anthology

Listen up: South Coast poets read their work.


The 2023 South Coast Writers Centre poetry anthology 34-37 Degrees South – the Country Edition – was launched in Cobargo in South East NSW (about 5 hours south of Sydney) on Sunday 12 November with readings from over a dozen of the featured poets. 

This is the second annual anthology of poetry from members of the South Coast Writers Centre. (the 2022 edition is here)

The anthology comprises thirty unique perspectives, ranging from the personal and the intimate to the grand; poems about trauma, change and hope, and some wry humour too.

The collection is divided into three chapters. ‘You Are Here’ gathers poems with local concerns: the passing of two beloved chickens, swimming in the Murrumbidgee River at Wagga Wagga or a salutary re-take on Dorothea Mackellar’s I Love a Sunburnt Country. The poems in ‘Voyages’ explore international concerns: returning to a graveyard in Silesia, learning Spanish at a picnic or remembering a garden in Tokyo. The final chapter, ‘Inland Empires’, explores more personal issues: loss, transitions and the body itself as a territory marked by signs and experience.

You can buy your copy of the anthology through the SCWC shop, (all sales go to support the work of the centre) or read or download online for free. You can also listen to the poets reading their works and talking about the writing of these wonderful fresh poems. 

Image: Artwork is from the wonderful Queensland multi-disciplinary artist and muralist Ash Taylor – Detail of a mural now beautifying the wall of the Good Drop Liquor Emporium (they also do eggs and milk) Wentworth St, Port Kembla.

For music this morning, here’s Modern Country (Youtube) from US guitariste and super-picker William Tyler.

Fresh new coastal poetry…

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).

Chasing the Line – An Anthology of Poems from the Back Room

Chasing the Line: An Anthology of Poems from The Back Room; Well Thumbed Poets 2022, 139pp. $25 (+ p & h) from Well Thumbed Poets

The back room of the title refers to a room in a bookseller – Well Thumbed Books in Cobargo NSW, a small town four hours south of Sydney on the Princes Highway between Narooma and Bega. 

The introduction to this volume describes a long wooden table where a group of seven local poets —  Linda Albertson, Leigh Crowe, Kai Jensen, Kate Taylor, Sandra Taylor, Glenda-mai Morgan and Peter Storey — have worked over the past few years to produce this rich volume. The latter two also provided the gorgeous colour illustrations for cover and the chapter dividers. 

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