Catty Reads, Catty Writes - A blog by an Australian poet and children's author.

art inspiring art

2012-01-29T19:37:00.000-08:00

I love how one form of art can inspire another. Today, let's see how the poem can inspire a story.

1. Read ‘The Raven’ Poe’s famous poem here:

Write a short piece inspired by the poem.

Snowed under and Tuesday Poem

2012-01-23T17:50:00.000-08:00

or heated under, really, considering Melbourne's weather! Battling to get course material ready for the teaching year so today's post is a combination writing exercise and Tuesday poem posting.

Inspired by the Japanese haiku, Ginsberg invented the 'American sentence' - a sentence of 17 syllables. You can read some here and there's a great handout on the concept here.

Here are some Australian sentences from my week:

Sunbathing at the pool two girls talk about exercise - tomorrow.
By three in the afternoon even the birds are silenced by the heat.
Third day of heat, the cinema is full no matter what the movie.
Mid-summer and my daughter's boat tattoo sails over honey brown skin.

No matter whether or not you think Australia Day should be celebrated or mourned, write some Australian sentences - a good way to opt out of that vexed question all together. Poetry, not patriotism. Free verse not flags.

Hop across to Tuesday Poem Blog for other poems by Tuesday Poem bloggers and also from this week's Tuesday Poem Blog editor, two poems from one of my all-time favourite contemporary poets, Dorianne Laux whose ability to articulate the sensuality and mystery of the ordinary world is inspirational.

Tuesday Poem - Sonnet V - Edna St Vincent Millay

2012-01-16T21:52:00.000-08:00

If I should learn, in some quite casual way,
  That you were gone, not to return again --
Read from the back-page of a paper, say,
  Held by a neighbor in a subway train,
How at the corner of this avenue
  And such a street (so are the papers filled)
A hurrying man -- who happened to be you --
  At noon to-day had happened to be killed,
I should not cry aloud -- I could not cry
  Aloud, or wring my hands in such a place --
I should but watch the station lights rush by
  With a more careful interest on my face,
Or raise my eyes and read with greater care
Where to store furs and how to treat the hair.

When I was growing up, Edna St Vincent Millay's sonnets were the first modern sonnets I can remember encountering. I was in my very early teens and I read her work as much for glimpses of the woman I might become and the mysterious world of adult relationships as I did for her language. When I read her poems now, I can still visualise that hardbook book and the way I read each poem aloud slowly, reading the clues to a future self.

Waltz over to the Tuesday Poem Blog to read more Tuesday poems.

From facebook status to short story, poem, novel beginning....the cyber world is your oyster!

2012-01-15T22:30:00.000-08:00

Love it or hate it - and I oscillate between the two - Facebook looks as though it is here to stay. You must have at least one fb friend who writes interesting, entertaining, poetic or humourous status updates. Today take one of these and use it for your own writerly devices.

Recycling

2012-01-12T20:32:00.000-08:00

Read a little of India Flint's new book the other day. She has a chapter devoted to recycling clothes - mending, turning them into something else, adding to or subtracting from them - and that made me think of recycling writing. Today, look at an old piece of writing that you discarded. Is there anything in it you'd like to now keep? Recycle it. Mend it. Add to it. Subtract from it. Turn it into something new.

Gorgeous book, by the way. Full of beautiful shots of Flint's work, including a wedding gown that was made with fabric scraps of the bride's life, and a great philosophy of clothing-as-sustainable-art. I don't think I could reduce my travel wardrobe to the items that Flint lists, but I do love her words on 'gentle stitching' and her hand-made approach to clothing.

Words

2012-01-10T12:06:00.000-08:00

What are you favourite words? Make a list of ten. Write something using as many of them as possible. Mine (this morning!) are: serendipity, unfathomable, indigo, shadowy, luminous, flamenco, beginning, pebble, swagger and mandala. Write a piece in which you use as many as possible. Will it be a poem, prose poem, small memoir or an extract from something larger?

ooops...

2012-01-09T14:29:00.000-08:00

Yesterday's writing trigger failed to materialise so here are two for today.

1. Kate Bush has produced an album 50 Words for Snow (which was my favourite 2012 Christmas cd). It's summer in Melbourne. Write a piece '50 Words for Heat' (or whatever number you like - but aim high and be inventive.)

2. In a book I read years ago about music and sound - the title of which I've forgotten - the author suggests a listening exercise. You close your eyes and listen to and note all the close sounds and then you listen for further away sounds and even further away sounds. Spend ten minutes or so doing this exercise and then write a piece noting all the sounds.

From where I sit, now, those sounds would include wren cheeps, rosella calls right outside my window, magpies further afield and the sound of my son's motorbike revving and then it's sudden absence as he rides off. Makes me realise how full of birdsong my life is.

Amalgamating blogs

2012-01-07T20:27:00.000-08:00

I've always kept a separate blog for students but after attending Nancy White's inspirational workshop on online teaching, I've decided to amalgamate my blogs and use this one as much for teaching as for recording my personal writing life. It was during the Nancy White workshop that I realised how much I try to compartmentalise my teaching life away from my own writerly life. I don't think this would be particularly obvious to an outsider, but it's certainly an attitude I've had and I don't think it's a particularly useful one, so it seemed an appropriate time to enlarge the scope of this blog.

I have many aims for this year - see previous posting! But one of my main aims is to achieve balance between my various activities. I'm intending on beginning each day with a writing activity. I'll post the trigger activity here and you can join me on this journey.

Today's writing trigger:
Reading Mary Oliver's poem, 'The Snowshoe Hare', on The Writer's Almanac this morning made me think about predators. Write a piece about predators.

The abc of 2012

2012-01-03T00:45:00.000-08:00

The grandmother ship and the poetgirl got me into this! I think they may have done it more specifically, although I do have some specific goals as well as more general aims.

Authenticity. I want 2012 to be the year I am easy in my own skin. I accept that we all create a public persona, and I accept that we do this largely for protective reasons. I'd like to focus on authenticity in both my public and private life even if it leaves me more vulnerable.

Balance - between writing and teaching; work and life; family responsibilities and social activities; activity and solitude.

Camera - learn to use all the cameras properly, remember to take one with me, record stuff.

Dogs - more quality time with the dogs. I can tend to take them a little for granted.

Exercise as part of life.

Friends - cherish the ones I have and make efforts to catch up with them, make new ones.

Gratitude. Remember it.

Honesty in dealings with others and self.

Intellect - exercise it!

Joyfulness. Don't expect it to simply come to me, but actively look for it.

Knitting. I'd like to both be more adventurous in my knitting, but also more consistent about finishing projects.

Language - improve it, think about it, practise it. Ditto for Love.

Meditation. Do it. Markets - try to support local artists and craftspeople for consumer items, also recycle and buy secondhand.

New activities, social groups. Try them.

Order old things, out with the useless, bring in objects of beauty.

Practise - writing, French, order, etc. etc. Don't panic if it's all not perfect.

Quality. Look for it, examine before accepting, buying, saying and doing.

Reduce - waste and consumerism. I'm always dismayed by the waste in this house. If I go away for a couple of days, perfectly good food is abandoned in the fridge. There must be clever ways to deal with this.

Sewing - more and better.

Teaching. Simplify and enjoy. Recognise and use strengths. reduce the irritation of weaknesses. Look for what started fires, rather than simply stamping them out. Also travel. Do it gently and openly.

Unique surroundings. Enjoy and cultivate them. (Also clean them!)

Vanquish self-doubt.

Welcome life, change and age.

eXult

You - recognise that you only have to do your best.

Zany. There will always be those zany, crazy moments when everything falls apart, or zigzags in an unexpected direction. Laugh with them, learn from them.

Beating the heat, we packed up and went to Phillip Island today. Perfect beach day!

'Ring out, wild bells' by Alfred Lord Tennyson

2011-12-19T15:36:00.000-08:00

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light;
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more,
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease,
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

This poems forms part of 'In Memoriam', an elegy to Tennyson's sister's fiance. Since 1897, it's been recited every New Year's Eve by a Swedish actor as part of their national New Year's Eve celebrations. Now, why can't we have something like that in Melbourne on New Year's Eve?

Slip across to the Tuesday Poem Blog for other Tuesday poems and a link to Dylan Thomas reading 'A Child's Christmas in Wales' - what a fabulous Christmas treat! Thanks to Kathleen Jones for posting it.

This is my last Tuesday poem post until mid-January - thank you all who have been reading the Tuesday poems. I hope everyone has a safe and joyful festive season.

'Praise'

2011-12-12T15:32:00.000-08:00

In the space between words

we remake the world –

grubbing it out of the garden

kneading it on the kitchen bench

polishing it with beeswax.

It is the raku pot, the bead

my son rotates in the flame

the fibre I rub and twist to felt.

These tasks of sweated effort or

delicate energy – this bread we break

the black and white photo, the painted icon

the trees planted in another place

this wild stitchery we resolutely form –

that song lifted in praise and careless

of time or coin.

Catherine Bateson, December, 2011.

Each year I write a 'christmas' poem to put on cards and each year I hold my breath, hoping that I will, in fact, write the poem. There are limitations - it has to be short, for a start, and suitable for a diverse audience. This year's was inspired by some beautiful gifts from a student. One of the writing students from GippsTAFE is also a ceramicist and he parcelled up a number of his works to distribute among the Professional Writing teachers. I received two small exquisite three-legged bowls. As someone who has always practised craft, mainly but not exclusively, fibre crafts, I wanted to honour that gift - and those more daily creative endeavours which enrich our lives.

Sorry to have missed last Tuesday's poem - my old little terrier went missing and I was struck down with despair. It took a week before she was located at a pound quite a way from us - so happy to have her back!

Read more Tuesday poems here. Oh, and the featured Tuesday poet? Lyn Hejinian with a terrific prose poem. How much do I love that hybrid form!

Reverse Brainstorming with Nancy White

2011-12-02T23:35:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I attended a workshop on facilitating online education with Nancy White. White is an ‘international practitioner in understanding and practicing online group facilitation of distributed work, learning and community groups (presenter, writer, teacher, coach, facilitator, rapporteur).’ The workshop blurb implies she is a guru of online practice.

Now, normally when I’m spruiked workshops for this and that, particularly at the end of the year, which is marking season, I’m reluctant and cynical but for some reason when this workshop was flagged, I felt a stirring of anticipation. Not that I knew anything about Nancy White and, indeed, contrary to my normal curiousity, I didn’t even Google her. I just felt, well, a little excited.

I wasn’t disappointed. One thing I’ve noticed that Americans tend to do very well is to cherry pick information and ideas from everywhere and reassemble them to construct dynamic models for whatever topic is under discussion. This is particularly true in the sociological areas, which are constantly being challenged by new technological developments. White’s inspiring grab bag of ideas included appropriations from the Occupy movement, positive psychology, social networking (obviously) and non-profit organisations.

I found that alone useful – too often I isolate education and educational theory from my broader reading and understanding of the world. I often don’t even take the time to make the connections in my head, let alone consciously map them out in my teaching practice.

We began the workshop with a reverse brainstorm – what would we need to do to create an online course that was a 100% failure? Reverse brainstorming, a technique I have never before used but will certainly be using now, creates a non-judgemental environment in which to explore and identify problem areas. Because you’ve been given the licence to fail – and fail spectacularly – you note everything that could go wrong. Only then do you link these problems with your own practice. Once we’d done this step, we then divided the problems into four areas: governance, technology, teachers and students.

Many of our specific problems were to do with governance – it’s a shame that management hadn’t thought it appropriate to attend this workshop as it would, hopefully, have opened their eyes to some of the issues online educators face in terms of governance, time-management and realistic workloads. (And there’s a lesson there that educational institutions should take on board regarding the strict division between management and educators.)

White then took us through a fishbowl exercise in which a person with a specific issue sits in the centre of the group and one or two other participants begin to ask them questions about that issue. If someone in the larger group has a question or idea, they simply stand up, tap one of the fishbowl participants on the shoulder and take their turn in the fishbowl. It’s a good way of keeping discussion focussed and managing a larger group.

White then asked the workshop group to ‘Play it forward’ – collecting from us what we had found most important or illuminating during the session so she could take that on to the next workshop. This is a skilful way of gaining feedback on the session and reminding us what we’d learnt during the afternoon. Instead of being asked what we’d learnt, we were being asked to contribute to the success of the next workshop – our opinions were being valued.

Finally White asked each of us what we, personally, would be taking away from the workshop – she also gave us the option of passing. Personally I found the workshop inspiring and energising. It reminded me that I shouldn’t compartmentalise my teaching but allow more interaction between my writing life and my role as an educator.

The Serious Life

2011-11-29T04:34:00.000-08:00

The Edna St Vincent Millay poem reminded me strongly of some of the work of Dorothy Parker, which also reminds me how important the witty covering up of heartbreak - and anything important and revelatory - used to be. Maybe it's no different today - we twitter the important stuff but disguise it as trivia. What's missing most of the time is the wit.

Both Edna St Vincent Millay and Dorothy Porter tell me to stiffen that spine, tip that hat, raise the martini glass and put your best kitten-heeled foot forward.

Which I think would be fine advice if I were living in last century. It's just that we take ourselves and our responsibilities so seriously these days. I have rules - some of them of my own making - about almost everything I do. I thought today, I need to meditate. That will save my life. But is that the way to meditate, I immediately asked myself. Shouldn't you have some moment of epiphany first? And what are the rules? I can't surely just breathe in love and breathe out anger? It must be more complex than that. I'll have to do a course!

Oh dear, and I'm already past my (self-imposed) bedtime....

Tuesday Poem - Thursday by Edna St Vincent Millay

2011-11-28T15:33:00.000-08:00

Thursday

by Edna St Vincent Millay

And if I loved you Wednesday,
Well, what is that to you?
I do not love you Thursday -
So much is true.

And why you come complaining
Is more than I can see.
I loved you Wednesday, - yes -but what
Is that to me?

eek - it's Tuesday already! Tuesday poem

2011-11-21T21:54:00.000-08:00

Mother Gothel's Lullaby

Every night the tears

when she thinks I can’t hear.

Some nights I sit outside her room

and half sing a song

half remembered.

It quiets her like it did the

brindle hound-pups.

There’s nothing else I can do

I’m not her mother.

Sleep squirmy bundles of milk pups

snout’s stilled and ears closed.

Dream of the fox cubs

curled in their den.

Dream of the ducklings

tucked under their wings.

Dream of the rabbit kits

blind in their burrows.

Grow while you sleep

sound-limbed, proud-chested

far sighted and keen.

Sleep little milk pups

for tomorrow you hunt with the pack.

Who sang that to me?

I smell leather and polish

feel stubble against my cheek.

My father? Salt stings my eyes.

I’m not her mother.

There’s nothing I can do.

by Catherine Bateson, from Rapunzel, a libretto in progress.

Read other Tuesday Poems from the Tuesday Poem blog.

Other stuff...

2011-11-15T02:52:00.000-08:00

The Accountant and I stayed at Airey's Inlet for the book launch of The Wicked Wood, Tales from the Tower Volume 2 and had breakfast the next day at A La Grecque, where I had the best baked beans I've ever had, so good, I bought the cookbook. Oh dear, so much for frugality! I have a new rule, however, that whenever I buy a new cookbook or a new cooking magazine slides into the letter box, I must must must cook something from it pronto presto.

So, tonight we ate silvebeet cooked with walnuts and gorgonzola from the A La Grecque cookbook. It was delicious. Okay, the manboy thought it a little too blue-cheesy and the wildchild left the walnuts but The Accountant and I scoffed it down with rice and a veggie stew with fresh herbs. The silverbeet was from my mother's garden as were the herbs.

I have been felting - but I haven't taken any photos yet. It's amazing to place fibres down on a piece of bubblewrap, spray them with a soapy mixture, roll them up like sushi, do a bit of squeezing (okay, quite a lot of squeezing, pressing and pummeling) and end up with actual fabric. Fabric! How mysteriously good is that?

Reading-wise I've finished Catherine Jinks's The Reformed Vampire Support Group which I thoroughly enjoyed. It's a romp. The misfit characters are wonderful and Nina's long-suffering mother, Estelle, is a joy. I'm compiling a list of young adult vampire books - or, rather, attempting to read a number of young adult vampire books while compiling a list - to counteract the whole Stephanie Meyer phenomenon. Suggestions welcome, please!

Tuesday Poem - from 'Learning the Tango'

2011-11-15T02:22:00.000-08:00

Some years back Isobelle Carmody approached me and asked if I'd like to be involved in a project rewriting fairy stories for an anthology. I was delighted - I've always been fascinated by fairy stories, intrigued by the power of both the original and many revisionings. I love Anne Sexton's Transformations, Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber, Francesca Lia Block's The Rose and the Beast and many individual poems that use fairy tales as a basis for further explorations.

Just last weekend I attended the book launch of both volumes of Tales from the Tower at Airey's Inlet. It was lovely to be there. The books are beautiful, so here is a taste from my contribution, rewriting 'The Little Mermaid'.

His n’ Hers

She thinks it’s a piece of wedding cake,

matching His ‘n Her bath towels

always fluffy on a heated rail.

Let me tell you about the word lover

- almost rhymes with smother –

take away the l

and it’s all over, red rover.

She’s a pretty little thing

with her cost-a-fortune smile.

The tail’s an obstacle

we agree, but one we can sort

with a large enough fee.

I read her the health warnings:

searing pain with each step

bunions, corns, blisters

and little bloodied footprints,

but she hasn’t dodged

the sea snakes, the

guard toads and deadly coral

to go away fainthearted, tail intact.

Falters only when I demand her voice – my payment.

Everyone’s entitled to a

lullaby or two, even the toads.

How will I talk to him?

Look, miss, there are other ways

you know what I’m saying? You don’t have

to talk all the time. Most men would rather

you didn’t. You want legs. I’ll sell them for a song.

She doesn’t get the joke.

But will I be beautiful?

As you are now but with ten toes to twinkle

and twinkle you’d better – it’s marry or burn.

If he chooses another, you’re dead in the water.

Forgive my frankness. It’s just the way I’m wired.

You say Valentines. I think massacre.

I hand over the potion. She gives up her voice.

Now, who got the best deal, my wise children?

I’d almost feel sorry for her

if she wasn’t so painfully stupid.

Catherine Bateson, 'Learning the Tango', The Wicked Wood, Tales from the Tower Volume Two, gathered by Isobelle Carmody & Nan McNab, Allen & Unwin, 2011.

Read other Tuesday poems here.

Aileen Kelly (1939 - 2011) R.I.P

2011-10-24T04:48:00.000-07:00

Aileen Kelly died peacefully this morning. She had been ill for a long time. She was a profound influence on me in both my writing and personal life. I will miss her being in the world. This was a poem I wrote when we regularly workshopped our poems together.

When You Leave

(for Aileen)

We never have enough time

husbands, children, engagements

clamour, bang spoons

while we rush words together.

When you leave I wish I had said less,

finished my sentences.

I never know when to stop

always exceed the speed limit

while you speak with scientific precision

eight kilometres past the hundred

and your foot over the brake.

It's not for that I want to say I love you

it's those wild angels tugging at the seams of your poems

the way burst through the careful sonnets

dancing on large, unruly feet.

When you leave I wish I had touched you,

or given you something in return for your symphonic voice

still echoing in all this sudden room.

I look at my cowardly hands,

my small collection of books, the red apples on the bench.

If I send this unsigned

will you know it's from me?

Consider it an apple,

or the caress I withheld;

this is my hand resting on your cheek for one quiet moment.

Catherine Bateson, The Vigilant Heart, University of Queensland Press, 1998.

'Love Song Played Backwards' by Ian McBryde

2011-10-17T04:44:00.000-07:00

The most powerful presence/is absence

Dorothy Porter

She will be waist-deep in
wheat, walking away through those
long waves the wind makes.

Slow night comes down, careful
and stealthy, leaching the field
of colour. By the time she's gone

the field will be a vast black
backdrop, silent and motionless
and blank as Saskatchewan.

Ian McBryde, The Adoption Order, 5 Islands Press, 2009.

Ian McBryde is a Canadian born poet living in Melbourne. The Adoption Order is his sixth collection of poetry and was short-listed for the Victorian Premier's, C.J. Dennis Poetry Award, 2010. Ian McBryde will be performing at The Word Tree on 5th November. This is a great opportunity to hear one of Melbourne's most darkly electrifying poets live. Thank you to Ian for permission to publish one of his fine poems here.

Step over here to read more Tuesday poems.

At last - some knitting!

2011-10-15T05:55:00.000-07:00

Picturesquely photographed down by the lake at Nungurner. This is now complete (no more pesky little stitch markers!) and is a cosy shoulder-warmer, just right for reading in bed, sitting out on the deck or going out to dinner in Metung. It's my first bit of extensive cabling, which I accomplished without a cable needle and the yarn is from The Three Irish Girls, colourway, 'Parisienne'. The pattern is adapted from Vogue Knitting, Early Fall 2011. (Which is called Designer Knitting, when it's outside America, apparently.) The original pattern had a straight cabled rectangular, pulled in at the neck by a shawl pin but I decided that would be a little bulky, so I decreased a couple of times during the cables and then changed the cables to 2 x rib, and then to 1 x rib, effectively creating a rollover polo neck. If I do this in a summer weight - and I might well, because the cable pattern would look good in a cotton, too, I wouldn't bother decreasing down to 1 x rib, but have a wider neck. I'm happy with the snugger feel for a winter-weight, however and it does add warmth.

The very lovely and unexpected element to this shoulder-warmer is that it perfectly matches the floral Docs I bought on my last trip to Brisbane!

Blurry night shot of pleasure craft outside the Metung pub window. That bit of orange you can see (no, not the reflection flare on the side, silly - the bit on the horizon that's barely visible) is actually the full moon, rising like a Halloween pumpkin.

'Serendipity'

2011-10-10T16:55:00.000-07:00

1754: coined by Horace Walpole, suggested by The Three Princes of Serendip

I want to talk about skipping stones
and how there's always one that does six
seven skips and you know it
can feel it the moment you heft it
gently, it's flat disc light between your fingers.
You were beachcombing for feathers
to make a quill, shells or just
walking the dog and then, like the three princes
you discovered the perfect skipping stone
by accident or sagacity.

Serendipity's a fine word for a poet
beachcombing for words
she was not in quest of.

This poem came about during a workshop I led on Saturday. I asked the participants to think of a word and write a poem from that word - either breaking the word down, or simply meditating on the word. There were some fabulous results - two completely different poems exploring thresholds and a knock-out poem using the word architecture to meditate on marriage.

I've always loved the word serendipity and while I don't think this is a particularly finished poem, I'm posting it today because The Accountant and I are by the water and water makes me think of skipping stones and The Accountant makes me think of serendipity.

If you're after a good poetry exercise, do try this at home! Also, don't forget to check out other Tuesday Poems.

'Football Wives'

2011-10-03T19:24:00.000-07:00

I met one once in Ipswich -
city of god and morgages -
she was a school librarian
unremarkable
but for her Italian shoes
and sculpted hair.

She was pleased she was a Q'ld wife.
They worked, didn't just gym, wax and shop
waiting for the Brownlow.
The Q'ld wives had barbeques on the weekend
looked after each others kids
while the game was on
and cried together over a kilo too many
a goal too few and a wayward husband.
Then they pat their beautiful hair
breathe in and
flex the toes of their perfect shoes
ready for the next match.

Melbourne is the football capital of Australia and this was written in response to The Word Tree's football poem competition. The Word Tree had the dubious honour of being on at the same time as the AFL Grand Final this month - never a good idea for a poetry gig! So we ran a football poem competition. I am delighted to announce I was co-winner of this competition which was independently judged by the Word Tree feature of the day, Vicki Thornton and Tuesday Poem blogger and Word Tree committee member Jennifer Compton. Congratulations, Jennifer, on your new poetry collection, The City.

Tuesday Poem - 'La Feria' - Naomi Shihab Nye

2011-09-20T17:01:00.000-07:00

I love the form of the prose poem, that unlikely, brief collision between prose and poetry which claims a lyricism that overrides and a brevity that undercuts narrative forcing the reader to question what exactly they are reading.

Years ago I discovered The Prose Poem, an American journal devoted to this form, submitted one of my first prose poems and was delighted to have it accepted. I've been further delighted today, when doing a quick 'net trawl, I discovered the journal now has a web presence. I hope this inspires you, as it did me, to re-examine this engaging hybrid.

Naomi Shihab Nye has long been one of my favourite poets. I love her work for adults and children equally and use her poem 'One Boy Told Me' when I teach Writing for Children. Enjoy Nye's prose poem, 'La Feria' here.

While you're zooming around checking links, don't forget to check out other Tuesday Poems through the Tuesday Poem blog. How good is John G.? He makes me want to foxtrot my words right out there!

Tuesday Poem - 'I died for beauty, but was scarce' by Emily Dickinson

2011-09-13T00:27:00.000-07:00

I died for beauty, but was scarce

Adjusted in the tomb,

When one who died for truth was lain

In an adjoining room.

He questioned softly why I failed ?

"For beauty," I replied.

"And I for truth, — the two are one ;

We brethren are," he said.

And so, as kinsmen met a night,

We talked between the rooms,

Until the moss had reached our lips,

And covered up our names.

I have to confess to not having read a lot of Emily Dickinson, despite her huge influence on other poets I did - and do - read. In my earlier poetry reading years I found her syntax and use of capitalisation stilted and was further put off by quite so many references to Death and God. However, I've decided that I need to start looking more closely at her work, so this is my first foray. Although this poem is certainly about death, it's a journey that's shared by a kinsman and is accompanied by soft talk until moss, a benign presence, stops both talk and separate identity. I like it.

Click here to go to the Tuesday Poem Blog and find other Tuesday poems.

The Tuesday Poem - a lament

2011-08-30T17:18:00.000-07:00

Dear Tuesday Poem - I'm sorry. Poetry has been ground down under life's jackboot heels this week. My livelihood - and that of many people I know - is under assault on both fronts. It's more than just personal, however. It's about our society, our culture and our civilisation. Because that's what you should be talking about when you talk about education and the Arts - culture and civilisation.

Post-secondary education in Australia has become a business, with providers worried about nominal student hours and how to streamline courses so that as little teaching is done as possible for the maximum government funding. This replaces any idea of excellence in education. Naturally the Arts have no place in this business model.

On the writing front as we all know, the book industry from publishing to selling, is in the doldrums. Doldrums is a comic sounding word, capable of cheering up a grumpy, tired toddler if said with appropriate facial expressions. Unfortunately, there's little comedy happening and I'm not a toddler, but a grown woman with talents and years of working experience which are fast becoming at best, severely under-paid, and, at worst, redundant.

Normally I'm more optimistic than this. But today, poetry feels like a luxury I can't afford and anyway, the poem I want to write has already been written by writer and educator, Grace Paley. Her view on education was that, 'children—by writing, by putting down words, by reading, by beginning to love literature, by the inventiveness of listening to one another—could begin to understand the world better and to make a better world for themselves.'

Apparently that's now an old-fashioned view.

Dear Grace Paley. I have always loved your astringency and the sharp observations you made of our crowded, chaotic, struggling lives.

With unreportable sadness
Catherine

Tuesday Poem - Ode to My Docs

2011-08-23T02:48:00.000-07:00

One of the exercises I often set students is to write an extraordinary ode to an ordinary object, using hyperbole to make the object extraordinary. This exercise is, of course, based on Pablo Neruda's wonderful odes. Here's an example I wrote. I don't want to confess to how many pairs of docs I own. Let's just say that most recently they include a pair of high-heeled docs which I can actually walk in. (No affiliation etc.)

Ode to My Docs

As graceful as camels, these shoes,

round-toed, innocent.

See how they gape

affronted by that stiletto’s lewd invitation.

Even the new wild cherry suede

with peekaboo cut-outs

can’t glamour this orthopedic pair.

Like horses (clop clop)

grazing at mild grass in all weathers

or nuns prayerfully wearing a quiet path

round and round the convent garden

these guileless shoes sturdy as Highland calves

decorous as a first date

tramp solidly through their daily chores.

My feet slip into old-fashioned, broad-shouldered words.

These shoes do not admit temporary flirtations.

These virtuous shoes say

in callous, bunion, blister and corn

in sleet, mud and sweat

I do, I do.

Catherine Bateson from: Marriage for Beginners, John Leonard Press

In lieu of a knitting update - which should be coming to you soon!

2011-08-17T17:56:00.000-07:00

Look at what I've seen! These pencil cases were made by some of the girls at Fairholme College in Toowoomba where I spent yesterday as part of the Voices on the Ranges line up. This is such a great idea that I'm planning to make one for as a knitting bag. I had a lot of fun running a writing workshop for Voices on the Ranges and also doing two presentations. The girls were terrific and the young writers I worked with in the workshop session came up with some great ideas. The whole gig ran very smoothly and it was a pleasure to be in Toowoomba - I once lived there for nearly a year.

Tuesday Poem - 'The Lake Isle of Innisfree' by W. B. Yeats

2011-08-14T19:59:00.000-07:00

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean rows will I have there, a hive for the honeybee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade. And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a-glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements gray,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

This was one of the poems I learnt that first year of learning poems. I love the agrarian romanticism that's expressed in it and the specificity of what is needed for a simple life - nine bean rows, a hive for the honey bee...I love the sounds at the poem's centre, the slowed-down life of contemplation echoed in those lovely evocations of a tangible peace.

I'm currently in Brisbane - the city I grew up in. If there's ever a time for nostalgia it's when you return somewhere you spent those difficult years between childhood and adulthood. Passing a couple leaning into each other on a park bench this morning, I remembered that intensity - when the world stops with you, holds its breath as you fall in love and kiss. So really, I should have posted a love poem here. Although 'Lake Isle of Innisfree' is a love poem - to an idea, a place and a time. Maybe I should write a love poem to Brisbane and my younger self?

Tuesday Poem - 'Townsville' by Catherine Bateson

2011-08-01T17:04:00.000-07:00

Today's Tuesday Poem is brought to you with a difference! It both reflects where I am - Townsville - and what I'm doing - writer in residence at Cathedral School. This is a poem written to model an exercise loosely based on Lorca's 'Song of the Black Cubans'.

I set this exercise to alert students of the need to use all five senses. I ask them to pick a destination - it can be real or imagined, fantastic or prosaic. I then I ask them:
a) how are they getting there?
b) what will they see there?
c) what will they hear there?
d) what will they touch there?
e) what will they smell there?
f) what will they taste there?
g) who will meet them there?
I ask them not to rhyme, but to use elements of the refrain 'I will go...' as a spine-building repetition throughout the poem.

I wrote this to model this exercise last time I came to Townsville when they were experiencing unprecedented flooding. I'd come from Melbourne, where in the Dandenongs and other parts of Victoria, we were suffering the most devastating bushfires to hit Victoria for decades. Although I live in a fairly safe area, we are surrounded by by bushfire hotspots and, as I was seeing those black storm clouds bank up over Castle Hill, my family were watching black smoke plumes in the Dandenongs. It was quite surreal.

Townsville

I will go to Townsville.
I will fly there on the wings of a black cockatoo
I will go in monsoon season to taste the rain again.
I will go to Townsville
where bruise-black clouds bank up against Castle Hill
and rainbow bee-eaters swoop and chatter near Ross Creek
down by the marina smelling of water weed and barnacles.
I will go to Townsville
to fill my hands with sweet clean water
and my eyes with endless sky.
I come from a place ringed by fire and falling ash
I will go to Townsville to meet you, the poets of rain.

Tuesday Poem - 'Hard Years'

2011-07-27T05:37:00.000-07:00

Hard Years

I’d like to say these are the hard years
but what year has gone down easily as nectar?
Each has had its own insistent bone
clawing the back of the throat
unable to be coughed up
choked down.
Not that grace is impossible
but just once to dance towards it lightly!
Instead, dragged belly, I inch
interminably forward – feral and wanting ̶
unable to bury or abandon my midden
acid-etched in the splintered sun.

Catherine Bateson

You can read more Tuesday poems if you start here.

Tuesday Poem - 'Simple' by Aileen Kelly

2011-07-18T19:00:00.000-07:00

Simple

It used to be simple, large

self-supporting God with worldfinger on

all the pulses, lifting dozey new Adam

out of the clay under the surprised light. Then

proposition and inquisition untuned

the pulses, squirted back the mud,

crosseyed the saints, racked

sweet fanatic poets between lambchrist

and tigerchrist, candle and stake.

Accounts are rearranged,

the winners win. St Paul’s is sideswiped

by the parade of the tallest and tech-best towers.

A few church mice unaccountably strong of stomach

come with soup and patience to the dark arcades

where losers piss themselves

off the edge of memory.

This morning the fingerless mist lay

over asphalt and brick, over grass and gravel

spreading yourself thin but everywhere here.

Fetching the paper I thought I heard you sigh

or laugh in the mintbush by my gate

and who was it flipped the petals, hiding under a single

petal, little god? But when I turned a wet leaf

there was only a websoft texture,

an intimate scent

that troubled my fingers till someone ground the coffee.

from: the Passion paintings, (Poems 1983 - 2006), Aileen Kelly, John Leonard Press, 2006.

Reprinted with permission from Aileen Kelly.

I can't remember now who recommended Aileen Kelly to me as a poet I should feature at La Mama Poetica back in the years when I ran this longstanding Melbourne poetry venue. What I do remember, still, from that night is Aileen's poem, 'My Brother's Piano' which gave voice to Sigmund Freud's sister, a promising concert pianist who was forced to practise on a silenced piano so as not to disturb Freud at his work. It says something about a poem that you can remember it some fifteen years after you first heard it. That poem contains the elements that I've come to expect from Aileen's poetry - an acerbic intelligence and wit, fierce compassion and deft wordplay and lyricism.

Aileen taught poetry for years in various places - although taught is possibly the wrong word. She unlocked poetry for many people who returned again and again to her classes. I attended some of these - both formal classes at the Victorian Writer's Centre - and informal sessions held at her home. I was also involved in a peer workshop group with Aileen and other prominent Melbourne women poets. Aileen was a profound influence on my own teaching practice and remains an equally important influence, both in her work and her friendship, on how I think about conducting my own life and the challenges the world throws at me.

I'm going to be featuring poems over the next few months that have taught me both something about poetry and about living. This is an incomplete and idiosyncratic selection and I hope to say something about the poems that explains, at least elliptically, what it is in them that resonates with me.

'Simple' begins with a bit of a rollercoaster history of western religion, that resolves into that elusive moment where the patriarchal and hierarchical capital 'g' God becomes the 'little god', 'thin but everywhere here' and yet still unknowable.

The subject of this poem speaks to me. For some years I attended Meeting for Worship at the Religious Society of Friends, too ambivalent to become a member but, nonetheless, grateful for the hour of mostly silent, communal worship and the f/Friendship of people who led their lives with an emphasis on spiritual life and social justice. The 'little god' of this poem and the intimate moment of something like worship reflect my own uneasy struggles with spiritual life.

As a poet, I love how Aileen has condensed so much into those first two stanzas using just the odd word here or there - dozey Adam - the unmistakeable visual reference to the Sistine Chapel, the 'racked' sweet fanatic poets, the deft juxtaposition of 'lambchrist/and tigerchrist candle and stake' and then, those church mice at the end, slightly prosaic and grounded in their humble acts. The third stanza gives me back the 'little god', not found on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel or anywhere, perhaps, except in my own examination of the miraculous, everyday world.

You can read more Tuesday poems if you start here.

Tuesday Poem - on Friday!

2011-07-14T19:47:00.000-07:00

from Rapunzel

Here’s one for the seed your father planted

and two for the baby it grew

three four and five for those simple years -

a game, a story, a tucked-in dream.

Ten for the girl you became.

Twelve for the woman I saw

shadow her younger self.

Thirteen for the daughter they stole.

He bargained for my life

but each day death inches in.

I’m a soundless bell

a leafless tree

a fire with no flame.

When he reaches for me

his hands come away

charred to the bone.

Here’s ninety-nine for love

one hundred for hate –

I burn both of us up.

This poem is one of a sequence, retelling the Rapunzel fairstory. This is part of a libretto for which Matt Ottley is composing the music. This poem occurs after Rapunzel has been given away to Mother Gothel. Rapunzel's birth mother is mad with grief, she's built a shrine to Rapunzel and she sits by it, brushing imaginary hair.

Tuesday Poem - 'Delight in Disorder' by Robert Herrick.

2011-07-04T02:39:00.000-07:00

A sweet disorder in the dresse

Kindles in cloathes a wantonnesse:

A Lawne about the shoulders thrown

Into a fine distraction:

An erring Lace, which here and there

Enthralls the Crimson Stomacher:

A Cuffe neglectfull, and thereby

Ribbands to flow confusedly:

A winning wave (deserving Note)

In the tempestuous petticote:

A careless shooe-string, in whose tye

I see a wilde civility:

Doe more bewitch me, then when Art

Is too precise in every part.

When I first discovered Robert Herrick as a young reader - he must have featured in an early anthology I had, I loved the fact that he was a fellow Leo. I still love the fact that he was a Leo, but I also love his language and, in this poem, I love the way he is advocating 'a wilde civility' of imperfection and risk-taking.

You can read more Tuesday poems if you start here. Scroll back to the Lorine Niedecker poems - she's wonderful.

Tuesday Poem - 'Joy and a Fibro Shack' by Andy Kissane

2011-06-20T04:28:00.000-07:00

Joy and a Fibro Shack

‘I’m a little ashamed that I want to end this poem

singing...’ — Robert Hass

The difficulty of writing a poem

is like the difficulty of building a house

without a plan, wood, a hammer.

You have to start somewhere

and if you have a tin of nails,

then that’s as good a place as any.

The foundations, the frame and the finish will come

if you work at it.

Or might not come.

There’s always the canvas shell of a tent.

There’s always driftwood and burlap fastened with bamboo vines.

There’s always the music of corrugated iron in a hail storm,

or its blistering shade at midday.

Is a poem a palace or a humpy?

I prefer humpies, furnished with a daggy couch

reclaimed from the council clean-up.

I want to capture the grit beneath fingernails,

the mysterious gaze of a brush wattlebird

peering at me through the window,

the misery of a broken marriage,

and the elation of the night we bumped

into Rebecca at Kilimanjaro, the restaurant

not the mountain, crammed around a table

as those first contractions took hold of her body.

Breath, heartbeat, blood—the nervous dash

to the hospital. Then screams far too loud,

far too long for the sanitised labour

of soap opera—they’d call it over-acting,

they’d call it amateur, they’d say

it was in very bad taste.

I prefer poems to come into the world

shining with vernix, green with meconium,

radiant with the open-eyed awe of a baby

in the first half-hour of her life,

while the wind lifts and rattles the walls

until the house resonates with its own bright keening,

like the night I was up at 3am,

walking the kitchen, walking the hallway, walking

the lounge room, holding a baby

who would not stop, would not stop,

just would not stop crying.

'Joy and a Fibro Shack' is from AndyKissane's collection, Out to Lunch, Puncher and Wattman, 2009. Andy lives in Sydney and writes poetry and fiction. He has published three books of poetry, Facing the Moon, Every Night They Dance and Out to Lunch (Puncher & Wattmann, 2009), which was shortlisted for the NSW Premier’s Prize for Poetry. His first novel, Under the Same Sun (Sceptre, 2000) was shortlisted for the Vision Australia Audio Book of the Year. A book of short stories The Swarm will be published in the coming year. He has taught Creative Writing at four universities. He coaches basketball, barracks for the Brisbane Lions, and is busy regenerating a bush garden.

Andy Kissane will be performing at the July Word Tree - 2nd July @ Burrinjah Cafe @ the Burrinjah Community Centre, cnr. Matson Drive and Glenfern Road.

Tuesday Poem - 'To Helen' by Edgar Allen Poe

2011-06-14T02:50:00.000-07:00

To Helen

Helen, thy beauty is to me
Like those Nicean barks of yore,
That gently, o'er a perfumed sea,
The weary, way-worn wanderer bore
To his own native shore.

On desperate seas long wont to roam,
Thy hyacinth hair, they classic face,
Thy Naiad airs have brought me home
To the glory that was Greece
And the grandeur that was Rome.

Lo! in yon brilliant window-niche
How statue-like I see thee stand!
The agate lamp within thy hand,
Ah! Psyche, from the regions which
Are Holy Land!

Why Edgar Allen Poe? Because I was in a fantasy poetry workshop recently and, naturally, Poe's name came up, reminding me of how much I'd love this poem as a girl - and still love it, although the sheer number of exclamation marks in the final stanza worry me, slightly.

Fantasy poetry, (and it's sisters, science fiction and speculative poetry) are marginalised areas of poetry these days but that was not always so. Edgar Allen Poem, Coleridge, Shelly and Keats all wrote poetry that can be called fantasy poetry. Of course, to stick to this theme I should have rightly showcased 'The Raven' but I wanted to return to the poem I learned by heart when I was young, and re-learnt recently in the Year of Remembering Poems.

Over at the Tuesday Poetry Blog there's also something slightly sinister going on...check it out and then step into Tuesday poetry worlds.

By the way, if anyone knows of any online or other journals accepting fantasy poetry, do let me know.

Tuesday Poem - 'That Cat' by Catherine Bateson

2011-06-07T05:41:00.000-07:00

That Cat

Leggy catwalk gait,

chocolate wedge face,

eyes as round as smarties -

the new cat is Naomi.

Forget that she was found in a box

on the Calder Highway,

she’s checked into our hotel now;

orders room service

practises photo opportunities with the dog

tells me in her bossiest voice

to get rid of those Blundstones

and buy some proper shoes -

Viv Westwoods -

so she can feel at home in my wardrobe.

She sits on the ironing board

criticises my technique.

That cat, we say, kicking her out of cupboards,

off benches, another broken vase. That cat,

adding her cryptic notes to my emails,

scratching my favourite jumper into her shape.

Like living with a view of the harbour

or your own Picasso,

that cat.

An old poem written about my Burmese cat, Java. Alas, in the Hills with all our bird life; King Parrots, Rosellas, the occasional flock of Lorikeets, the odd dozey galah, not to mention Tawny Frogmouths, wrens and honeyeaters I couldn't have a cat with any kind of clear conscience.

Check out the Tuesday Poem Hub which will lead you to other Tuesday Poem blogs.

Tuesday Poem - 'The First Chorus' - Catherine Bateson

2011-05-31T02:13:00.000-07:00

The First Chorus

We saw her longing and knew her lost.

Oh little sister, would you leave us for a man?

What has he, that we can’t offer –

come, let us braid your hair

let us sing together

swaying like soft weed to the songs

that loop and flow, ribbons of seduction

velvet handcuffs we lock

each of us fast to the other.

Why would you leave us,

little lost note

in our loving harmony?

We reach for you

but you evade our pale fingers

as though they were sticky tentacles.

This is from a poetry sequence, 'Learning to Tango' which takes a new look at the story of the Little Mermaid. It will be published later this year in the second Tales from the Tower Anthology, gathered by Isobelle Carmody and Nan McNab, Allen & Unwin. The first anthology, The Wilful Eye, was published earlier this year.

The poem I've posted here is the first chorus of the little mermaid's sisters. I wanted them to have a collective voice punctuating this sequence which is also written in the voices of the wicked enchantress, the little mermaid and the prince.

You can read the Tuesday Poem hub here and access other tuesday poems from this site. In particular, check out this one for a continuation of the fairy tale theme.

Just in order to justify the 'catty knits' part of the title:

2011-05-21T22:02:00.000-07:00

Hand-knitted socks in a yarn gifted to me in a swap. Hand-kintted short-sleeved cardigan in French mohair bought on ebay. The latter was simple pattern I made up, sleeves knitted last (which I discovered I had enough yarn left over.) The sleeves were made up with the help of the book, Custom Knits, Wendy Bernard. She has very clear instructions about how to knit a sleeve in the round and the sleeves I made for my cardigan were the cap-part of these - I was too concerned about running out of yarn to contemplate anything longer.

Borrowed P D James' Time to be Earnest, a Fragment of Autobiography from the library the other day and have finished over the weekend. It's a charming book - partly because James, born in 1920, is very much of her time. She is a courteous writer, consciously avoiding any scandal or gossip in the diary she keeps in her seventy-eighth year. She's conservative, but she's also a philanthropist and sharply aware of her duty and responsibilities to the larger community. She's a church-goer with a great respect for church literature. The book doesn't chronicle her writing process as such, but it does provide interesting glimpses of the post-publication work a writer with the status of P D James undertakes. In one week she signs more than 2000 books! Her reflections on crime writing make interesting reading but she also talks about the books she reads throughout the year and books she has read.

Here are her own four pieces of advice to aspiring novelists:

The first is to read widely, not in order to copy someone else's style, but to learn to appreciate and recognise good writing and to see how the best writers have achieved their result. Poor writing is, unfortunately, infections and should be avoided.

Practise writing in whatever form; the craft is learned by practising it, not by talking about it. Some poeple find that writing courses or local writers' circles are a help, but they are not for everyone.

Increase your vocabulary; the raw material of the writer is words and the more we have abailable and can use effective and with confidence the better.

Welcome experience. This means going through life with all sense open: observing, feeling, relating to other people. Nothing that happens to a writer need ever be lost.

From: P D James, Time to be in Earnest, A Fragment of Autobiography, Faber & Faber, 1999, p. 187.

I think it entirely appropriate that the first real entry under my new blog banner should include P D James and knitting - although I'm not certain that P D James knits (and I rather think she doesn't), her autobiography often harks back to a time where women knitted out of necessity.

Thank you!

2011-05-21T21:27:00.001-07:00

to Helen Kempton who changed the look of this blog for me and took the photos of me!

The Internet and me

2011-05-19T08:23:00.000-07:00

New technology creeps up on you. Recently I found myself rejecting a phone company's offer of a replacement mobile while my own broken one was being looked at. The replacement phone was OLD and UGLY. (And they wanted a $20.00 deposit on a mobile that would normally have been put in one of those phone recycle bins. I couldn't do it.) But I still felt a bit edgy and nervous without a mobile. How would anyone contact me?

I can remember getting my first mobile. The now post-secondary teenage children were just beginning their schooling. The mobile was a Nokia and weighed more than most small digital cameras weigh today. It must have been around the same time that we got connected to the Internet. Which we didn't call the Internet, but the World Wide Web.

It was - amazing. Unreal. Weird.

I was living with my first husband and two young children and I was trying to pursue a writing...career. Well, a writing life. A collection of my poems had been published to some critical acclaim but that trajectory had been interrupted by the birth of my first child who had severe cardiac defects. I had a second child fairly promptly and had been immersed in a world where time slowed down, clean nappies were heaven and writing was done whenever it could be fitted in.

By the time we were on the www, my son was attending kindergarten and we'd all moved from the country back to Melbourne for my husband's work. I'm sure he talked about the www and I probably took a while to listen.

My early forays into the Internet were mainly connected with buying books and journal writing. I can't remember who suggested Amazon.com, but I can remember my utter delight in discovering I could trawl through their catalogue and order book which would then arrive at my doorsteps weeks, sometimes months later.

At the time I was obsessed with anything that would keep me writing - which is where journal writing came in. I have kept a journal from the age of about eighteen. At the time I'm talking about, I think I led a journal writing course and so, with the www at my fingertips, I searched for journal writing. Even back then I could have googled it, although google wasn't used as a verb in the early 1990s.

I got on to a journal forum group managed by a listserv. These were a bunch of people - I don't think we numbered much more than 150, who wrote in a discussion forum about their journal writing. They were managed by a 'list Mom' who posted regularly and would often offer suggestions for journal exercises, useful books on journal writing and so forth.

The list was so cosy that, from memory, a couple of members eventually met, fell in love and got married. (I'm reliably informed by my son that this happens regularly on World of Warcraft but hey, motorbike boy, we had a List Mom! It was harder back then!)

I also used to follow an online journal that was allegedly written by a member - members? - of a share-house. It turned out to be a hoax. The participants were all actors in a proposed t.v. show. I didn't have much vested interest in this, so the revelation didn't worry me.

I did, however, post regularly to the Shiki haiku listserv. This fuelled my interest in haiku, made some of mine public and introduced me to other haiku writers, including an Australian who was then living in Japan. She commented on some haiku I wrote and, years later when she returned to Australia, we became friends.

I also followed the web journal of a young Silicon Valley programmer - either part of the journal list serv or connected to the list mom - who was then going through changes in her life. Interestingly enough Ceej is still keeping a journal on the 'net, although the content is a little different to the earlier journal I read so avidly so many years ago. There she still is, more than ten years later, still doing the same things that she did at the beginning, but with more money - so a Lotus, rather than a state-of-the-then-art push bike - a husband and a mid-life crisis.

I guess I am doing the same things I was more than a decade ago - still writing, still using the 'net, still keeping a journal....

Tuesday Poem - marsi (18 july 1959) by Jordie Albiston

2011-05-17T05:39:00.000-07:00

marsi ( 18 july 1959)

kally told me yesterday some of her ideas
about 'writing':     paper by bed jot anything
down     organise!     simplify!     be clear!!!
she then lectured at length about polishing

the gem     but does it 'convey'    does it 'say'
what I mean     (this is where I am now)     no
writing is easy     but no sentence will stray
onto page until one picks up pen!     I know

themes are a problem     (and they may be my
biggest)    and so I have done some thought:
'housekeepers' / 'passers-by' / 'view from my
window' / a few 'historical sketches'     about

early kew     (anyway     to bed     for this is a
start     and then to wake up!     and be clear)

from Jordie Albiston, the sonnet according to 'm', John Leonard Press, 2009.

Jordie Albiston is a formalist poet working in Melbourne. the sonnet according to 'm' explores three lives; those of her maternal grandmother, her paternal great-great grandmother and her own in this poetry sequence. The voices are distinct, observant and restrained by history and beliefs. The 'marsi' poems written in the first person depict a middle-class woman struggling politely against the constraints of age and a predictable life and marriage:
...                                                    my new
brown and white dress was finished today
how many hours of my I wondered played
out in its work just a few more than a few

tho what matters most is satisfaction in the
job...

There's something I love about these women's voices - hopeful, resigned, desolate - but wryly so and, in the end, indomitable.

sonnets according to 'm' won the 2010 NSW Premier's Prize for Poetry. It is Albiston's fifth collection of poetry. Other collections to look out for include, Vertigo, Botany Bay Document and The Hanging of Jean Lee. You can read an interview with Jordie Albiston here.

Thank you, Jordie, for permission to post one of your poems as a Tuesday Poem.

Find more Tuesday Poems here.

Tuesday Poem - 'Demeter Watches Persephone Grow Up' by Catherine Bateson

2011-05-10T00:40:00.000-07:00

Listening to Susan Hawthorne read from Cow on Saturday at The Word Tree, reminded me of some poems in my first published collection, Pomegranates from the Underworld. Susan has two poems in Cow which explore the Demeter/Persephone myth, a myth that I used in a poetry sequence for Pomegranates. Here is one of the first poems from that sequence:

Demeter Watches Persephone Grow Up

Look at her – always curled up with a book,
it’s not natural. Off in a corner dreaming of Byron and Brando,
those dark, brooding heroes.
One turns up on the doorstep and it’s kismet.
She’ll follow him to the ends etc.
I’ll tell you what poetry and novels lead to – divorce.
Nothing’s surer.
I try: I tell her it isn’t like that.
It’s hard work, marriage, like two oxen
pulling the load together. Everyday decisions –
what do you want for dinner? which school?
did you see today’s paper? You don’t marry the hero.
Mills and Boon got it wrong.

She’ll fall for the one with a criminal record
and the fastest Harley. I know my girl.
She’ll wear suffering
like it’s a new art form.

You can’t protect them – even if you very bones cry out
in despair,
in love.

And that’s the worst knowledge;
that they make their way into the world
and you’re left behind
a bystander,
never feeling
innocent.

Catherine Bateson, Pomegranates from the Underworld, Pariah Press, 1990.

Click here for more information on Susan Hawthorne's collection Cow.
You can join The Word Tree group on Facebook to keep informed with readings. I would link, but I don't know how!

I'm currently reading:
Melissa Green, The Squanicook Eclogues, The Pen and Anvil Press, Boston, 2010. Beautiful, measured poetry that displays a lush but disciplined formality.
David Ulin, The Lost Art of Reading. Why Books Matters in a Distracted Time, Sasquatch Books, 2010. While Green's collection is nurturing my need for the lyrical, Ulin's book is a timely read for someone battling, as we all are, an increasingly time-poor existence and wondering where it all went - this time, I used to have? Definitely recommended for all of us who are questioning why we don't read as much as we used to. I'm going to write a more extended blog about this in the near future.

Tuesday Poem - 'what Kuvalaya says' by Susan Hawthorne

2011-05-02T16:01:00.000-07:00

what Kuvalaya says

rain clouds are gathering at the edge of the world
when we enter the forest the trees
gather their branches over us darken the day
shadow hides us from one another

Sarasvati's speech turns our simple words
into poetry like the mane of a galloping horse

they call me Kuvalaya the night-opening flower
I sing with them carry words
to faraway places to a land across the sea
where once they say
millennia ago
some of their ancestors retreated
others dispute this
and none of the legends is conclusive

I come as a visitor I come with a head full
of words full of landscapes and languages
whether I find my world in the lyrics of their
world is for me to discover here the herd
plays I enter this world of shadows of half-told
stories where the lotus opens at night

from Susan Hawthorne, Cow, Spinifex Press, 2011.

Susan Hawthorne has published five other collections of poetry, a novel, and non-fiction as well as editing numerous anthologies. In 2009, she was an Asialink Literature Resident at the University of Madras and her research and experiences there informs her latest collection of poetry, Cow.

Cow is a real literature that entertains, charms and provokes. Hawthorne's erudition is elegant; she moves from cowshed to cosmos lightly and with technical grace and welcomes you into her fascinating mind. - Chris Mansell

I heard Susan Hawthorne read her work recently at the Melbourne Poet's Union and it was a real treat. She's a warm, witty and engaging reader and if you aren't familiar with her work, hearing her read is an ideal start.

Hear Susan read at The Word Tree, Burrinja Cafe, Burrinja Cultural Centre, cnr of Glenfern Road and Matson Drive, Upwey this Saturday (May 7th) from 3.00 pm. Limited open section, so bring your poems. $3/5 entry fee.

For more information on Spinifex Press and their writers, look here.

Tuesday poem - highway haiku by Catherine Bateson

2011-04-27T07:50:00.000-07:00

Purgatory Creek
Poisonwaterhole Creek -
highway history.

On the road, having been to the Byron Bay Bluesfest. Five days of music, talking with my ex-publisher about the impact of e-readers on both the publishing and bookshop industry, eating freshly caught fish (thanks Marcus!) and other treats.

For the record, I am a complete Bob Dylan fan. I grew up with Bob Dylan. Planetwaves was one of the first 'grown up' records I ever owned. I've gathered most of his albums over the year, including the three cd bootleg set. His lyrics wove their way into my life, as Cohen's did. But he performed badly at Byron. He did the worst versions of 'Don't Think Twice It's All Right' and - one of my favourite Dylan songs - 'Tangled Up in Blue' that I have ever heard. I left after four songs and saw Jethro Tull. They were fantastic.

The Tuesday Poem - on Wednesday - we're on the road!

2011-04-19T14:36:00.000-07:00

Crow
becomes O for omen
Highway 39 eyespy

by Catherine Bateson

Orange Prize shortlisting is up

2011-04-13T02:55:00.000-07:00

Emma Donoghue (Irish) - Room; Picador; 7th Novel
Aminatta Forna (British/Sierra Leonean) - The Memory of Love; Bloomsbury; 2nd Novel
Emma Henderson (British) - Grace Williams Says it Loud; Sceptre; 1st Novel
Nicole Krauss (American) - Great House; Viking; 3rd Novel
Téa Obreht (Serbian/American) - The Tiger’s Wife; Weidenfeld &; Nicolson; 1st Novel
Kathleen Winter (Canadian) - Annabel; Jonathan Cape; 1st Novel

I'm looking forward to reading some of these. You can check out some comments on Annabel here. I also like the sound of the The Tiger's Wife - I'm interested in magic realism. I find it sometimes sings to me more than straight fantasy does.

In other publication news, The Wilful Eye, Volume One of Tales from the Tower is out. Beautiful looking book - can't wait to get hold of a copy!

Tuesday Poem - 'what she says about her girlfriend's mother' by Susan Hawthorne

2011-04-12T00:44:00.000-07:00

one day she looks down the throat of her child
who has been playing in the mud eating dirt
there inside the mouth is the universe
trees seas mountains and everything in between
there are cows feeding calves the milk
spilling around the calves' mouths
a giant snake curls around a tree trunk
the snake and the cow are morphing
the dividing line between them blurred
as the sea's edge on any beach
the mothers are trying hard to contain their children
but what can you do when the world is held
in an open mouth?

from: Cow by Susan Hawthorne, Spinifex Press, 2011

'This is non-homogenised, non-pasteurised poetry, full-bodied and in no need of supplement.' - berni m janssen

I heard Susan read at the Melbourne Poet's Union recently and was so impressed by the humour, playfulness and warmth of her work. Cow is a terrific collection!

Watch out for Susan Hawthorne at The Word Tree, first Saturday in May.

Tuesday Poem - a little late! 'Winning the Day'

2011-04-05T14:12:00.000-07:00

It's how you walk back into the day -
your hands tender as new corn
or filled with dust.

I have swallowed the world
and I am full of it.
Come, our fingers are orchards
sheep graze on our mingled breath
whales sound in our arteries
and each morning
the fat eye of love
winks back.

From: Marriage for Beginners, Catherine Bateson, John Leonard Press, Melbourne 2009.

Tuesday Poem 'The Evening is Loud with Life' by Claire Gaskin

2011-03-28T13:52:00.000-07:00

Leaning on the language of leaving
and the road a line from a song,
the door smiles open

After the crescendo
the tick of the clock
and a car driving past

Headlights behind her
she is approaching me
moon walk with my daughter.

Claire Gaskin, A Bud, John Leonard Press, 2006.

Claire Gaskin will be performing at The Word Tree this coming Saturday - 2nd April. Join us for a wonderful feature reader, a vibrant open section and a supportive audience. Burrinja Cafe, Burrinja Community Centre, cnr of Matson Drive and Glenfern Road, Upwey.

Tuesday Poem - 'Clouds Caught on Fence Posts' by Claire Gaskin

2011-03-21T04:31:00.000-07:00

all the blue rushing through the pinpoint of an iris
lemon tree alight with yellow yells
butterflies land on my father's bare head
the force of the ocean is gentle on its bay shores

lemon tree alight with yellow yells
the force of the ocean is gentle on its bay shores
the breath is gentle on the body
soldiers of sunset stand on the boulevard

we are just clouds caught on fence posts
while their motorbikes graze on the asphalt
soldiers of sunset stand on the boulevard
clapping hands like birds fly up to the shot of a gun

while their motorbikes graze on the asphalt
butterflies land on my father's bare head
clapping hands like birds fly up to the shot of a gun
all the blue rushing through the pinpoint of an iris

Claire Gaskin, A Snail in the Ear of the Buddha, Soup Publications, 1998.

Claire Gaskin is a Melbourne-based poet who teaches creative writing and professional writing and editing. You can hear her read her work at The Word Tree, Saturday 2nd April, Burrinja Cafe, Burrinja Community Centre, 3.00 - 5.00 pm. Her latest collection, A Bud, was published by John Leonard Press. Come along and hear Claire read!

Tuesday Poem - Martyrdom of Friend James by Catherine Bateson

2011-03-14T21:32:00.000-07:00

Arrested in Colchester, 1656
confined to a rat's hole in the wall
a rope between him
and the ground.

One day numbed with cold,
he slipped.
They pushed him
bleeding and broken,
into another hole, the size of a baker's oven
and this time he rose,
oh he rose like sweet bread
like blessed, obstinate bread.
They could not stop him
though they buried his warped bones
barely twenty years old
curled like an unborn baby.

Did you fly into death singing, boy,
the cramped, stinking months shucked off
as though they had belonged to another?
Hallelujah. Hallelujah.

Tell me, how I can take off my anger
abandon it like an ill-fitting boot.
How I can open my fists, lay them naked
palms up, waiting for the blow, the nail.
And these tears -
will I ever learn to thirst for salt?

This poem comes from a sequence of poems which form a fictional seventeenth century dialogue between a husband and wife. The husband has converted to the Religious Society of Friends but his wife resists. The sequence chronicles their relationship to god and to each other. This poem, written in John's voice, is a documented historical event.

Catherine Bateson, Marriage for Beginners, John Leonard Press, 2009.

Next week I'll be resuming transmission with some fine examples of contemporary Australian poets! I posted this today, however, as a response to VesperSparrow's poem, 'Mad Maud at the River'. Well, not a response, exactly - rather, her poem made me think of this sequence and the sheer pleasure I'd had in writing about a different time and how the plainsong but mystic language of the early Friends had been an inspiration.

For My Daughter in Her Fifteenth Year (posted for International Women's Day)

2011-03-07T03:15:00.000-08:00

Rewrite the old stories - why should the mermaid
swap her flash sequinned tail
for boring legs? Build her a swimming pool,
resort style, and all her daughters
(chlorine blue polish on their webbed toes)
can swim laps until their hair turns green
as glass but the boys still buy them sushi
and sit so close dizzy with daring.

Red Riding Hood? Think it over -
let's pity the wolf, colour-blind to the danger,
trapped by her pattycakes and pretty please
cursing old granny wits sharp as scissors
awake in her bed.

Cinderella dropped that shoe - oops
- like a text message
on his mobile - Call Me!
Sleeping Beauty peeked -
and so should you.

In even the best gingerbread houses
a clean kitchen is only ever
a clean kitchen.
Finish the chapter instead.
A dress - black slink or tiers of froth -
is never only a dress but
a brief benediction, a candle you light
against hard times. Oh daughter
love yourself fiercely -
the changing pigments in your eyes
the knobbled spine holding you straight
all the small bones, the lace
of capillaries under your skin each cell
patiently replacing itself
as I do.

As I do.

from: Catherine Bateson, Marriage for Beginners, John Leonard Press, 2009.

Martha Wainwright at Meeniyan

2011-03-05T23:12:00.000-08:00

What a fabulous night! Martha Wainwright sang Piaf songs and some of her own. The acoustics were great, the venue was terrific and the company excellent. It was such a great weekend! First up, the Koonwarra farmer's market where we bought organic vegies, freerange pork, Hope Farm bread and some glorious garlic. Then we headed out to the Koonwarra cottages where we put together lunch, sat in the sun on the verandah with the resident cat - an old baggy cat called Scat. I knitted on my sock - I'm going to love these socks this winter - they're such pretty colours. Later, when everyone else had arrived, we cooked dinner together and then drove into the Meeniyan Town Hall which was decked out with tables and gingham tablecloths and packed to the rafters.

No wonder - Martha Wainwright was wonderful! What a voice - and what a lovely lovely place to hear her sing. It was one of those perfect nights - the only moment of imperfection was learning that they had sold out of cds some two nights ago. I shall have to track them down elsewhere.

Then today - after a delicious breakfast - the Accountant and I drove to Venus Bay - beautiful!

And we arrived home in time to air the house out in this balmy weather.

It doesn't get much better than, folks.

Tuesday Poem - 'Venice' by Robyn Rowland

2011-02-28T03:59:00.000-08:00

Venice

for Aodh

Sirens thrill along mute canals near midnight.
I count the required sixteen for flood warning.
Water laps intimate under the window at Hotel Tre Archi
swelling across cobbled fondamenta beneath.
I watch from the second floor, knowing others
hoist quickly their chairs to the ceiling
elsewhere in ground floor rooms.
The sea is making inroads across islands of disbelief.
Lovers drink from each others lips
between sparse street lamps,
feet soaked in salt.

Here I am only lost walking, never on the water.
Hail came suddenly in the afternoon,
lightning jolting the boat from Murano
shattering talk and the bare uplifted faces.
I remember your eyes.
I drink wine from a jug: ruby-red, fat and round, the taste.
Your kisses still stroll across my tongue with it
though you are oceans away.
Every filigree of connection the body makes from lips
– around a breast, along a thigh –
shiver down deep, inside fig-pink memory.

Masks are hanging from the walls
crowding windows of small shops
in the market off Canale di Cannaregio.
Silver and peacock-blue, raven-black and scarlet,
their shape-shifting visages await the gift of sight
we alone can position there.
Here is the place to lose myself.
One step inside this face of gold: all children left behind, all worries,
and the dent of daily life in the goblet of fancy evades recognition
along with the name, the obligation of returning.
Sheathed with disguise, it is free.
I could do anything here.

Venice is an old lover still wet with longing
her body unashamed,
everywhere bridges over a maze of aqueous veins,
the map of love’s capillaries
with some dead-ends, some narrow ways,
some bridges a gondola can only pass under
if I lean heavily to one side
while the boatman dances his oar
against the wooden rollick.
You have to pay.

Venice is sinking, but slowly enough.
Gates can be erected to block the hungry tide that
surges, purling courtship between water and stone.
Sea comes for me tonight.
Maybe it carries our breath from the lake near your door;
rain off our shoulders in Fahy’s Wood at Bealtaine;
dew from your purple tulips and uncut meadowsweet.
Images of you clutter my mind’s alleyways,
slip like shadows between corner and canal.
They rouse longing in a city of water and glass,
liquid cold, fluid hot.

Caravaggio-dark, skies were sanguineous at sunset.
Now mist inside shutters
shrouds the Venetian glitter of light splayed on walls
from red and blue buds
in the Murano chandelier.
Tonight is full moon.
A mist of rain rings her wide-eyed light,
loneliness
a single beam down the smudged waterway.

If only this small light
or this dark night
or the sea’s impatient working
at the foundations of this old wall,
could prise ajar the future
momentarily –
and you are there on a shore somewhere,
waiting.
This is a city of indulgence, and
I’d pay the boatman twice,
if he’d bring you.

Fahy’s Wood is pronounced Fah- hee’s in Irish.
Bealtaine: (pron, bal-tin-uh) old Celtic festival on May Day, the coming of summer and the light.

From Robyn Rowland, Seasons of doubt & burning. New & selected Poems, Five Islands Press, 2010)

We were fortunate enough to have Robyn Rowland read at the Word Tree - a spoken word event run on the first Saturday of every month at the Burrinjah Cafe, Burrinja Community Centre, Upwey. It was a wonderful reading. So, if you missed it - here's a taste of what you missed.

The Word Tree flowers again this Saturday March 5th - Burrinjah Cafe, cnr. of Matson and Glenfern, Upwey. Featuring Ross Donlon and Ross Gillett. Limited Open Section. 3.00 - 5.00 pm. $3/5.

Back to the year of learning poems

2011-02-24T23:12:00.000-08:00

and the first poem to be learnt is Sarah Lindsay's wonderful 'Olduvai Gorge Thorn Tree'. Memorising made me realise how simple the langauge was - but how effective in its simplicity. There's such a wonderful dreamlike quality to this poem but there's also that lovely sense of story-urgency. I get a real rush when I come across poems like this that lead me into a new direction in writing.

Tuesday Poem Hub

2011-02-22T12:32:00.000-08:00

Catherine Fitchett is this week's editor on the Tuesday Poem hub where she has posted 'The Olduvai Gorge Thorn Tree' by North Carolina poet, Sarah Lindsay.
This is a magnificent poem - the simplicity of the language, the repetitions and rhythm create a kind of monumental strength of the kind we need in these difficult times. It's wonderful.

As is this poem by Sarah Lindsay.

Christchurch Quake

2011-02-22T12:18:00.000-08:00

My thoughts to everyone in Christchurch - particularly to any Tuesday Poets from NZ who are from this area. Shocked and saddened by the devastation. So much in the world shocks and saddens at the moment.

Tuesday Poem - 'we've started using no through roads' by Maurice McNamara

2011-02-21T20:18:00.000-08:00

we’ve started using no through roads

we drive to the country
somehow we have the genius to find
the road with no cars

we look for mushrooms
break them apart and smell
why isn’t there a machine that says
which ones are poison?

there hasn’t been much rain
some valleys grow rocks and bare dirt
when do pine mushrooms break out?
there’s too much work, not enough weekends

drive down no through roads
look at houses we can’t afford
occasionally an absolute gem
most of the time, what were they thinking?

llama farms, B&B’s
cottages and dells, rag blankets shops
what country are living in?

if you’re rich enough
it seems like you don’t want to live in Australia
European trees and hedges

I hunger for green
wait for rain to fall
but some part of my heart belongs to dry

we drive back to Melbourne
T-bone steaks and Sunday night TV
So You Think You Can Dance?
I don’t tell her exactly, but yes we can

Maurice McNamara is a Melbourne based poet. His poetry celebrates ordinary life with a distinctive laconic flavour and iconclastic humour. This poem is taken from Maurice's collection, Half Hour Country, Small Change Press, 2009.

Arrogance in Action!

2011-02-17T20:03:00.000-08:00

"People ask me if I ever thought of writing a children's book," Amis said, in a sideways excursion from a chat about John Self, the antihero of his 1984 novel Money. "I say, 'If I had a serious brain injury I might well write a children's book', but otherwise the idea of being conscious of who you're directing the story to is anathema to me, because, in my view, fiction is freedom and any restraints on that are intolerable."

Martin Amis quoted in The Guardian.

This is so wrong on so many levels that I'm not even going to waste our time, dear reader.

Tuesday Poem - 'Mrs. Grover' by Kristin Henry

2011-02-14T03:45:00.000-08:00

...if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her...
1 Corinthians 11:14-15

When the children come this year
to ask you, as they do every year
you fob them off at first
and then you relent
as you do always.
Summer after steaming summer
when the corn is high as the screen porch
and the air loud with all manner
of small winged things,
the children come knocking
and beg you to let down your hair.

Seventy years in cotton gloves
for church and town and sun
have left you with a lady’s hands
pale and fine.

You reach them into your crown,
extracting each wire pin
slowly til the final pin is drawn.
Then your audience holds its breath
and you hold them
while you uncoil your secret,
whispy now as cloud
but still a fall that reaches
down, down
and for the smallest instant
you are a woman full of her powers,
and he is there
smiling at this glory
that was only ever for his eyes.

The little girl asks if she might brush it,
but suddenly you’re flustered.
You leave them on the front step,
promising to return with watermelon.
These are children after all
and you are a faded Rapunzel.

Kristin Henry is a Melbourne poet and teacher, originally from America’s deep south bible belt. This is a poem based loosely on a childhood memory, and on her grandfather’s caution that if a woman cuts off her hair ‘she cuts off her glory’.

It has been accepted for publication in platform, Issue 9 published by Victoria University.

Gala night of story telling

2011-02-13T14:46:00.000-08:00

I was at the Wheeler Centre for their gala night of storytelling. A good - if somewhat chaotic - evening. The Town Hall was packed and event organisers weren't on the ball about disabled access - sending some poor soul up to the balcony despite the fact she was on crutches. There was no need, either, as there were seats available downstairs. Needless to say the event started about twenty minutes late and therefore finished forty minutes late.

However there were some great moments - Yannick Haenel's moving story about war, families and silence was poignant and beautifully crafted, Sonya Hartnett, in contrast, told a funny story about telling stories and childhood and Murong Xeucun, the Chinese writer, recounted an almost fairy-tale story of ingenuity and greed.

Well worth keeping an eye on events at The Wheeler Centre - alas, Terry Pratchett is already booked out, even though it's an April event!

Tuesday Poem - 'Late Night Critique of Sexton and Plath' - Catherine Bateson

2011-02-08T02:40:00.001-08:00

Late Night Critique of Sexton and Plath

All week the mad dead have circled my sleep, creeping
off the pages I read while I rocked my child, fever-flushed
and inconsolable. I asked them why;
why it wasn't enough; the weight of a child
the smell of rain, the comfort of unread books?
The child banged his head on my shoulder -
we raged together, dumbly persistent in our pain.
I hated them for giving in, leaving their lives
a sad pile of pickings for the greedy.
And how we excuse them, write their absent notes,
wipe their faces clean, make them tidy.

In the dark room the dead assembled,
they held out their hearts
like begging bowls but I would not love them.
If I'm called to give witness it's not to that -
death as a blanket, a comforter
but how life takes over, bustles in
opens the curtains,
gives the day a shake.

Catherine Bateson, The Vigilant Heart, UQP, 1998.

I want to firstly apologise for putting up two of my own poems in three weeks - I'm slowly attempting to organise permission from other poets, but it's been busy here with the new teaching year beginning, some family issues and some internet issues. So please forgive me!

This poem comes from my second collection.

Check out other Tuesday Poems here.

Tuesday Poem - Tawny Frogmouth by Earl Livings

2011-02-01T00:59:00.000-08:00

Tawny Frogmouth

Stunned by this sudden cave
Of glass, metal gadgets, straight edges,
The floored bird swivel-head stares
At our locked gaze, hunches so still
I think oven mitts unnecessary
For capture. We breathe together.

Its wildness springs into flight.
Wings flail the ceiling, that sound
Like books falling from shelves.
The bird shudder-drops, lands
With its amber-bulb eyes inches
From the doorjamb. We coo and shoo.

It hops sideways, senses the wide
Dark beyond the door we opened
For cool breezes, dark rectangle
In the dark house it did not see
But may remember. Spreads itself
To the night and all scents of home.

Lifts itself on a single beat.
Rises swiftly towards distant trees.
We stare at each other, the wonder
Of wildness so easily trapped, gone,
Close the door, turn off the lights,
Listen to the silence, to our longing.

Earl Livings is an award-winning Melbourne based poet and writer who currently teaches Professional Writing and Editing at Box Hill TAFE. 'Tawny Frogmouth' was shortlisted for the 2008 Rosemary Dobson prize and previously published in Avant. His first collection of poetry, Further than the Light was published in 2000 by Bystander Press.

Check out other Tuesday Poems here.

Tuesday Poem: Learning to Swim

2011-01-24T23:39:00.000-08:00

Learning to Swim - Catherine Bateson

Every time we touched each other, we left a fingerprint of sweat,
the grass died back, the hens stopped laying,
and on the fig tree outside my bedroom the figs ripened.
That summer we read girlie magazines spilling beer
on my white sheets and over the pages of Penthouse.
His big body was as pale as parsnip, black hairs sprouted
in unlikely places but his hands were like talk and
I loved his unhappiness, his migraines.

I'd always had boys before, stumbling through their paces
lights off and everything, even their knees, strange in the dark.
This was no different, like learning to swim
after years of walking your hands in the shallows
fooling nobody.
Look, now I can backstroke and butterfly,
I can dive from the high tower.

He opened my like an oyster,
like an artichoke. I was brine and undertow when he broke
over me, his hands full of music, each finger
singing a note purer than sainthood.

I swaggered into the year wearing that song
never again so unknowing,
never again so electric.

from Marriage for Beginners, John Leonard Press, 2009.

This poem is set in Bell, Queensland where I spent some of my growing up years. My mother bought a shack in the township and five acres above the township. In time she moved the shack on to the five acres behind the Church of England. But this poem is set when the shack was in the township. We had chooks and there was a fig tree outside my room. I used to ride up to Bell - four to five hours from Brisbane - on the back of my boyfriend's 950 Kawasaki. We'd pull into Dalby which was 22 miles outside of Bell, my face stinging from the wind that had whipped my hair out of the helmet. I'd swagger into the truck stops in my suede fringed boots, dirty blonde hair. It was all new and all as old as Eden.

'Visit Tuesday Poem for more.'

Forest Ginko with Lysenko

2011-01-21T17:46:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I went on a forest ginko. It was my first ginko with Myron Lysenko - I'd been trying to get to one and failing either through illness, busyness or clashing commitments, but yesterday's was around our part of the world so I knew I had to go.

It was fabulous! A group of us met at Earthly Pleasures - where we wrote haiku and Myron critted them and told us the rules for this particular ginko as well as some useful reminders about what haiku were about. Then we headed up to Grant's picnic ground where we all took it in turns to read summer haiku from The British Museum Haiku. After these rather awe-inspiring examples we ventured into the forest to write.

On one path I was on, a small wren started calling from one of the tree ferns. I love wrens and always look for them. So I was particularly delighted that this one was so close to where I was sitting.

Then, a couple with a squeaky stroller wandered past and the wren stopped instantly.

I'm posting all the revisions of this haiku to demonstrate both the writing process and the editing process - it's amazing the revisions one tiny poem went through!

1.

couple wheeling a stroller -
squeaky toy
the wren is silent

I edited this myself to:
2.

couple wheeling a stroller -
in the ferns
the wren is silent

By the time we sat down at Grant's cafe this had become:
3.

A couple wheel a stroller
along the fern path -
the wren is silent

After Myron questioning me about the experience that had lead to the haiku I suggested:
4.

a couple wheel a stroller
along the fern path -
the wren falls silent

I had a sense that Myron thought falls was a little too poetic for a haiku, but I didn't mind it. However he did point out that there was a lot happening in the one haiku.

There were some further questions - not by Myron but other members of the ginko and I came up with
5.

A couple wheel a stroller -
the wren stops calling.

which became:

6.

the wren stops calling -
a couple wheels a stroller

But I didn't really want to lose the ferns so the seventh draft read:
7.

the wren stops calling -
a couple wheel a stroller
through the ferns

Finally someone said something like, 'I don't get what actually happened.' and I said, 'Well there was this couple wheeling squeaky stroller along the path and this little wren stopped calling.'

Myron said, 'Why don't you just write that?'

Final version: (and eighth draft!)
the wren stops calling -
a stroller squeaks
through the ferns

It was a great afternoon - good company, generous workshopping, and the afternoon was both inspiring and productive.

Sneaking in a post before the New Year

2010-12-29T17:41:00.000-08:00

Christmas is a trying time for most people, I think. All that over-consumption, economic stress, family stress and time stress. At the end of it, every year, I say I'll do hand-made presents and sometimes I manage one or two. This year I was a little kinder on myself and grouped my presents primarily into about four categories: handmade, anything which promoted creativity, books and tickets to events. (I think the Accountant's mobile phone falls under Other...)

Now, I've entered my New Year preparations - done quite a lot of house-cleaning, made some resolutions, shucked off some burdens. I much prefer New Year to Christmas, the significance of which disipates when one lives with atheists. The New Year, on the other hand, is huge. It's a time to assess and set new guidelines for the year ahead.

I'm tackling this year month by month and January is my month of sustainability. Watch this space...

The Word Tree

2010-12-01T14:41:00.000-08:00

The Word Tree blooms again - featuring Robyn Rowland, Saturday 4th December @ Cafe Burrinjah, Burrinjah Community Centre, cnr of Matson Drive and Glenfern Road, Upwey. 3.00 - 5.00pm $3/5. Come and play tag haiku! Christmas raffle, lucky door prize - it's all happening with festive spirit!

American sentences

2010-11-23T14:37:00.000-08:00

I received Kim Addonizio's Ordinary Genius, A Guide for the Poet Within on Monday and one of the first exercises she sets is the american sentence - the american sentence was inspired by Japanese haiku and practised by Allen Ginsberg. So here are some of my american sentences:

Boys dive bombs the pool and a black and white butterfly - newspaper wings.

No sunset despite the new SD card - dark blue twilight, t.v. glare.

Small town Safeway - me twenty years ago - a trolley filled with children.

Holiday alone - too many books but forgot the deodorant.

Leonard Cohen concert

2010-11-21T22:48:00.000-08:00

I realised I hadn't mentioned the Leonard Cohen concert here, partly because it left me speechless and supremely happy. It was a generous, wonderful concert. I was priveleged to share it with my children, their respective lovers and my mother. It was a hugely fabulous night and made me rush home and book tickets for the Byron Bay Blues Festival. More music in my life!

Monday

2010-11-21T15:53:00.000-08:00

Despite breakfast out yesterday, a game of tennis with Keith (I won - even with a sprained calf muscle! Those lessons are paying off - now if only my improvement impresses the Wednesday evening social comp..., finishing the latest Simone Kirsch novel by Leigh Redhead, having a nap and generally futzing around, I still wrote 2952 words of Zelda last night.

Other things I'm thinking about is Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project. I'm really sceptical about self-help feel-good books - however some of the things Rubin is on about are things I've been thinking over the past few years. My attempts at putting into play my own happiness project have been largely defeated by - well, myself, I suppose! A failure of focus? A sense of being over-stretched? The whole life/work/writing balance that is ongoing and, often, as much a question of attitude as time.

So I've been delighted to discover Rubin, have found a beautifully huge blank book in my blank book collection and, during my spare time while I'm away on my country writing & marking retreat, I'm going to plan my own twelve months of happiness. I won't wait for the New Year - I'll start in December - which I think is pretty fitting considering it's one of the most stressful months according to popular wisdom, suicide numbers and other important statistics.

I doubt that I'll meet the NaNoWriMo 50,000 words - writing & marking season & a bad cold/hayfever don't mix, but I'm still happy I signed up for it - it has certainly made me more conscious of striving for a daily writing time, even when I haven't been able to put it into practise. I'll probably make it an annual event.

lagging behind with the poetry -

2010-11-15T15:56:00.000-08:00

it's marking season - what can I say? I'm also about 15000 words behind in NaNoWriMo - but I'm okay with that as I plan to mark mark mark this week and write write write next week.

However, instead of poetry I bring you a review. Hanging Out is a little book I wrote last year and which was published earlier this year. I was delighted with the whole process - everything about thiw book, from the writing onwards was a joy. I love the way it's been designed and Adam Caruthers illustrations are a joy. So I was doubly pleased to read this!

Small poems

2010-11-07T00:07:00.000-07:00

Japanese tourists
photographing spring blossom
at Puffing Billy.

Fluid boomerang of sound
top-knotted whipbirds
dance up the tree trunk.

Nine hours on the road
sleep is another highway -
my dreams change gear.

My first day of NaNoWriMo

2010-11-01T18:13:00.000-07:00

produced 3058 words - words which I was pretty happy with, too. I gave it to the Queen of Cupcakes to read and she liked, as did the Nanoson. It's a story I've been dreaming about for a while and writing in my head and my index card system - though certainly not up to Robert Olen Butler's standard - he has at least 200 index cards written on before he starts the novel - is a good way of jotting down ideas without labouring the point in a notebook. So, I'm pretty happy so far though I think the Melbourne Cup and our pizza oven firing might interfere with today's word count.

Still haven't found a good title for the new novel - I liked F. Scott and Me but someone's written a book, F. Scott, Ernest and Me - about going to Paris and writing, so that's out - probably why I thought of it in the first place. Never mind. Then I had the Summer of Gatsby - but my climax happens at the wrong time of the year for that title. Looks like it's just going to be one of those books where the title comes later. That hasn't happened to be for a few books.

Good luck or the Cup, everyone! Start typing and pass the champagne!

ideas to writing

2010-10-31T01:21:00.000-07:00

For the NaNoWriMo, I'll be using the index card system Robert Olen Butler talks about in his book, From Where You Dream. Butler - whose writing process seems to be quite similar to me - ie. pretty organic - advocates writing a phrase or even a word on an index card to indicate to you the progress of scenes throughout the novel. So, for example, my index cards for the first bit of Summer of Gatsby (or whatever the damn title is going to be!) might read something like this:
heartbreak
reading
meeting Arachne, the Wizard, Edge and Nick
the couch scene
The Great Gatsby

Meaningless to anyone but me, really. But what the index cards do is to remind you where you're potentially going. It's easy to shuffle the order around. It's not as prescriptive as an outline - and anyway, if I write an outline I feel as though I've written the actual novel and don't bother.

I'll also keep a notebook - hopefully more rigorously than last time, because I want to keep a record of characters and snippets of dialogue etc. Also tarot readings as Arachne is into the tarot. Plus phrases that come to mind, because I'm interested in trying, despite the word count pressure, to create a lyrical piece of writing.

Tonight in preparation for NaNoWriMo I'll be
a) finding the spare index cards
b) writing out character notes in the special notebook
c) filling in some of the index cards
e) spinning some fleece - oops, how did that sneak in there?

NaNoWriMo

2010-10-30T22:49:00.000-07:00

I signed up for this today. I don't actually expect to get a 50,000 novel written during the month of November, but you never know and I do want to jolt myself into some writing action so this seemed to be the ideal cattle-prod. I'll put aside the middle readers book, Star and Starlight, and work instead on my young adult novel which I've been thinking about. It's a shame November is also marking season, but that's life!

Anyone else interested in NaNoWriMo?

Poem

2010-10-30T20:34:00.000-07:00

For my mother who talks about god

She conceived me deliberately
on a waxing moon. My father
was a Rationalist.
She had luck on her side.
He believed in her version
of most things. She'd knuckled him out
of his safe life, the wife
complaining, the lawn and cocktails
women flirting their tennis knickers.
He believed you do good
for the sake of doing good.
Her horoscope
told her the world would open up
and she could just step right in
throwing down her spare change.

I walked out this evening, thinking about god.
The cold sky mocked my hasty shawl.
The dog scratched around, sniffing at recent puddles.
Above us the stars blinked on and off.
I didn't care what was next,
who was right; the Falling Tower
or the laws of probability.

I call you many things -
oilsheen on asphalt
the $2.00 daffodils
these words typed on the screen
those stars
that woman and man
or any woman, any man
walking with me
- or another child -
between them
foolish with the smell of spring.

Catherine Bateson 2010

This poem was written because my mother seems to be constantly querying the secular society and whether the children have been disenfranchised by the waning of religious practice and the rise of atheism. She was a Theosophist - among some pretty crazy beliefs, they believed sensibly in comparative religions. My father was a Rationalist. My children are atheists. I attended Quaker meeting off and on for some years. This poem is my response to my mother's concerns.

Publishing doldrums

2010-10-30T01:38:00.000-07:00

The publishing industry is in a bad away, according to most people I run into. My publisher has been made redundant - which leaves me - and other Woolshed authors, I'm sure - wondering what the hell we're going to do next. I had this thought the other day that it would be amazing to stop worrying about increasingly insignificant royalty cheques and all the career palaver that goes with this writing life and just give the writing away for free. (The Accountant was, needless to say, unimpressed.) The method of giving away writing eludes me a little - I'm no fan of reading page after page on a screen and anyway, the book is lovely artifact. However, I can readily give away poems.

As Gillian Welch says '...we're gonna do it anyway/Even if it doesn't pay.' ('Everything is Free', Gillian Welch & David Rawlings.

So, watch this space - a free poem posted every week!

Change of weather

2010-10-19T16:02:00.000-07:00

means swimming at Belgrave pool - they have a shoulder season through October. It's beautiful swimming outdoors in the morning when the sky is blue and white cockatoos sail overhead. Today the water was surprisingly warm. Yesterday it was not - I went to the pool wearing a scarf!

Reading - the biography of Gerald Durrell. He didn't ever really have faith in himself as a writer - compared to his brother Larry (Lawrence Durrell of The Alexandria Quartet fame - oh, I remember reading that back in Brisbane in the late seventies how exotic and wonderful it was for a young woman at the end of her teen years!)he regarded himself as something of a hack writer. But I think he was extremely hard on himself - his writing is beautifully crafted and constructed. Lawrence Durrell was always proudly warm of his younger brother - which must have been difficult when Gerald Durrell's fame - and fortune - was greater than his own - this was pre the publication of The Alexandria Quartet.

Writing - not today. But, on a positive note, the end of the Dip VET is in sight. Yay! Books keep arriving about The Great Gatsby. I hope to have the Elements of Fiction course re-written by the end of October. Then I can focus on my own writing again.