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Eileen Tabios’ Meritage Press is pleased to announce
the first Tiny Book for 2008
The first 2008 release is from The Tradition by Juliana Spahr
Tiny Books align poetry with fair trade and economic development issues. These are small books (1 3/4" x 1 3/4") made in Nepal by artisans paid fair wages, as sourced by Baksheesh, a fair trade retailer. All profits from book sales are donated to Heifer International, an organization devoted to reducing world hunger
by promoting sustainable sources of food and income.
Each Tiny Book costs US$10
plus $1.00 shipping/handling in the US
email MeritagePressATaolDOTcom for non-US orders.
To purchase Tiny Books send a cheque
for US$11.00 per book, made out to"Meritage Press"
to
Eileen Tabios
Meritage Press
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Rd.
St. Helena, CA 94574
USA
Please specify which titles you are ordering
The following Tiny Books are still available:
Speak which by Jill Jones
all alone again by Dan Waber
Steps: A Notebook by Tom Beckett
...And Then The Wind Did Blow... by Ernesto Priego
some hay by Lars Palm
Read Crg Hill’s blog post about Tiny Books
go here for poetry on monday night in sydney.
looks like it could be a bit naughty. here's hoping... 
stop press update friday 25th april - Berndt Sellheim is teaching
a class on monday night so Sarah-Jane Norman will be reading instead.
I love Gregory Corso
like I love
millipedes
like I love
I love like
piano rolls
sound like
takeaway
so
hold the margarine !
JT likes
the one who says
she’ll continue
to be
‘a misunderstood
free agent’
Tom Aquinas says
I can tell you
all about time,
but I can’t
tell you
what it is
what some say is
a parallel world
is actually
a tv repeat
how many repeats
half-remembered
in one lifetime ?
oh dear,
now
I’m buried,
it’s the wrong grave
I’m next
to a model pyramid
Cimitero Accatolico per gli Stranieri, Testaccio,
Rome, 2003 (foto by Susan Howe)
click the photo to enlarge to read the poem on gregory corso's gravestone
Listening to :The beauty of Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu’s songs on his solo album moves me to tears. His strong, high voice soars so smoothly.
In Gurrumul History (I Was Born Blind) his singing reminds me of the intense sweetness of Antony Hegarty of Antony and the Johnsons.
Watch and listen to I Was Born Blind.
Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu is from North East Arnhem Land, blind since birth, he plays,uniquely, right-hand strung guitars left-handed. He was formerly in Yothu Yindi and is now a member of Saltwater Band. The slow pace of most of the songs invokes a calm, contemplative mood.
In the moderate reggae/rock of Saltwater Band's Marwurrumburr, a song about a wild cat, Gurrumul's studio version on this album renders the language almost onomatopoeiac. His songs are in three Indigenous languages and sometimes in English.
The album is produced by Skinny Fish music
in Winnelli in the Northern Territory.
On her blog Mutually Said, Tracy Ryan writes about a recent production of Jacques Brel Is Alive And Well And Living in Paris and about her re-energised love for Jacques Brel’s music and performance. Read Tracy Ryan’s poem ‘Watching Brel' in the soon-to-be-completed next issue of Jacket magazine.
John Mateer's new book of poems
has been published by Salt Publishing
Here's a poem from Elsewhere:
Takbiran
There is a night when all radios transmit like minarets,
when the chanting of engines and firecrackers
is as comprehensive as the space in any loved room.
It's the night when windows tremble like the walls of Jericho,
when unbelievers acquiesce to the silence of their wide-screen TVs.
That night is stalked by a fasting moon and its thirsty day,
and with vibrato and reverb is everywhere breeding voices
like engineered wheat or a mirage in an Arabian desert.
That night is pursued by the single-eyed sun who squints
at the field of newspapers where families have knelt,
and squints again at them on scooters speeding to their ancestors.
On that night all is awake to the sound of the one Name.
Publisher's blurb : Presenting John Mateer’s poems about South Africa, Sumatra, Japan, the United States and Mexico, Elsewhere is an exciting introduction to a poet whose work has been receiving international attention for the past decade. Elsewhere is a vision of today’s world, a moral accounting of the history of the past five hundred years of Western colonization in one person’s experience.
Main description: Presenting work that John Mateer has previously published in South Africa, Australia, Indonesia and Japan, Elsewhere is an introduction to a poet whose work has been steadily receiving international attention over the past decade.
Elsewhere is divided into three sections: “Azania”, “Medan and Zipangu” and “Americas”.
The poems of “Azania” describe the poet’s memories of South Africa and his impressions when he has revisited the land of his birth, encountering animals, ghosts, Zulu and Maori poets, goldminers, gambling ‘madams’ and the urban ruins left in the wake of immigration.
“Medan and Zipangu” contain work written and published in Sumatra and Japan. More metaphysical than the South African poems, these poems capture the spiritual turmoil of one who finds in the act of encounter the means of undoing the psychic violence of the past. Sensual and detailed, they are steps towards the healing of a traumatized psyche, the rebirth of a wandering ghost.
The section concluding the book, “Americas”, reframes Mateer’s world through reference to those other New Worlds that are actually Old Worlds: the United States and Mexico. More ironic than any of his other work, these poems are pointed and political – one about Ground Zero, another about a Slovene poet who, with the poet, seeks out a shrine dedicated to Saint Death – and some with a deft sense of humour and surprisingly sexiness.
Elsewhere will be launched in Melbourne by
Kris Hemensley
Wednesday, 2nd April, 2008
6.00 for 6.30pm
Collected Works Bookshop
Level 1,
Nicholas Building
37 Swanston Street,
Melbourne
RSVP to Natalie: marketing@inbooks.com.au
Things to do in March and April :Reminder for the Vagabond Press reading
at University of Sydney
on Wednesday March 19th at 6.15pm
Art Exhibition Opening 
Alone at the moviesViken Minassian and Kerry Kirk
Directors,
Hat Hill Gallery
Invite you to join them for the opening
of Andrew Ireland's latest exhibition,
with organic wines and olives provided by Rosnay Wines.
Hat Hill Gallery
3 Hat Hill Road
Blackheath
On Saturday 22nd March
6pm - 8pm
Boxing Day At Nobby's Beach
Click to Preview
Andrew Ireland’s diverse imagery focuses on the figurative in order to support his whimsical visual narratives; be they absurdist, ironic or quotidian observation. His paintings seek to weave a tale ... a tale layered in encrusted oil, wax and varnish. These essential elements have grown out of his early training and experimentation as a painter/printmaker. Alchemical reverse processes attract Ireland both in fable and in method. The paintings contain gently opposing forces; dream-like conundrums merge with observed realities, melancholia entwines with comedy and time drifts between the contemporary and the nostalgic.
Andrew Ireland was born and educated in Manchester, UK, undertook a Foundation Diploma in Fine Art at Salford Technical College and achieved a BA Honours Fine Art (1st Class) in Painting and Printmaking at Brighton Polytechnic. After extensive travel through Europe Andrew emigrated to Australia in 1985.
In 1986-1997 Ireland worked as an illustrator for the Sydney Morning Herald, Australian Financial Review, The Times on Sunday and The Australian. He was awarded The Bulletin's Black & White Artists’ “Best Humorous Illustrator Award” in 1990.
In 1991 Ireland successfully exhibited his paintings at Rex Irwin Gallery, Sydney (Solo Show). His work was purchased by private collectors and Art Bank Australia.
During 1991-92 Ireland travelled to live and work in Italy, where he exhibited at Gallerie E5 (Solo Show), Verona and Southern Gallery, Rome. He returned to Australia and continued to work as a painter/freelance illustrator. He was regularly involved and employed in art education; Sydney College of the Arts, University of Newcastle, Sydney Graphics College, Billy Blue Design School, UTS, UWS and Blue Mountains Grammar School. At present he teaches art at Korowal School, Leura, NSW.
Books Do Furnish A RoomThe exhibition continues until 13th April
Gallery hours : 10am - 4pm Thursday to Sunday
or by appointment (02) 4787 7033
Kerry Leves
Sydney independent publisher Puncher & Wattmann
will launch Kerry Leves’ new collection of poems
A Shrine to Lata Mangeshkar
at Benledi, Glebe Library
186 Glebe Point Road
Sunday 30th March
at 3.30pm
Any account of Indian playback music must start and end with Lata Mangeshkar. Born September 28, 1929 in Indore, Lata Mangeshkar has been active in all walks of Indian popular and light classical music having sung film songs, ghazals, bhajans and pop. She is the supreme voice of popular Indian music, an Indian Institution. Until the 1991 edition, when her entry disappeared, the Guinness Book of Records listed her as the most recorded artist in the world with not less than 30,000 solo, duet and chorus-backed songs recorded in 20 Indian languages between 1948 and 1987.
The Lee Marvin Readings begin again
on April Fool's Day in Adelaide.
Program details here
The Leichhardt Espresso Chorus
at St James Church, Sydney on April 5th 6pm
THE CHILDREN
Dear Europe
If I'd known that I'd see you there
I'd have dropped everything & come running
Poems by Philip Whalen; Photographs by Aram Saroyan:
Aram Saroyan took photos of children more or less his own age while travelling in Europe with his father. He sent them to Philip Whalen who wrote poems based on them.
Read Aram’s note on the project.
Read 'The Children'. Published online in Big Bridge
(This post, with the gracious permission of Aram Saroyan,
did beat Ron Silliman's blog by two days)
Vagabond Press presents
PAM BROWN, CHRIS EDWARDS
& MARTIN HARRISON
reading from their work
Wednesday March 19th, 2008 at 6.15pm
Entry by donation.
Vagabond Press backlist on sale at reduced prices.
This reading is a fundraiser for the press.
Chris Edwards is the author of utensils in a landscape (Vagabond Press 2001), A Fluke: a mistranslation of Stéphane Mallarmé’s “Un coup de dés” (Monogene 2005) and Nicked (Vagabond Press 2006).
Martin Harrison is the author of The Distribution of Voice (UQP1993), The Kangaroo Farm (Paper Bark Press 1997), Summer (Paper Bark Press 2001) and Music (Vagabond Press 2005).
Pam Brown is the author of fourteen books and seven chapbooks including Dear Deliria (Salt Publishing, 2003), Drifting Topoi (Vagabond Press 2000) and Let’s Get Lost (co-author) (Vagabond Press 2005)
Wednesday March 19th, 2008 at 6.15pm
Department of English Common Room
John Woolley Building
Science Road
University of Sydney
Click here for a clunky campus map
1 minute from the Footbridge entrance from Parramatta Rd
National Apology
9am Wednesday
13th February 2008
The federal government will formally apologise to the
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Stolen Generations
of Australia next Wednesday morning.
Join Sydneysiders at 9am in Martin Place
to watch the speech on a giant screen.
Information here
Barbara Shaw, Mt Nancy Town Camp, Central Australia
The City of Sydney invites you to join us in witnessing and celebrating the historic moment of the Federal Parliament saying 'sorry' to members of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Stolen Generations.
Everyone and anyone is welcome.
The City will provide two opportunities to view the live to air telecast on 13 February at 9am.
Large screen in Martin Place
In conjunction with the NSW State Government
Indoor and outdoor screens at the Redfern Community Centre
29 Hugo Street Redfern
In addition to the 9am screening, Redfern Community Centre will hold a replay of the formal apology from 3pm with our Acknowledgement to Country, speeches by Elders from the local Aboriginal community, members of the Stolen Generations, the Lord Mayor and young people from the local community.
Other activities throughout the day include a community BBQ, children's activities, film screenings and live entertainment.
A community bus to the Redfern event will leave from the following locations:
8am - Juanita Nielson Leisure Centre
cnr of Nicholson & Dowling Streets, Woolloomooloo
8am - Ultimo Community Centre
40 William Henry St, Ultimo
8:15am - Glebe Library
186 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe (rear car park)
For more information please contact David Beaumont
dbeaumont@cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au
Phone: 9246 7873
AntaR (Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation) events
ANTaR believes that an apology should be the beginning of a process of reparation. However the government should do what it promised in opposition: comprehensively respond to the recommendations of the Bringing Them Home report, a number of which deal with compensation.
If you’re travelling to Canberra for this historic occasion you can find further information from the Aboriginal Rights Coalition here
For info on Reconciliation Australia click here
Media link here
An acrostic poem lands Burmese poet Saw Wai
in big trouble with the generals : click here
General Than Shwe, not happy
This coming Saturday:
JOHN FORBES
Ars Poetica
John Forbes scrutinizes the latest issue
of New Zealand literary magazine 'Landfall'
at 'a-little-loungeroom-reading' poetry party
at our home in Ultimo, Sydney
in Summer 1996
On January 23rd, 2008 it became 10 years since the terrific Australian poet, John Forbes died suddenly, at the age of 47. To mark the anniversary of his death, John’s fellow poets, his family, friends, fans and poetry-lovers in general, are invited to come and remember his life and work.
Readers include: Jaya Savige on the influence of John Forbes’ work on a younger generation of poets, Pam Brown on knowing John in the 1980s in ‘Petersham Days’ and John Tranter, Alan Wearne, Steve Kelen, Rae Desmond Jones and Gig Ryan.
Raving against the space
where the poem sounds
like a revolving door that
makes the noise a car makes
bumping into the dole –
that’s the target.
John Forbes, ‘Ars Poetica’
free event
3.30pm for 4pm
Venue: gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe
RSVP: gleebooks - 9660 2333
Info: Click here
Books available at Gleebooks:
John Forbes Damaged Glamour
John Forbes Collected Poems
Ken Bolton (editor) Homage To John Forbes
published by (Brandl & Schlesinger)
Ngapartji Ngapartji is the title of a theatre piece currently in performance in Sydney. It is ambitious, unwieldy, sometimes rough-edged, sometimes perfect. As a theatre experience, it is very powerful. It tells the story, in Pitjanjatjara and English, of the dispossession of Indigenous people by British nuclear tests at Maralinga in the South Australian desert in the late 1950s/early 1960s. But it has a global reach that encompasses Afghani, Japanese and Australian soldiers’ perspectives on atomic testing. It is told through dance, story, song and film. Hearing Talking Heads' Once In A Lifetime and Bob Dylan's The Weight and other songs in Pitjanjatjara is a unique pleasure.
ngapartji ngapartji :
I give you something - You give me something
Produced by Big hART, a group of professional artists, arts workers and producers who have been making work together for 15 years – creating theatre, film, television, painting, photography, dance, new media and radio.
Big hART most often works in small communities around the country, with people experiencing the effects of marginalisation in regional, rural, and geographically or socially isolated communities. Big hART experiments with the process of making art with such groups over three-year periods, honing the quality of their work, which is showcased in national and international festivals and media. This often creates new opportunities for participants, helps build skills in communities, assists regional development and helps foster a more inclusive Australian culture.
In addition to Ngapartji Ngapartji, Big hART is currently running a number of other projects around Australia, including Gold (Griffith and the wheatbelt, NSW); Lucky and No Comply (Tasmania’s north-west coast); Street Survivor (Melbourne); and Radio Holiday/Drive-In Holiday (north-west coast, Tasmania) and has recently completed the Northcott Project (Surry Hills, NSW) and Junk Theory (Cronulla, NSW).
Performance Information : click here
On now - Season Ends: 10 February 2008
Belvoir St Theatre
25 Belvoir St,
Surry Hills
Sydney
Peter McGregor
anarchist, hedonist, academic, writer, activist, friend
1947 - 2008
Obituaries :
one
two
three
