Varuna – The Writers’ House have embarked on a groundbreaking literature project, bringing short story extracts and new voices to the average punter via their mobile phone app: Varuna’s Writer-A-Day App.
And I’m one of them, reading the opening paragraphs to short story ‘Elijah Upjohn, public hangman’. You can sign up to catch the updates to the App on the Writer-A-Day blog.
Nice name for a literary/poetry festival in Darwin, or so I thought. As good as ‘Salt on the tongue’ at the Murray mouth, Goolwa? Anyway, not to be. Look out soon for the official launch of the poetically branded Wordstorm / National Poetry Festival to be held in Darwin, May 10-13 2012.
Humidity
Your fertile breath
covers my skin like a
million verdant kisses
Escape #1: with a dialogue
Is there justice in art? Or is art just an escape from social injustice and harsh realities of life?
Join Harry Who? (escape artist), The Elephant in the Room, and a panel of sock puppets as they inquire and debate this topic in front of a packed artistic audience. Watch This Space. Saturday 19 November. www.wts.org.au
Escape #2: with a book
Escape, a new anthology of short stories by new independant small publisher Spineless Wonders, will be launched in early December. I have one story in it: The Unnameable. A story of a blind translator, a remote Territory town called Kumanjay Creek, and an unnameable curse.
Get your pre-launch copy and save: http://shortaustralianstories.com.au
Meanjin have been busy in upping their online magazine presence. Stories, poems and essays that appeared in their June print edition are mostly now online, including my short commissioned essay about the literary flavour of Alice Springs: Indigenous cross-cultural collaborative writing.
You can find it on Meanjin’s front page in the Essay section, squeezed between Paul Keating and Simone Ubaldi. http://meanjin.com.au
Or directly here: http://meanjin.com.au/articles/post/two-cultures-can-hold-each-other/
We are all walking poets, although many of us do not realise it, prefering concrete paths and treadmills in gyms. Being involved in the Red Room Company’s Clubs & Societies project has engaged my walking poet, with over 20 poems written in a few weeks of walking and observing and writing (from almost 20 years of bushwalking experience).
Here are a few haiku from it. More haiku and poems at: http://clubsandsocieties.org.au/user/54
Scale
Miniature euros
bound pads unmarked on paper
topographies
Sitting in the saddle
This ridge reclines
It climbs and declines
Strata and syncline
Ultra-lightweight gear envy
It weighs as little
as a 10-week prem baby
Where can I get one?
Implied (suggested version)
These lines of contour
suggest landscapes of abstract
possibilities
Orogeny
Crush this mile thick sand
then tilt fuse and fold — it screams
silent syllables
I have a residency with The Red Room Company’s latest program connecting poets with the masses: Clubs & Societies. It places poets into quirky clubs and societies around the country, observing and imbibing the unique language and culture of the group, and producing poetry from it.
Check out what I’ve been getting up to in my club, the Central Australian Bushwalkers at: http://clubsandsocieties.org.au/user/54
And in the cafe (although the keyboard threatened to type ‘in the cage’), I can be found writing and sipping short macchiato on Tuesdays 1-3pm at Cafe Gonzo, Todd St in Alice. Thanks for the great coffee, Cam.
I will complete my Australian Poetry Cafe Poet residency at Gonzo with a reading of poems created this year about observing this place, wrapping my tongue around a few Arrernte words. Tuesday 1 November, 1pm.
Chapbooks featuring eight of the poems will be for sale for only $5 at the reading.
The artist and writer, Rod Moss, winner of this year’s PM Literary Awards Non-Fiction book with The hard light of day, recently leant me a painting of his with which to write a poem. It is one that hasn’t seen the public light ever in Alice Springs and has been, until reclaimed this year, languishing in the back room of a Brisbane gallery for the last ten years.
Read Rod’s book if you haven’t already. It is remarkable.
Anthropology: being themselves (1994) 296cm x 106cm, graphite and acrylic on 300gsm archival board
Here’s a snippet from the work in progress. The painting in part references Tintoretto’s Saint George and the dragon (c1555)
2.
This oblivious
kiss arouses the dragon;
my nature I slay.
