Any Thoughts?

Any constructive advice for a poet I know whose manuscript was turned down by two separate publishers this week after several agonising months? One of them kept giving me him quite encouraging feedback over the past few months and said they'd make a final decision in February. Here we are in February and they've made their decision.

Which Aussie poetry presses accept unsolicited manuscripts?

New Poem at Bluepepper

Our Lady of Yanco, a new poem of mine, has gone up over at Justin Lowe's Bluepepper today.

I recently went to Canberra to see the Renaissance exhibition at the Australian National Gallery, and let's just say I saw a lot of Madonna and Child imagery. I'd already started this poem a while ago, but it didn't really do anything or go anywhere. After seeing such beautiful depictions of her drapery, I added a few lines about colours and decided to end it with a reference to how hot it used to get in my home town of Yanco, where the statue hid in the priest's garden across the road from our house. I chose not to locate it in any other way than a simple mention of the town in the poem's title.

As an atheist, I'm quite surprised to have a Virgin Mary poem, but she's more than welcome to show up again if she'd like.

On discovering that Jules Verne’s monstrous cetacean is just a sub

In my edition,

it happens on page 35.

Not too far in, granted,

but enough of my time

to feel cheated.

Everyone knows

that it’s Nemo,

right from the start,

but for seven quick chapters,

I believed it was not.

A Round-Up

Happy new year. I'm feeling creative at the moment, but it's more of a feeling than a period of actual activity!

I sent my MS out to a couple of publishers in October and November of last year and I'm currently waiting to hear back (though, I refuse to get my hopes up). They're both supposed to make decisions by February, so here's hoping (but not too highly).

A few hours ago, I read a poem that really tickled my fancy at Linebreak. It's by a poet named Molly Spencer and is called The Mail Order Bride Attempts a Letter Home. The piece is beautifully read by Sandra Beasley, a poet I greatly admire. I'll be keeping my eyes out for more from Molly. Good stuff. In a very loosely associated way, it inspired a few lines of my own.

My Sky

Justin Lowe has put up a new poem of mine on his poetry site, Bluepepper.

Off to Newcastle

I'm looking forward to reading tomorrow evening at dotdotdash's new issue launch as part of the National Young Writers Festival. Choosing 2 or 3 poems is proving difficult!

The Red Room Company

The wonderful people at The Red Room Company have put up a biography page with my name on it. My poem, Satisfaction, which appeared in the Sun Herald last weekend is being listed over there, too.

I'll link to it when I get to my computer. This iPhone app doesn't allow my to create links.

National Young Writers Festival

I received an email last week from dotdotdash magazine about doing a reading at an event they're holding at the National Young Writers Festival in Newcastle. How could I say no to a personal invite? I couldn't and I didn't. Yay!

Sun Herald "Extra" Poems

Satisfaction, the first poem I ever had published, will feature in this Sunday's Sun Herald Extra section, courtesy of a project run by The Red Room Company. It first appeared in the Pastoral issue over at Cordite.

Post Script:
Here's the scan.

Remnant

My hands won’t stop smelling of onion—

it both repulses and fixates.

Again and again

I raise them to my face

to monitor this immovable scent

that’s been with me,

a part of me,

since dinner on Tuesday.

The awareness of my own porosity

keeps me awake.

What other essences,

benignly odourless or otherwise,

do I take in unconsenting

through my skin?

It’s the recess phone call again

and being bundled away retching

after yielding to the compulsion to touch

the glass thermometer

above the bag and coat hooks,

filled as it was

with creeping silver poison.

(Originally published in Issue 8 of Etchings)

Things I Love

One of these days, I'll try my darnedest to find a way to marry my twin loves of poetry and Disney on the page as perfectly as my bookshelf does...

There has to be a way!

Books and Covers

A few years ago, I wrote a poem called Wyndham's Crow, inspired by a scene in John Wyndham's book The Day of the Triffids. His books are truly amazing, particularly in the way their unsettling mood is slowly built up.

I've been thinking about how closely a book's cover can be tied to our emotional feeling for the language inside. We've all heard the old adage about books and the arbitrary nature of their covers, but in some cases, I really feel that they add to the overall positive experience of reading. Maybe it's as simple as I associate this image with this story, but the effect can be so strong.

Look at these examples of some of Wyndham's covers. Before reading each of these books, the covers didn't do much for me, but after, they evoked everything about the narrative itself. I admit they're not much to look at, but I think its the drab colour and the simple outlines. Something about the way Penguin did its paperbacks. Brilliant.

By the way, the gunk on the second hand copy of The Midwich Cuckoos is probably chocolate. I kind of wish it were on the other more appropriately named title!

Recent Happenings

I've just finished off the manuscript for my first collection of poetry. Who knew how finicky formatting a table of contents would be! I hope the right people are as pleased with it as I am. I'm a diehard skeptic, so I won't bother crossing my fingers, but I'm hoping for good things.

Also, one of my poems will be published in the Sun Herald in September as part of Red Room's ongoing project of promoting new poetic voices. I'll post better details soon.

Things are looking good.

Space Tourist

I haven't written much lately, but I'm hoping my recent pilgrimage to NASA's Kennedy Space Centre has stirred something up.

Antipodes Launch

I went with some friends to the launch of Antipodes: Poetic Responses this afternoon. It was very well attended for a poetry event. I was pleased to see so many people with an interest in poetry.

My poem The Challicum Bunyip seemed to go down pretty well. Thanks again to Margaret Bradstock for dreaming up the whole endeavour.

Poets in Person

I'll be reading my poem from the recent anthology Antipodes: Poetic Responses at its launch on the 20th of March. Details here.

Also, an excellent poet with whom I've had some correspondence recently is Tricia Dearborn. She will be the guest at the next Brett Whiteley Sunday Poetry Reading. Go and hear her read. Her science poems are magical. Details here.

Antipodes: Poetic Responses

Ages ago, I submitted some poetry to a project Margaret Bradstock was investigating called Antipodes. It went through a couple of different iterations over a long period, but Margaret insisted that it would all come together in the end.

To tell the truth, I'd almost completely forgotten about it until I opened a parcel (which I thought was going to be a DVD I'd ordered) and looked at the cover this morning. I don't think I've ever been more pleasantly surprised.

Antipodes: Poetic Responses is an anthology of poems dealing in a wide variety of ways with the concept of European settlement in Australia and its effects on both the settlers and the original Australians. The poems are presented in order of their author's date of birth, from WC Wentworth, the son of a convict, to Sir Henry Parks and Mary Gilmore, and on to Judith Wright, Peter Porter, David Malouf, Les Murray and Judith Beveridge. Right near the end (third last) comes my poem The Challicum Bunyip. Wow.

The publisher is Phoenix Education, and the book is intended to be used in secondary school English classes, as well as being available in poetry sections of bookshops. How exciting!

More old stuff

This one was written years ago and published at Mascara last April.

Subcutaneous

since it happened

I have been waiting

for this other event

for a blood-crust to form

for the thin weeping to slow

and for you to move within me

I have seen it in my head

your white fingers fumble

with curve-pointed scissors

as you slip one blade under

and snip the thread at a point

beside the precise black knot

I feel a sudden slackening

just beneath the surface of my flesh

and the anticipated slide

of scrupulous slicing nylon

at a depth whose nerves lie dormant

all times but this

I sit ready tonight

and see you sense a mood in me

that seems incongruous to you

Recent Activity

Well, I've started to get myself back into gear. Things are stirring again. One of my pieces will appear in Page Seventeen shortly, and I was happy to hear recently that an anthology that was looking to be more and more unlikely is now a definite. I even signed a contract. More about that when it starts happening.

I also received word this week that one of my poems will appear in an upcoming issue of Famous Reporter, and I've sent some stuff out to a few other journals.

I wrote something small and very inconsequential recently, but it was nice to see that I can still do it.

Work worries seem to take up a lot more internal head space than creativity at present. Yuck.

Blue Dog

I received the latest copy of Blue Dog this week. It's exciting to have one of my poems in such a great publication. My friend Peggy Marks Wahlhaus also has an excellent poem in the same issue.

I just love the production of this journal! It always looks superb. It's a shame this is the second last issue.

Seventeen - 17

Heard this week that a poem of mine will appear in the upcoming Page Seventeen. Great news.

Funny, too; one of our spelling words in class this week was seventeen. Of course, most of them wrote 17.

Free Poetry Download for National Science Week!

The three Science Made Marvellous chapbooks are now available for download in pdf form here (and elsewhere, apparently, but I can't find them). My poem is in the Earthly Matters volume. Happy reading!

Happy National Science Week!

Last night, I was fortunate enough to attend the launch of the Science Made Marvellous event in the Dixson Room of the NSW State Library. Wonderfully presided over by Carol Jenkins, the evening saw the launch of three new chapbook anthologies of science-related poetry to celebrate this year's National Science Week. My poem, In telepathy, space doesn't matter, was included in the volume entitled Earthly Matters. The other two chapbooks were called Holding Patterns and Law and Impulse.

It was great to hear some 'so-called' science poems (often such a restrictive term), particularly the excellent laboratory-oriented work of Tricia Dearborn, and also some thoughts on the history of science in poetry. I caught up with some poets I haven't seen in a while, and I got to have a nice drink with some close friends after the event. Fun!

The chapbooks can be downloaded in pdf format very soon. I'll post a relevant link as soon as they're up.

Hi-ho, Kermit the Frog here!

Just tricking. It's actually me! Ah, I always did love Kermit. Big Bird, too. To tell the truth, I still do. Anyhow, this has nothing to do with anything. It's supposed to be a poetry blog.

I received word last night that I've been included in one of the three chapbooks being released by the Poets Union for the 2010 National Science Week's Science Made Marvellous initiative. The one I'm in is concerned with Geology and Biology and is called Earthly Matters. I had the chance to have a bit of a sticky-beak and was happy to see some great stuff in there alongside my poem. Some really nice Carol Jenkins, Martin Langford, Michael Sharkey and Emily Ballou pieces. Let's just say, the email was a very pleasant distraction from the election debate.

Also, the latest Blue Dog should be turning up soonish. All I need now is some fresh inspiration to get my writing bubbling again. Hey, maybe a Muppet poem...

Dogs

Things have been pretty slow on the poetry front, but I received some good news recently from the people at Blue Dog. The publication comes out twice per year and is published by the Australian Poetry Centre. I've been trying to get something in for years and have finally succeeded. I'm really happy that the poem they've chosen is one of which I'm very proud. It's called Thinning our little herd and recalls a charged time when my family failed dismally at rearing cattle.

Another poem at Bluepepper

Justin Lowe at Bluepepper just put up one of my poems. Many thanks to him.

I love poetry, a lot!

I'm pleased to say I've had a very poetic day. Well, it wasn't intrinsically poetic, but it was certainly coloured by poetry.

The latest issue of the Mascara Literary Review went live today, complete with three of my poems and an unflattering picture. I'm pretty impressed by the calibre of the other poets included in the issue. Judith Beveridge is the feature poet, and there's also new stuff from Adam Aitken, Greg McLaren and Johanna Featherstone.

I also decided to go along to my weekly poetry workshop after a break of many weeks (I've been too stressed and busy to find the time). It really is one of my favourite things to do. Zonino!

Bluepepper

One of my poems has just gone up at Bluepepper, a great place to check out new writing. It's a piece I wrote years ago and had pretty much forgotten until very recently (yesterday). I changed the title from After the Washout to Archibald's Fountain and checked my facts a bit more closely (originally I thought the god was Heracles, but it's supposed to be Theseus).

In other news, I'm still pretending that today's not the last day of the school holidays and that I don't have to go back to work on Monday. So far so good. Going out for Egyptian tonight. Yum!

Some Stuff

Another of my poems is up at kipple this week. There's some great stuff to read over there.

And I received my contributor's copy of the latest Etchings this week. Fantastic production value. It's got two of my poems inside, Remnants and Regulator.

And finally, I'm happy to say that my friend JC Reilly has just informed me that her first chapbook, La Petite Mort, is now available to pre-order from Finishing Line Press. She's a co-editor at Chickenpinata.com and a very talented poet. I've already ordered my copy!

Running on Empty

There's nothing like an unexpected move and an extreme lack of finances to completely drain one's creative juices. I've got nothing in the tank - zip, zero, zilch, nada, niente, nought. I haven't been going to my poetry group because I don't actually have anything to share. I'm searching high and low for inspiration.

On the up side, Mascara Literary Review and Kipple will be featuring some of my work any day now. I'll link to their pages as soon as they upload.

Let ya' know how I get on, yeah?