A new episode of the ABC’s ‘Gardening Australia’ appeared last week, featuring Tasmanian photographer Rob Blakers— ‘My Garden Path—We head down the garden path with Rob Blakers, a photographer whose love of natural places has inspired the garden he cultivates for his local community.’ Blakers is renowned in Tasmania for his iconic wilderness photography. I…
Angélique Kidjo—Tiny Desk Concert 12th Sept 2022
Twenty minutes of energy with Angélique Kidjo for NPR’s tiny Desk Concert.
Snuggle Up with Spineless: ‘Ecliptical’—featuring Hazel Smith
A Spineless Wonders Youtube presentention of—readings by Hazel Smith, a presentation by Roger Dean, a conversation between Hazel and Anne Brewster, and a talk by Joy Wallace. The event took place in June 2022 and was placed online on 25th August and is available for viewing here. It’s 1 hr 28 min in length. …
Anuradha Roy interview, ‘The Rumpus’ (Aug 2022)
For some reason, I found myself looking up the name ‘Arundhati Roy’, winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 1997 for her novel The God of Small Things—and came across another name, that of Anuradha Roy. Damn webpage, I thought, can’t even spell. It wasn’t till…. Ok, completely different individual, my bad. And…
Eureka Street—Vol 32 No 16 (2022)
Eureka Street, published by Jesuit Publications, was founded in 1991—a print magazine for fifteen years that went online from 2006. It was edited by Morag Fraser from 1991 to 2003, and is currently edited by David Halliday. In an interview in 1995, Richard Flanagan voiced the opinion that “Eureka Street has been a huge success story because…
Anna Cadden’s film—’Pacific Light: Poems of Renewal by David Mason’
‘Pacific Light: Poems of Renewal by David Mason’, a film by Anna Cadden with underwater photography by Cally Conan-Davies, is a meditation on life, work, poetry and the soul. Poems are from David’s book Pacific Light (Red Hen Press, 2022), available through https://bookshop.org/books/pacific-li… David Mason was born in Washington State, forty-odd degrees north latitude, and…
Tasmanian poet Tim Slade, reading ‘Thylacine’
Tim Slade’s been writing poetry for a decade, his work has appeared in publications as diverse as The Weekend Australian, The Koori Mail, Australian Poetry Anthology, Growing Up Disabled In Australia and Cordite Poetry Review. Originally from Hobart, he settled in the tiny Tasmanian town of Pioneer a decade ago where he’s drawn inspiration for…
Otoliths # 66
When introducing issue sixty-six of online lit journal ‘Otoliths’ some weeks back, Mark Young noted that following the next issue, ‘there will be another four issues of Otoliths & then the journal will close with issue seventy, the southern winter 2023 issue.’ Which is a blow for writers & readers…. Founded in 2006, ‘Otoliths’ experiments…
Uluru Statement from the Heart: Sydney Peace Prize winner 2021—2022
On 3rd August 2022, the Australia Institute posted both a video, and a transcript, of a conversation between Pat Anderson, Professor Megan Davis and Archie Law about the Uluru Statement from the Heart and its three objectives: a Voice to Parliament, Treaty, and Truth. Beginning of the conversation, host Ebony Bennett asked about the process…
Liminal
Liminal —an anti-racist literary platform—is an online space for the exploration, interrogation and celebration of the Asian-Australian experience. Founded by Ling Jing McIntosh in late 2016 and perhaps best known for its focus on interviews with Australian arts practitioners, Liminal showcases creatives from a wide range of creative disciplines— literature, visual arts, music, dance, journalism, and more.
Red Room—Showcasing Tasmanian poetry and musicians. Mona, 27th August
Red Room Poetry Month features an afternoon of free entertainment at Mona in Hobart, Saturday 27th August at 1-2.15pm. Come for the art, the architecture, the aesthetic, stay for the poetry. In partnership with MONA, come along to see/hear/feel some of Tasmania’s finest wordsmiths and spoken word artists including Esther Ottaway, Rebecca Young, Rohan King, Kathryn Lomer, Damon…
Vale David Ireland
Saddened to learn of David Ireland’s death last month. He was awarded the Miles Franklin Award on three occasions, for his novels ‘The Unknown Industrial Prisoner’ (1971), ‘The Glass Canoe’ (1976), and ‘For a Woman of the Future’ (1979). Professor Van Ikin penned a farewell to Ireland at ‘The Conversation’, including his recall of an…
Damon Young — Red Room Poetry
DAMON YOUNG — RED ROOM POETRY MONTH Red Room Poetry features Hobart-based poet Damon Young this weekend as part of Poetry Month. And as I read his lines ‘… publisher / with a passion for bold voices / like his.’ … I wondered whether (interpreting the words ‘like his’) I might read myself into them,…
Italian pianist and composer Ludovico Einaudi: Tiny Desk Concert
Lucovico Einaudi performing for NPR Music’s Tiny Desk Concert on a visit to the United States—15th July 2022.
Ben Adams reviews Geoff Goodfellow’s verse novella ‘Blight Street’ (Walleah Press)
In his new verse novella, SA poet Geoff Goodfellow serves up a no-holds-barred slice of life on the margins in outer-suburban contemporary Australia. Read Ben Adams’ review
Mary Blackwood — book launch, Hobart: 22nd June
A little over thirty years ago, I sat down and interviewed poet and children’s writer Mary Blackwood in Hobart. To my dismay, the recording failed, necessitating a return visit to re-record our conversation, though Mary kindly says that part of the experience doesn’t figure in her recollections. In her conversation, she spoke of being a…
Alex Skovron on 3CR this morning
Alex in conversation with Di Cousens, recalling an early poetry submission…. “One of my very first submissions was from Sydney. It was to ‘Poetry Australia’, and at that time Les Murray was editing. I sent a bundle of poems representing those early ten years of my poetry writing but towards the later phase of that,…
Book extract, Tad Friend’s ‘In The Early Times’
from ‘Literary Hub’, May 11th 2022 When Day poisoned his tea with five heaping spoonfuls of sugar, Addison warned him that his teeth would fall out and that he’d get diabetes—one of her periodic public service announcements denouncing meat, cigarettes, and hypocrisy. He just scowled at her. She scoops out half his sugar when he’s…
Fullers Poets — Mary Blackwood & Liz McQuilkin: 12th May (Hobart)
Fullers Poets is a new event series celebrating contemporary poetry. The first event in this series will feature poets Liz McQuilkin (Unwrapping Clouds) and Mary Blackwood (Small Cosmos) in conversation, with readings from their work. Praise for Liz McQuilkin: ‘Liz McQuilkin has Mary Oliver’s ability to show us ordinary, yet extraordinary, moments in the natural and human worlds….
To Observe that Kind of Devotion: A conversation (Camille Dungy and Major Jackson — ‘Orion’)
(Published recently in US literary journal ‘Orion Magazine’: read the full interview) Camille: One of the things that is most exciting to me about all the best writing going on right now, all politically engaged writing (and I think environmental writing has always been politically engaged) is how it requires a roving eye. A roving eye…
‘Otoliths’: issue 65, southern autumn issue
Issue sixty-five of Otoliths, the southern autumn 2022 issue, is now up. This issue, which marks the beginning of the seventeenth year of the journal’s existence, contains a mix of — sometimes mixed — photographs, paintings, short stories, poetry, interviews, magazine columns, & manifestos from an international contributor list including Karl Kempton, Linda King,…
Vale: Chris Bailey
Stranded — The Saints, 1976
Launch: David Webby’s children’s book (March)
David Webby’s ‘The Misadventures of Harry and Larry: The Chosen Ones’ Launch — Hobart Bookshop (youtube: 3mins 09 secs) Two bush Mice, Harry and Larry, from the Bunya Mountains become trapped in a 4WD owned by two humans, known as Charlie and Izzy Humbledink, and are thrust into an exciting adventure all the way up the east…
Notes from a launch: Esther Ottaway’s ‘Intimate, low-voiced, delicate things’
My take on Jane Williams’ launch of Esther Ottaway’s poetry collection ‘Intimate, low-voiced, delicate things’ in Launceston last year — please visit here. ‘I’ve been a fan of Esther Ottaway’s poetry since her first, small, powerful book Blood Universe some fourteen years ago.’ she said. ‘The long wait has been well worth it and … I suspect Intimate,…
Poetry evening, Launceston — Tuesday 12th April 2022
After a break, poetry is back in Launceston on Tuesday 12th April, in the back bar area of the Sports Garden Hotel, corner of George and Cimitiere Streets. It will be a re-launch of POETRY PEDLARS. Arrive between 7 p.m. and 7.30 for a 7.30 reading start, but come earlier if you want to read in…
Children’s book ‘Tyenna’ (Julie Hunt, Terry Whitebeach) — launched by Daniela Brozek
Launch of the new children’s book Tyenna. The Hobart Bookshop presents Julie Hunt and Terry Whitebeach with an introduction from Daniela Brozek discussing the book and what they have learned about the Tasmanian environment. (from Allen & Unwin) An engaging and suspenseful novel about one girl’s experience of the terrifying Tasmanian bushfires. They…
A poet’s view of the war….
(Talia Lavin, ‘The Intelligencer’, 15th March 2022: ‘The War Never Left. A conversation with Ilya Kaminsky about memory, viral poetry, and the tragedy of Ukraine.) Which poets in Russian and Ukrainian, contemporary and past, should we be reading to understand this moment? We don’t read the poets to understand the moment. We read poets to…
Vale Blaise van Hecke
Saddened to hear this…. A well-respected figure in the publishing industry and an avid ally of small press publishing in particular, Blaise van Hecke died suddenly on 13 March 2022. (ArtsHub)
2022 Adelaide Festival Awards for Literature
MR_2022_Adelaide_Festival_Awards_for_Literature_Winners_Announced
a few exciting things happening at Calanthe!
(from Vanessa Page, at ‘Worded Page’, discussing recent publications from Queensland publisher Calanthe Press including her own Botanical Skin ) Back in January Calanthe Press launched its new website and if you haven’t had a chance to explore it yet, I encourage you to take the time. Read the post in full at Worded Page
Review, Jane Williams’ ‘Points of Recognition’
Alison Clifton reviews Points of Recognition, one of two of Jane’s collections to appear in 2021 (the other: Between Breaths, Silver Bow Publishing, Canada). ‘Jane Williams’ Points of Recognition is inherently human poetry. Her concerns are wide-ranging: from empathy to idiosyncrasy, the mundane to the marvellous, compassion to passion, diffidence and restraint to ecstasy and…
War Poetry in Ukraine: Serhiy Zhadan and Lyuba Yakimchuk
An essay by Maria G. Rewakowicz, published in ‘Los Angeles Review of Books’, 22 Feb 2022 Ever since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and soon after stirred the conflict in the southeast region of Donbas, the theme of war has figured prominently in Ukrainian prose and poetry. The ongoing war has inspired two poetic anthologies…
Launch — Les Wicks’ poetry collection ‘Time Taken — New & Selected’
Time Taken — New & Selected’, (Puncher & Wattman) is Les Wicks’ fifteenth poetry collection. 2022 will mark the 50th anniversary of Wicks’ first poem publication. His imprint Meuse Press will turn 45. He has been presenting workshops around Australia across 35 years. Time Taken is a New & Selected collection revisiting his best poems…
Launceston — ‘A Passion for Poetry’
Monday February 28 at 4pm City Park Radio, 96.5 FM or 103.7FM or live streaming on the Internet. 1st episode of ‘A Passion for Poetry’, presented by Nancy Corbett. The first program features Dylan Thomas and Leonard Cohen reading their own poems (thanks You Tube) and an interview with Colin Berry, president of the Tasmanian…
Geoff Goodfellow at Adelaide Festival, 7th March 2022
Geoff Goodfellow returns to Writers’ Week with a reading of his new verse novella, ‘Blight Street, (Walleah Press), featuring Geoff and performers Roslyn Oades and Nic Darrigo. (From the festival’s notes): “Set in the northern suburbs of Adelaide, ‘Blight Street’ is written in the language and idiom of the culture it portrays. Harrowing but tender,…
Forwarded message from Seasonal Poets (Hobart)
Subject: Seasonal Poets – February Reading Cancelled Date: 15 February 2022 at 9:10:08 am AEDT Dear Friends of Seasonal Poets, Next Monday, 21st of February, should have been our first reading for 2022 at Hadley’s Hotel. Given the current restrictions for masks and social distancing, we have reluctantly decided to cancel the reading. We are…
Tasmanian Poetry Festival, September 2022
Noting from the festival’s facebook page … the 2022 festival is now planned for September in several venues over two weekends, with some events on the weekend of the 17th and 18th and the main Festival on the following weekend, from Friday the 23rd to the 25th of September. The festival also hopes to have…
‘Otoliths’ issue sixty-four, southern summer 2022
A southern summer issue of otoliths’ (issue sixty-four), is online featuring the work of 120—130 writers and artists including Tony Beyer, Les Wicks, Pete Spence, John M. Bennett, Eileen R. Tabios, Sheila E. Murphy, Cameron Morse, Alyssa Gillespie and many more. Nothing by editor Mark Young in the issue, but you can savour some recent…
A time of goodbyes
(From Anne Layton-Bennett’s blog) But the analogy holds given that during the closing weeks of 2021 Tasmania – and particularly Launceston – lost three of its finest people in Tim, Annie and Peter. They were all leaders in their field, and were truly lovely, caring and generous individuals. I feel privileged to have known all…
Geoff Goodfellow’s verse novella for younger readers, ‘Blight Street’
The launch of Geoff Goodfellow’s new book, published December 2021 (Walleah Press) and due to be launched in Hobart late February 2022, has been deferred due to covid considerations. More details when available.
Joe Strummer, ‘Forbidden City’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hexwqFps-A8
Ron Moss — ‘Cloud Hands’ (Nov 2021)
Ron C. Moss is a Tasmanian poet and artist whose haiku and short form poetry, has appeared in leading journals and anthologies across the world. His award-winning poems have been featured many times and translated into several languages. ‘Cloud Hands’ (Walleah Press) is the fourth major collection of Ron’s previously published haiku, and it brings…
Laurie Brinklow — ‘My island’s the house I sleep in at night’ (Oct 2021)
Being an islander means that you aren’t like everyone else.” Bounded by water, you can live your life with certainty knowing where your edges are. Drawn from interviews with artists from Newfoundland and Tasmania, these poems capture what it means to be an islander. To know every rock and tickle, “the sea your road/the hole…
thinking aloud
It’s the Queen’s Birthday Holiday. Kevin Brophy has won an AM, a version of an Order of Australia Medal.
thinking aloud
Reading a new poem daily — working my way through a few Robert Adamson poems at the beginning of ‘Contemporary Australian Poetry’. Love the way I come back to these poems with some sort of relish, appreciating his vision, his ‘association with the dead (writers)’ (my italics), his writing of experiences (ie driving his boat…
thinking aloud
Spent a lovely evening with Anne and Giles last night, fed a meal of fish and salad and gem melon. Giles enthused about the artist Klimt, and Hieronymous Bosch, and showed me his book on Peter Bruegel the Elder, I mentioned the painting I came across last week — Bruegel’s ‘The blind leading the blind’,…
Minsk
Valzhyna Mort, in an interview, characterises the people of Belarussia as having undergone much, and being a non-aggressive people, basically. And it clicked — what might have caused the people of Minsk to be so non-belligerent? What part of her history can this be attributed to? To the USSR, since 1917? Or much earlier? Is…
thinking aloud
Went along to the AGM of the Tasmanian Poetry Festival last night. I didn’t nominate for the committee, and I’m glad I didn’t cos there were more nominees (6) than vacancies (4).
thinking aloud
The Tasmanian Poetry Festival committee is holding its AGM tonight. Half tempted to go along and put my hand up, but not sure how well I’d perform within a committee.
Harry Laing — ‘unsettled’ (April 2021)
‘unsettled; (Walleah Press) ‘unsettled’ is a collection of broad thematic and formal range. Laing renders our history, our current ecological crisis and some of our contemporary mores into a rich, tumbling music, as memorable as it is accessible. The poems that revisit the author’s past are especially poignant: closing some doors as the windows open…
Tim Baker, ‘All Hands’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMpBStYRJZ8
Brendan Ryan — ‘Walk like a Cow’ (Nov 2020)
Australian poet Brendan Ryan speaks about his life in this memoir of “the child, the youth and the young man finding his footing amidst the mysteries of cows and the ruthless cycles of the farm, the dry-eyed melancholy of the milking-shed and the mercy of the weather. Here also are the puzzles of existence contained…
MILCK, ‘I can’t keep quiet’ (Women’s march on Washington)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zLvIw8J8sWE
Hobart visit, Geoff Goodfellow – February 2019
It’s always good to catch up with poet Geoff Goodfellow. He’s been touring Tasmania this week, visiting local schools and the prison, talking poetry. ‘You’re becoming a local, Geoff…. ’ ‘Well I find that when I go into the schools, the year nine’s—they won’t know me—but the year ten’s, they’ll remember me from last year,…
Feedback for Michael Sharkey’s ‘Many Such As She: Victorian Australian Women Poets of World War One’
Some welcome feedback for Michael Sharkey’s anthology, Many Such as She…. “I’ve just been having another and deeper look into those women ‘war’ poets you’ve so assiduously collected and wonderfully written up, and up till now I’ve found their treatment of war, loss, patriotism, etc — by which I mean their favourite ‘positions’ to couple…
Hey Rosetta! and Yukon Blonde, ‘Land We Lost’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnU8V7gsjok
Dennis Altman and Bob Brown in conversation
BOB BROWN ‘ … surely it is much more powerful to have some Greens in there influencing Labor than to have a number of Labor people elected who have to do what they’re told. You remember, Labor members cannot cross the floor, cannot vote against what their party’s doing – or they’re out, effectively. So:…
thinking aloud
Managed to put up issue four of Communion two or three days ago, good to have had some feedback. Included a couple of interviews – one with Philomena van Risjwick, which I enjoyed a great deal, she had some good things to say about writing and music – the other with Rebecca Kylie Law, an…
Melanie Barnes, in conversation with Susan Austin
SUSAN AUSTIN In 2007 you helped to found Students Against the Pulp Mill and lead demonstrations in Hobart and Launceston where students walked out of school to protest against the pulp mill. What’s it like to lead 700 or more high school students out of class and through the streets? MELANIE BARNES That was fantastic….
Gotye, with Kimbra: ‘Somebody that I used to know’
‘Somebody that I used to know‘
A reading: Hay, Brinklow, Kessler—The Lark, Hobart
Went along to the Lark on Wednesday to listen to Pete Hay in conversation with Laurie Brinklow and Deirdre Kessler, on the notion (what else?) of islandness. The Lark readings: Pete Hay, Laurie Brinklow and Deirdre Kessler—Wed 27th October One of the Tasmanian Writers’ Centre’s feature events for 2010 was a reading with local…
Castlemaine poetry reading
Tuesday 24th November 2009 — Travelled over to Victoria with Jane on the weekend, to the Castlemaine readings run by Ross Donlon at the Guildford pub. Caught up with Robyn Rowland again, she invited us to stay with her in Ireland some time if our visits coincide, ‘I rent a lovely little cottage on Ireland’s…
Thinking aloud
Went round to visit Jane, she told me a story about how the one of the MC’s at the festival – a young woman – introduced her as ‘Mister’, then – recovering – as ‘Missus’ … causing Jane to completely drop the running order of her poems and to begin with her poem called ‘Missus’….
Tasmanian Poetry Festival 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…
Island 104
Thursday 27th 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…
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…
North to Garradunga: An afternoon at the Republic
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…
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.
Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize 2005
Awarded to Jane Williams for her poem ‘My mother’s travel diary’.
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,…
Print on demand (some thoughts — Mairead Byrne)
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…
The Burden of the Gospels
9th October, 2005 THE BURDEN OF THE GOSPELS Have been catching up with Dave Bonta’s blog, Via Negativa, taking up Dave’s suggestion to read the essay by Wendell Berry, just over 4,000 words in length, published in The Christian Century and slated for inclusion in Berry’s forthcoming book The Way of Ignorance and Other Essays….
Vale Ray Stuart
VALE RAY STUART Sad news. This from the Friendly Street Poets website: Friendly Street is saddened to learn of the recent death of Ray Stuart. Ray was a regular at Friendly Street for many years, making valuable contributions as poet and editor (co-editing Friendly Street Poetry Reader 24 with Jude Aquilina), Committee Member and Convenor. His warmth, wisdom, humour and poetry…
Poetry reviews & their effects
A review of Jill Jones’ 2005 collection Broken/Open [Salt Publishing] appeared in yesterday’s Weekend Australian, drawing comment today on the poetry mailing list ‘poneme’, of which Jones is a member. How much do reviews – positive or negative – affect sales? someone asked. I can’t say, Jones replied. ‘I don’t know if reviews (or indeed…
Chris Mansell —Poetry in a time of fire
‘I go into schools to do poetry workshops/readings. Everyone’s very keen on poetry in schools. It’s part of the curriculum in my state (though less than it used to be) and teenagers still write it (and SMS each other small poems — usually doggerel, often obscene) and some teachers still love it. During the course…
Hecate, issue 31 Jan 2005
A new issue of Hecate has arrived in the mail featuring poems by Gina Mercer, Jan Dean, Angela Costi, Dael Allison, Helen Hagemann, Maria Christoforatos, pio, Helen Cerne and Jena Woodhouse. There’s a special feature focussing on Women’s Suffrage with articles by Audrey Oldfield, Ann Nugent, John McCulloch and Lenore Coltheart, articles and essays including Chilla Bulbeck’s ‘Schemes and Dreams:…
Vale Selwyn Pritchard
Saddened to learn poet Selwyn Pritchard passed away at the end of June. A lovely man … his poetry perhaps epitomised by a few words of intro that appear on his website: “I want poems which don’t distance themselves, hold aloof, poems about living against the background of collapsing democracy, religion, social life and the corporate greed…
Tim Thorne’s ‘Head and Shin’
Tim Thorne’s new book ‘Head and Shin’ (Walleah Press) will be launched in Hobart by Pete Hay on Thursday 19 Aug 2004, Hobart Bookshop at 5.30 p.m. and in Launceston on Saturday 21 Aug, 2pm at Fullers Bookshop by CA Cranston.
Melissa Ashley—in conversation with Kate Middleton
KATE MIDDLETON You were saying before that you’ve written work that has been quite experimental in the past where you feel you might have pushed that too far – what do you see as too far? What does it become? MELISSA ASHLEY I felt that I went too far in the sense that I stopped…
Jordie Albiston—in conversation with Kate Middleton [Dec 2001]
KATE MIDDLETON Joan Didion once said of her novels that her first sentence has to be perfect, because everything grows from that, and once you’ve got your first paragraph written, there’s no going back. JORDIE ALBISTON I agree with her! And of course it’s more compressed with poetry — you’d be talking about your first…