Delighted that my poem, illawarra likes – won 4th prize in the Melbourne Union of Poets International Poetry Prize 2022 announced Feb. 26. Thanks to the judge Nathan Curnow and Melbourne Union of Poets and honoured to be in company of such fine shortlisted and prize winning poets. The poem below probably won’t read well in reader, so here it is as a PDF.
I’ll update this post when MUP publish details of the award winners.
in the road a century tree guard railed, buttress of grasses encirclement of kerbing captive and indomitable speaks of road-makers’ charity (or cowardice) its roots extend—feels the traffic above suckers appear in gardens blocks away it shades, a brief dark pool sudden respite from the tumult cruelly pruned to allow trucks its leaves caress, its arms wounded but beautiful as you descend
Image: The Australian Banyan (Ficus macrophylla,) tree this morning.
And for music, here’s Tom Verlaine (former guitarist with Television who died in January after a long struggle with cancer) with some gorgeous de-tuned guitar work from his 2006 album Around (only available on Youtube). RIP Tom.
beyond the cafe — street trees roil, girrrr of ten thousand cicadas SUV backs into wall — tea-leaves orbit my cup
Image: my scorching driveway. The poet musing from the air-conditioned comfort of a cafe while the world outside gets used to what local weather forecasters describe as a ‘low intensity heatwave’.
And for music this morning, here’s Taiwanese ensemble Cicada with their 2023 album Seeking the Sources of Streams (Youtube) –
I’m delighted to have jointly-edited a new anthology of coastal poetry. Published by the South Coast Writers Centre, 34-37 Degrees South comprises work of 20 contemporary poets – both emerging and award-winning — from the Illawarra, Southern Highlands and South Coast of NSW, including:
Kathleen Bleakley | Jonathan Cant | Norman Fairburn | Amelia Fielden | Lajos Hamers | Tim Heffernan | Col Henry | Elanna Herbert | Kai Jensen | Moira Kirkwood | Linda Mcquarrie-Bowerman | Steve Meyrick | Brid Morahan | Ron Pretty | Paris Rosemont | Ed Southorn | Dorothy Swoope | Elizabeth Walton | Melanie Weckert | Myfanwy Williams |
The digital collection is available to read and download here – and is also available in an easy-to-read format.
Images: Joel Henry on Unsplash (above) and cover of 34-37 Degrees South featuring artwork by Kirli Saunders (OAM) commissioned by Wollongong City Council and installed at Port Kembla Olympic Pool.
And for music something rare and delightful from Ethiopia, here’s nun and blues pianist Emahoy Tsegué-Maryam Guèbrou with her 1963 piano solo album (Youtube).
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I’d not been down it for a year, not since the dog’s arthritis got worse. It was a cunning way. From an unpromising corner of a municipal lawn, a steep descent into wilderness, a few blind turns, then some scrubground where the dog can go off lead looking for fox and the black snake, an eastern whip bird right there in the casuarinas.
Today it’s so overgrown it barely exists. Morning glory, lantana, bittou bush and coastal banksia have closed over—it’s as impenetrable as paradise. Crouch thru low doors and tunnels, feet deep in weeds and puddles, the green rained-on vegetation like a shroud over what promise there is in the day.
All its history gone: schoolkids, dog walkers, shoplifters fleeing security guards, masturbators in their groves, workers with their lunch pails taking the back route down to the plant, and men like me, huffing up and down hills, determined to stave off the heart-attack that’ll inevitably take us too early.
(My ex-wife jokes about what a buff corpse I’ll leave.)
Surely there’s some wisdom about paths needing to be used, remade by walkers lest they vanish?
At last that engine the sea—the grey rollers full throttle against the rockshelf, spray snatched away by the southerly. The remains of the swimming pool built in the twenties to keep the kids and the sharks apart—rafts of twigs and plastic.
Gone also that house. It had occupied this block for more than 100 years, with a nice aspect to the pool and the yawn of the beach. Lead-light windows, curated succulents in coffee tins up the front steps. I imagined the dark of the sitting room, a photo of her son in his uniform on the mantle, the chime of the clock on the quarter hour, a tabby on the sofa sniffing the day.
How quickly houses become meadows. And meadows become houses. Surely there’s some Buddhist sutra about impermanence and abandonment?
bleached shell
tossed on this midden
five thousand years ago
just yesterday
Image: Lounge chair, Port Kembla. And for music today here’s Australian musician and multi-instrumentalist Oren Ambarchi with his solo album Shebang (Youtube). And if you’re wondering what a shebang is, start here
Here’s a PDF for those having trouble reading this…
refractory gang — eyes, toes, night sweats a heart overthrown like my dad I yell at the screen, what new thing now?
Image: Skeleton dancers and band on theatre stage, Sydney, c. 1928. Photographer unknown c/- State Library of New South Wales on Flickr. Musing on the body and what we inherit (including a dodgy heart) from our parents…
And for music today – here’s Gianluca Littera on harmonica with Quartetto Energie Nove playing with Gordon Jacob’s Divertimento for Harmonica and Strings (Youtube). The whole album’s worth exploring (as long as the harmonica wasn’t spoiled for you by listening to years of Max Geldray playing in the musical intermissions on The Goon Show on the BBC).
Peter Frankis writes 