 pm on Thursday and 2:30 pm on Friday

 

Little Swanport, East Coast. Sun 5th Feb at Wind Song, 452 Strip Road - 10.30 Peace pole ceremony, 12.30 lunch (provided) and meeting with Sieneke. RSVP for lunch to tasenquiry@oxfam.org.au or 6331 6770

 

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4th January, 2006

BLAST MAGAZINE

A note from Ann Nugent on the poneme poetry list with regards issues of Blast:

Subscription for 2006 (Blast #3, March 2006; and Blast #4, September 2006 ) costs
$20 which includes postage. Subscribe and be sure of a copy (Blast #1 has sold out).

Subscriptions to Blast Magazine, PO Box 134, Campbell ACT, 2612.

A limited number of copies of Blast #2 are available from above address, or from The
American Bookshop Brisbane, Gleebooks Sydney, Collected Works Melbourne, and
Paperchain, ANU Co-op, Electric Shadows, and National Library Bookshop in Canberra.

Payment for Blast writers:

artsACT has funded Blast Magazine to pay writers in 2006, at substantial rates.

Contributions of poetry and critical prose should be sent to:

Blast Magazine, PO Box 134, Campbell ACT, 2612; or anugent@annsverandah.com
Deadline for Blast #3 is 31 January 2006; and for Blast #4, 15 August 2006.Guidelines on application.

2nd December, 2005

SMASHING TIME

A sculpture / poetry collaboration presented by Nadia Angelini & Myron Lysenko.

Saturday December 10th: 4:30 - 6:00 (reading @ 5:00 pm) - 11 Charles Street Northcote, Victoria.

24th November, 2005

GWEN HARWOOD PRIZE 2005

A small crowd has gathered at Hobart Bookshop for the announcement of the winner of the Gwen Harwood Prize. Island’s editor David Owen welcomes guests, thanks judges Adrienne Eberhard and Kevin Gillam, "two individuals far apart – Kevin in Perth, Western Australia, Adrienne here in Hobart – a distance that could of course cause difficulties, but then again … maybe it’s a positive!"

David introduces Sarah Day, who describes the background to the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize. Gwen was born in Queensland in 1920, raised and educated in Brisbane and in 1945 moved to Tasmania with her husband William – a move she did not at first appreciate. But her life here became immensely rewarding and productive, not least being mother to four children. And over a thirty-year period she published seven highly acclaimed volumes of poetry including The Lion’s Bride, In Plato’s Cave, Bone Scan and two Selected Poems. "Gwen Harwood is justly considered a major twentieth-century English language poet and it’s therefore all the more rewarding to be able to announce this year’s winners of this prestigious prize established in her name".

Sarah announces the three Minor Prizes: first runner up Carolyn Fisher for ‘A Life of Birds’. "Carolyn lives in Ulverstone. It’s always very pleasing to have a Tasmanian poet recognised in this prestigious national award. She is here this evening and will shortly red ‘A Life of Birds’."

"The second runner up is Ray Liversidge for ‘The Divorce Papers’. Ray Liversidge is a Melbourne poet whose first book of poetry, Obeying the Call, was published by Ginninderra Press in 2003. His verse novel The Barrier Range will be published next year by Flat Chat Press."

"The third runner up is Lucy Holt for ‘The Love-doggedness Sonnets - Part I’. Lucy is a twenty-three year old poet who lives in Brunswick, Victoria. Her collection Stories of Bird was published earlier this year by the Poets Union."

"I have much pleasure," Sarah continues, "in announcing that the winner of the Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize for 2005 is Mark Tredinnick for ‘The Child & Time’. Mark is an essayist, poet, critic and writing teacher. He lives both in Katoomba and in Sydney, NSW. His books include The Land’s Wild Music, published this year, and the forthcoming landscape memoir The Blue Plateau. He is also the editor of A Place on Earth: An Anthology of Nature Writing from Australia and North America. Mark teaches creative nonfiction, nature writing, ecology and literature, business writing, composition and grammar in the University of Sydney’s continuing education program and elsewhere. His work will be familiar to readers of Island: his essay ‘Days of Christmas’ won the 2005 Wildcare Tasmania Nature Writing Prize, and he will in fact soon be in residence at Lake St Clair, as part of that prize winner’s package."

"As we did last year, with the winner not from Tasmania, the winning poem is read out on the winner’s behalf. This evening John Hale, well known stage actor and good friend of Island magazine, will read ‘The Child & Time’."

John Hale makes his way to the front of the room – "I’m an actor & I need a stage!" – noting how pleased he is to be faced with a small crowd this evening. "I’ve read Mark’s poem, and think it best felt in a room where there’s a sense of intimacy and perhaps a shared bottle of wine. It’s the kind of poem suggestive of whispers in a lover’s ear, a poem of intimacy and of great beauty."

David Owen rounds off the evening with 'Thanks John. I only wish we'd had a recorder here to tape your rendition of Mark's poem'.

(To read Mark’s poem, you may need to purchase the next copy of Island magazine!!!)

23rd November, 2005

BRAND NEW LINO

Since Martin R. Johnson's collection The Clothes-Prop Man appeared from Wakefield Press, Martin's written a swag of new poems - and has decided to publish them himself. The result is The Hermit Crab's New Home. "The book is small but contains 34 poems, the writing of which is assisted by an established writer's grant from Arts SA". Martin's publishing house is entitled Brand New Lino, though whether the press moves to the publication of other writers remains to be seen.

For a copy, send cheques/money orders for $8.50 to 39 Longford Street, Evanston, South Australia 5116.

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14th November, 2005

AUSTRALIA'S LONGEST RUNNING COMMUNITY POETRY READING CELEBRATES THIRTY YEARS OF ACTIVITY

Adelaide's Friendly Street Poets celebrated thirty years of activity last Friday. The following notes, reproduced with permission, are from rob walker's blog.

It was the evening of the 11 th of November, 1975. The day reformist Labor leader Gough Whitlam had his Prime Ministership revoked by an unelected representative of the Monarch... It was also the hot Tuesday evening that Richard Tipping, Andrew Taylor, Ian Read and a few other poets had decided to have the inaugural reading of the "Friendly Street Poets" in a disused fireworks factory in Adelaide. It was a time of hippies and happenings, palls of smoke and pass-the-flagon. But it was a heterogeneous crowd which included the Chief Justice of South Australia Dr John Bray, men and women of all ages- the unemployed, students, the retired.

From these small beginnings grew Australia's longest-running community poetry reading. Thirty years on Friendly Street still meets on the first Tuesday of the month. For $4 you get a drink, the opportunity to hear about three hours of poetry - and the right to add your name to the list of readers. There have been changes in those thirty years. Friendly Street has become a publisher. After the first year of Readings, the organisers decided to save for posterity the best of the year's poems- and the Annual Friendly Street Reader was born. Later FS liaised with Wakefield Press to encourage unpublished poets through its "New Poets" and "Single Poet" series. Friendly Street welcomes Guest Readers from interstate and overseas. Its excellent website is often used by students all over the world as a portal to research Australian poets.

What keeps Friendly Street going strong is what hasn't changed. There have been no restrictions on politics, poetic form or themes. If you've got the guts to get up and read your poem, you are welcome. And your work is eligible for the anthology. Some people come for years before they feel ready to write or perform, and others just come to hear the diVERSE. The beauty of a live reading is that the unexpected can - and will- happen. Jeri Kroll & Barry Westburg summed it up perfectly: "The performance poet can read after the classicist, the high school student after the senior citizen. In its own egalitarian way, Friendly Street has become a vital community arts centre and a training ground for excellence." (Tuesday Night Live: Fifteen Years of Friendly Street, 1993)

Today we gathered in the State Library to celebrate the first thirty years. The list of Friendly Street "alumni" reads like a "who's who" of Australian poetry. Andrew Taylor (who also helped to set up the South Australian Writers' Centre, currently celebrating its 20th birthday) couldn't come, but among those present were Mike Ladd, Jan Owen, Graham Rowlands, Jeri Kroll, Geoff Goodfellow, Erica Jolly, David Mortimer, Rory Harris, Graham Catt, Miriel Lenore, Ioana Petrescu, David Ades, Richard Tipping, Kate Deller- and Steve Evans, Louise Nicholas, Juan Garrido-Salgado, Kerryn Tredrea and Jude Aquilina and a lot more....!

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9th November, 2005

QUIET PASSING FOR AUTHOR JOHN FOWLES

(By Charlotte Higgins, Sydney Morning Herald, 9th November 2005)

John Fowles, the novelist who brought sexiness and popular appeal to the serious literary novel, has died from heart failure near his home in Lyme Regis, south-west England.

His wife, Sarah, said Fowles "faded away, slipped away on Saturday" after two weeks in hospital in Axminster. "His heart just gave out - gave up, really," she said.

Fowles, who was 79, will be best remembered for the romantic The French Lieutenant's Woman, a daring, meticulous and sexy treatment of the Victorian novel which gives it a postmodern twist of alternative endings.

"It was unbelievably exploratory," said his publisher, Dan Franklin of Jonathan Cape. "The two endings were absolutely revolutionary when it came out." Harold Pinter adapted The French Lieutenant's Woman for a film directed by Karel Reisz and starring Meryl Streep and Jeremy Irons. "It looks good but it is somehow empty at the heart," the author said of it.

7th November, 2005

AN AFTERNOON AT THE REPUBLIC - SUNDAY 6TH NOVEMBER

Various things draw me to Hobart’s Republic Hotel this afternoon, not least the fact that Pete Hay is reading today. Compere Liz Winfield opens proceedings with work by Barney Roberts and Magenta Bliss (Jenny Boult), a recital that both renews our appreciation of their respective talents and accentuates our  loss. Some of us are making the trip to Launceston for Bliss' funeral next Thursday.  Continuing on a happier note, Liz announces the results of this year's Bruce Dawe Poetry Prize. 'Last year as you'll remember, it was won by Louise Oxley, this year it's the turn of Jane Williams'. Both women are among the audience for the afternoon's readings.

First to the microphone is visitor Shaun Levin - originally South African but now a resident of London – and Hobart City Council’s International Writer in residency. ‘Much of my work is about love, and sex,’ he says, ‘which I’m missing cos I haven’t been home for three weeks…’

‘But you’re open to offers, right?’ calls some wit from the audience.

Levin grins without missing a beat. He’s the editor of Chroma, a queer literary journal publishing work from writers and visual artists based in the UK. This afternoon he reads from his recent novella, Seven Sweet Things – his writing is funny, droll, in-your-face.

Next to read is local writer Kathryn Lomer. She’d missed the last reading at the Republic, she explained, having been hospitalised for a few days with a life-threatening illness. Kathryn mentioned the name of the illness, ‘something to do with the colon’ she said, adding that investigation had led her to realise the poet A.D Hope had suffered from the same affliction. ‘We both underwent life-saving operations … saved his life, saved mine. Hope went on to write about his. "I’ve always been partial to a colon; but a semi-colon is better than a full stop."

Lomer reads from old and new work, including ‘Heart to heart’ published in the most recent issue of Island (no. 102), and displaying her effortless capacity to write of the trials of the heart - ‘... parts of our hearts already comatose/ from long-ago mishaps in love’. As she offers words to the microphone I wonder again at the sheer quality of her first collection An Extraction of Arrows (UQP), the winner of the Anne Elder Award and short-listed for the 2004 Adelaide Writers’ Festival. (How difficult is that, faced with competition from every decent poetry collection published in the country over the preceding two years?)

The experience of motherhood is never far from Kathryn’s consciousness, it comes out in her writing, in her conversation. ‘I think we could learn from a survey of four-year-olds on their recollections of the experience of birth,’ she says in response to something raised by Shaun Levin, the previous reader. "I asked my son what he remembered about his birth. His immediate response was, "It was too dark, then I slid down a slide and Mummy bit me" ’. (Do our children ever forgive their writer parents for any of this, Kathryn wonders?).

Another poem is dedicated to Anne Morgan, ‘who put me on to kayaking’. It’s a poem from what she hopes will be her second collection ‘by a publisher who’s intimated they may be able to publish it ...  in 2007’. It’s funny, Lomer adds, 'people always tell me this is a great poem about relationships but it’s really just a poem about kayaking'.

I can’t help thinking how good an experience it’d be to publish Lomer myself, if only I had the resources. The things that matter most in the relationship between a press and the work it publishes - the things that make a book effortless and natural to promote – is always apparent to me when listening to Kathryn read her work, it's in her earthiness, in the lack of self-consciousness about her writing, in her lively imagination.

Pete Hay introduces a sombre note to proceedings. Remarking on the passing of Magenta Bliss (Jenny Boult) this week, he mentioned how he’d had the privilege of delivering the eulogy at the funeral of Barney Roberts a little time ago. "Scott, Roberts, Bliss in the past three months … we’re losing too many fine poets, too fast’, he laments.

Hay reads from his recent collection Silently on the Tide, the poetry spilling out from this much loved man of letters. Of the thylacine, he reads:

The tiger is an absence, and here’s a marvel.

In the common soul wells a mourning,

a sense of an essence lost from the land

and we have made it so.

We have rendered the land incomplete

and it is not to be redeemed.

It is the very land that grieves, perhaps,

gathering us up.

Hay - generous as ever - makes mention of the presence of Cameron Hindrum in the audience. Cameron, the Director of the annual Tasmanian Poetry Festival,  is in Hobart to present Jenny Barnard with the Poetry Cup she’d won at the festival. ‘Cameron’s an extremely good link-man’, Hay says, adding that like a good many other people ‘I got my ass kicked by Jenny in the Cup’. He finishes his set with a wry smile and some welcome new work. ‘The book goes on, becomes part of history … and the poet moves on, to the next.’

Hindrum is welcomed to the microphone. ‘The Launceston Poetry Cup has escaped Launceston,’ he says mournfully, ‘has come to Hobart for the first time since Tony Rayner lifted it in 1997’. The Cup is duly presented – ‘it’s yours for a year Jenny, no wild parties with it’ - and there’s opportunity for Jenny to read her prize-winning piece.

Liz Winfield takes a few moments to launch the latest issue of Poets Republic, the bi-monthly A3 poetry broadsheet she's faithfully produced for the past two years. It's a freebie, five hundred copies of it are distributed by literary organisations and bookshops throughout Tasmania. 'This issue marks its second anniversary,' she says, 'the next one will appear early in the new year".

It’s been a good afternoon.

6th November, 2006

POETRY AUSTRALIA FOUNDATION / FIVE ISLANDS NEW POETS PROGRAMME 2006

From seventy-five or so submissions, manuscripts by Nathan Curnow, Ross Gillett, Francesca Haig, Gita Mammen, Ali Smith and Kate Waterhouse have been accepted for publication in 2006. (Exciting for us here in Tassie to see Francesca's name among the six - both for Francesca's sake, [congrats, Chess!] and the possibility that Ron Pretty may tour all six poets to Hobart some time next year).

4th November, 2005

MEMORIAL SERVICE - MAGENTA BLISS (FORMERLY JENNY BOULT)

A memorial service/wake/poetry reading to remember and celebrate the life and work of Magenta Bliss (formerly Jenny Boult) will be held at Gallus Bar, 61 Cameron Street Launceston from 4.00 pm on Thursday 10 November.

1st November, 2005

BRUCE DAWE NATIONAL POETRY PRIZE 2005

Awarded to Jane Williams for her poem 'My mother's travel diary'.

30th October, 2005

 

E-PANEL: OCTOBER LITERARY JOURNAL EDITORS

Interesting - from an Australian point of view - to come across this blog, Emerging Writers Network, by Dan Wickett in the US, given that one of the panellists is Christina Thompson, a former editor of Meanjin, and editor these days of Harvard Review.

I was a journal editor in Australia before I became editor of Harvard Review, so it would be fair to say that this is the part of the publishing world that I know best. It's a small pond, to be sure, but I'm fond of it.

The E-panel features very general questions about magazine editing, ie ... "Is it safe to say you do this [edit] out of love?" ... [THOMPSON: I took the vow of poverty a long time ago. Actually, I'm in for the freedom: the freedom to make decisions about things I think I understand and care about; the freedom to create something that I like without too much interference or commercial pressure. Plus I feel like I can do some good for younger writers by showcasing their work alongside that of some of the literary world's heavy-hitters] ... etc.

25th October, 2005

READING: JONATHAN COE AND TIM WINTON

(Twenty-sixth Annual International Festival of Authors, Toronto, Canada - a post by Sandy Kemsley, quoted - with permission - from the blog jZepp)

The 26th annual International Festival of Authors is on in Toronto, and yesterday I spent a rainy Sunday afternoon attending readings by Jonathan Coe and Tim Winton. I liked the format: the whole thing was hosted by George Murray, a local poet and founder of the lit blog Bookninja, who introduced each of the authors in turn for a relatively short reading, then set up an interview where Jason Sherman, a local playwright, interviewed the authors together.

Jonathan Coe's reading from his most recent book, The Closed Circle (a sequel to his popular novel The Rotter's Club), had us all laughing out loud at several points: an inattentive father in a playground on Sunday, sipping latte with one hand and talking on his mobile with the other instead of pushing his daughter on the swing; a "sex strike" by a wife in return for her husband's use of bad language in front of the children; histrionics over becoming a literary editor. Definitely on my "to buy" list.

Tim Winton's reading from The Turning was just as amusing, but for different reasons: although the prose was not particularly comedic, his asides to the audience were very funny. The Turning is a series of intertwined short stories set in western Australia, where I have visited but not travelled extensively, but his descriptions were tremendously evocative of the highway and countryside through which the characters travelled. The final bit that he read had a disorienting fast-forward through the future lives of the characters that made me catch my breath, and still sticks in my mind.

What I found most enjoyable and interesting was the conversation between the two authors. Winton, on the road for three weeks now and obviously homesick, had been reading Coe's book The Rotter's Club before coming to the reading. He seemed the stereotypical open and friendly Aussie, a counterpoint to Coe's more reserved British attitude. Although they both claimed to dislike reading aloud from their own works (a strange admission to make at a public reading), Coe appeared more as an introvert forcing himself into public appearance, whereas Winton appeared as an extrovert who interacted easily with the audience but didn't like the restrictions enforced by a reading, and admitted to re-editing his works on the fly during readings. In response to audience Q&A, they both spoke about the process of writing: Coe pre-plans his plots and characters carefully before starting to write, whereas Winton doesn't do any planning and said that the linkages between the stories in The Turning were more or less accidental.

Interesting that the reserved Brit who carefully plans his writing produces such amusing stories, whereas the casual Aussie who doesn't plan ahead ends up with such introspective prose: almost like their writing is the opposite of their public persona.

25th October, 2005

 

PRINT ON DEMAND

Some thoughts on the topic of print on demand from Mairead Byrne, quoted (with permission) from the British & Irish Poets mailing list.

Print-on-demand is a broken link: stone cold. If you can deal with a pod company you know, where you have contacts, can call etc, it would be different. My experience has been no human contact and I didn't like it. Opinions vary widely on this topic. I publish a lot online. It's indispensable to me. I love it. Having a blog surprisingly does not replace books, however. I need those little demons. They are the handshakes of poetry, to say the least. I put them in people's hands and they put their books in mine. We all lose out (financially!). There's nothing to beat a book designed and printed by someone you know or will meet, I think. My best readers in the world are my publishers. I learn most from them. Also because of the investment I know they are making, even more in time than money. I am asking them to take time to move a letter one space left and they do. It strengthens my relationship with and understanding of poetry. Opinions on this vary of course. The idea with paper is to make the poem worth it somehow. I have taken to enclosing short poems like dollar bills in envelopes I send. The web and print complement each other madly. They are a crazy couple. Who would have thought it would work out.

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24th October, 2005

JENNY BARNARD'S CHAPBOOK, 'FIRST BLUE'

Tim Thorne has kindly given permission to post his launch speech of Jenny's collection, (launched 14th October 2005 at the Tasmanian Poetry Festival).

Jenny Barnard is three quite amazing people. One of these people is the wonderfully enthusiastic and supportive lover of poetry, whom, along with her husband Max, I got to know by meeting at readings and festivals over a number of years. Jenny reminded me in her consistent and appreciative attendance at these events of the legendary Gary Flynn, an enigmatic figure in Sydney during the 1970s and '80s, of whom it was said that nobody, even in their sleep, could read or recite a line of poetry without Gary appearing there to hear it and applaud, often having brought his family along with him.

But then I met the second Jenny Barnard. This person emerged, somewhat in the manner of Pallas Athene from the brow of Zeus, from that dutiful audience member on the occasion of the launch of May Carroll's book, I Wanted to Throw Your Things Out on the Lawn in Hobart in 2000. After the formalities of the launch (although formalities is not really the appropriate word for that particular launch) Jenny proceeded to give the most gobsmacking extempore performance of poetry that I have ever been lucky enough to witness. It was enormously clever, enormously funny and enormously wise. I was reminded this time of DM Thomas's novels Ararat and Swallow, in which the world's greatest poets get together in a kind of Olympiad for improvised poetry. Had one of those contests taken place in the so-called real world, Jenny could have, based on her form that day, brought home a gold medal for Australia. I don't know if anyone here has tried to improvise poetry, but it requires an agility of wit, a command of vocabulary and technique, and a presence of mind way beyond that of the average genius.

Anyway, what do you get when you cross Gary Flynn with Corinna Riznich (one of Thomas's great poetry improvising characters)? The answer is, of course, the third incarnation of Jenny Barnard. And it is this third Jenny Barnard whose book I am proud to be launching today. First Blue is a worthy addition to the Walleah Press publications list. As Jenny's first collection, it brings together into an impressive array the pieces that she has read and published individually and in modest environments. This enables an evaluation of her achievement as a poet, and the evidence - contained in these 33 excellent poems - indicates that the combination of Jenny Mark I (avid poetry lover) and Jenny Mark II (wildly high-flying genius) has indeed been a fruitful one.

It is fitting that this launch is taking place within the context of a festival, as it is a cause for celebration, for festivity, an occasion from which we shall all take home some memory of a first-rate performance, of a flash or two of poetic talent and the sense of having felt a little at least of the addictive admiration that good poetry can engender. Whatever else you take home with you from this festival, make sure you take home a copy of Jenny Barnard's First Blue.

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18th October, 2005

2005 VICTORIAN PREMIER'S LITERARY AWARDS

Announced last night. Winners include M. T. C. (Margie) Cronin, recipient of the $15,000 C. J. Dennis prize for poetry with her book 1-100, Robert Dessaix - the $30,000 Nettie Palmer Prize for non-fiction for his book Twilight of Love: Travels with Turgenev - and Sonya Hartnett, whose novel Surrender won the $30,000 Vance Palmer Prize for Fiction.

17th October, 2005

IVY ALVAREZ' NEW COLLECTION, MORTAL

Ivy's poetry manuscript, Mortal, has been accepted for publication by US publishers Red Morning Press, launching in the US in 2006.

[10.11.2005] Red Morning Press News Update...
We're very pleased to announce that we'll be publishing two (count 'em, two!) new poetry titles in the coming months. The first will be from Rhode Island poet Jen Tynes, an editor at horse less press. After that, Red Morning Press goes international with a book by Ivy Alvarez, an Australian poet currently living in Wales (swing by her blog). Check back soon -- we'll be posting much more about both of these fine writers.

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16th October, 2005

TASMANIAN POETRY FESTIVAL

A few thoughts on last night's festival proceedings.

A late start – half an hour at least, maybe that’s the way these things go – before New Zealand poet Ron Riddell takes the microphone. He and Lauren Williams – I don’t have a programme guide in front of me, but I guess the theme is writing in translation - perform most of their work throughout this bracket in Spanish. Though the meaning of the words escape me, Riddell's vitality doesn't, he rocks back and forth on his heels, leans forward into the poems in the manner of Winslet and DiCaprio on Titanic's bow. Both poets refer a good deal to the international poetry festival in Medellin, Columbia, where Williams has twice been a guest. The first experience so impressed her that when she returned to Australia she determined to learn to speak Spanish. On being  invited back to the festival seven years later she was able to read in a mix of Spanish and English.

'I'd found the experience of listening to poetry in Spanish, just wonderful - but frustrating too. I couldn't understand the words but could see from the expressions on the faces of other guests that this was something good, that I was in the presence of some great poetry being read
- and I couldn't understand a word. It came to a climax for me when I was asked which poem from my work I'd like read to the audience - in Spanish - and, when I pointed to one beginning

          Lust comes to visit
          knocks on the door

the response was deadpan. I thought, this can't be right! What's happening, what are they hearing? ... It turns out the programme translation mistakenly assumed 'Lust' to be a person's name, and the audience was listening to the equivalent of

          Jason comes to visit
          knocks on the door

No wonder there was no response. They were thinking, who is this woman? I turned to the translater and demanded to present a poem myself - a rap poem - cos that crosses any language
barrier, it's rhythmic - and this saved my ass big time!'

Following the session, Louise Oxley launchs Pete Hay's collection, Silently on the Tide. Her summation draws Hay's frank appreciation. 'Louise has managed to get to the heart of what I intended - particularly with a poem such as 'Back Town Dying' -  better than I could readily manage myself.'  Hay proceeds to read from his long poem 'Back Town Dying', set in northern Tasmania. 'I thought the only people in the world interested in this poem would be myself and Barney Roberts,' Hay says, 'but I've read it on other occasions and had a good response so I'll
try it again.' Reading from another of his longer poems, 'In Memory of William Paterson', Hay admits to the poem sounding a bit 'Death of a River Guide-ish'.  'But I'll have you know I had the idea for this poem long before Richard Flanagan was in shorts,' he asserts.

Hay takes time out to lament the loss of his friend Barney Roberts  - the author of ten books and the winner of the NSW Premiers' Literary Award (Special Peace Prize, International Year of Peace, 1986) and one of Tasmania's favourite literary sons - who'd passed away after suffering a stroke earlier in the week. 'Two days ago the Robert Frost of Tasmanian poetry passed away, we'll miss him very much. His last collection of Horrie poems, I'm sure, will one day become the classic I believe it to be. Barney leaves a very big hole in Tasmanian poetry.'

Following Hay, it's time for the Poetry Cup. Entrants are judged on sixty seconds of verse with the winner being the poet receiving the most decibels of applause. 'If you read for longer than a minute you'll be gonged by the sound of the asthmatic goose,' warned compere Cameron Hindrum. There's plenty of stiff competition from the locals and visitors (Ian McBryde, Susan Kruss, Julie Beveridge, Williams & Riddell)for the cup donated by Colin Berry ('who was obliged to do that,' the compere chipped in, being the only person to win the Cup twice in different millenium in its twenty year history'). Susan Kruss was unfortunate enough to be chosen to read first. 'I'm playing with my villanelle,' she recited, but really a pome having more to do with individual sex drive. Tim Thorne was next, and though he knew from rehearsals that his poem came in well under a minute, 'I was enjoying the response to the lines so much I lost track' ... and was thus disqualified: he kept reading till the end of the piece. 'I knew I had no chance as soon as my name came up second,' he said, 'no chance. The crowd wasn't warmed up.'

Robyn Mathison begins slowly, 'A starling/ crashed into my left breast/ a kamikaze bird...' the audience listened respectfully - to be surprised & delighted with Robyn veering off on a tangent, cos when the bird recovered, 'she flew off/ in the direction of Mather's Lane./ Good idea, I thought/ she's going to the Catholic Womens' Rest Rooms/ for a nice cup of tea' - drawing a lot of applause, almost stealing the show. Ron Riddell was all over the floor - very acrobatic - 'don't smoke don't smoke don't smoke', Iam McBryde is a complete contrast. He is stoicly stone-faced. 'This is a poem about every writer's major frustration, it's called writer's block.' McBryde lapses into silence. After about twenty seconds, someone in the audience snickers. 'I'm not finished yet,' McBryde admonishs, but a little later thanks the audience and retires from the stage.

 

'He's got a way with words, hasn't he?' adlibs Hindrum.

Bruce Penn is called to microphone. 'This is called "The Core Promises Prayer" ', he intones.

Our feather which floats in Canberra

Howard be thy name

Thy kingdom come undone

Thy will won't on my patch of dirt

As it does in Washington

Give us this day our daily crumbs

And forgive us our expatriates

As we forgive them that take refuge amongst us.

Lead us not into war coalitions

And deliver us from politicians.

For thine is the razor wire

Channel nine the power and the story

For never and ever

(I did not have political relations with that man)

Arrrrrghh.   Men!

The buzzer sounds just as Penn mouths 'Arrrrrghh.    Men!'

'Is your timing always that good?' asks Hindrum.

Then it's Colin Berry's turn. 'Can he win the cup three times? You'd never hear the end of it, I assure you!' Hindrum ventures.

 

Berry didn't. In the end the award went to Hobart poet Jenny Barnard, who went through the ritual of repeating the performance before asking the compere for a hug. 'That's the first time I've ever had to stand on tip toe to hug a man,' she said. 'That's the first time I've ever had to bend over,' he replied.

Jenny's poem

            Meat - Out

 

Chew on that!
gristly, stringy,
chuck steak.
Toss in some
haricot beans, tomato paste
ionions, carrots, celery
bib & bobs
from last week's fridge.
So good for you
so beef stew
climb in the pot
it's hot -
soooo what!

Doc said don't eat red meat -
I ate red lentils, green lentils, brown lentils,
yellow beans, fava beans, mother beans,
forty three beans.
I kicked the brie
shot the salt shaker
killed the soy sauce
gave the mince to the rottweiller.
too many additives,
fucked liver?

I pant, I puff, I yawn,
but I'm eating healthy - I'm so healthy
O so healthy I can't breathe -
my heart stops and starts like Phar Lap
on the last stretch of turf.
Go back to the herbalist.
'Ah, you need a blood test.
You're iron deficient.
Here's some ampoules
& syringes - go inject yourself!'