the deletions

31.10.11

Steve Evans' Third Factory's annual 'collectively-drawn map of the field' - lists & commentaries charting invited poets'current interests in poetry and related books is now complete.
Visit Attention Span 2011
My contribution can be found on the list and here.

19.10.11

Alexandria footpath

5.10.11

Last night in Glebe, Sydney - a wonderful reading, hosted by Toby Fitch at Sappho's Books. The poets were Tom Lee, Astrid Lorange, Ella O'Keefe, Tim Wright & Nick Whittock, Oscar Schwartz, Michael Farrell and Duncan Hose. Here are some photos of the readers and a few of the audience.

Ella O'Keefe

Mim Chat, Astrid Lorange & Johanna Featherstone

Adam Lippman,Toby Fitch & Tom Lee

Oscar Schwartz

Astrid Lorange & Johanna Featherstone

Chris Edwards & Amanda Stewart

Michael Farrell, Tim Wright, Oscar Schwartz, Nick Whittock & Ella O'Keefe

Duncan Hose by James Abbott McNeill Whistler

Duncan Hose by Henri Fantin-Latour

Chair by Giorgio Morandi

25.9.11

A truly impressive and stimulating poem that I’ve read recently is ‘Evental’ by Ali Alizadeh.

Ali Alizadeh says in the frontispiece that this poem is an attempt at versifying the tenets of the work of Alain Badiou and draws on a number of his key texts - Being and Event, Conditions, Ethics, and Metapolitics.

Using his customary couplets, Ali condenses to an intelligent précis a history of revolutionary France, canvasses troubled war times in Iran, tries mathematical formula that might contain the vocation of poetry and so on. The long poem ‘Evental’ is followed by a personal coda - another poem, ‘Evening Star’.

Published as a Vagabond Press Rare Object chapbook, this is another of their extensive list of affordable poetry publications. Visit Vagabond Press here. (The site is currently being rebuilt but you can email direct to salesATvagabondpressDOTnet.)

16.9.11

Justine Poon from Something Else on Eastside Radio (89.7FM) sent me some of the questions that there wasn't time to talk about in the conversation in August. She has posted it as a follow up on the blog here.

7.9.11

In 1984, Colin McCahon went missing for 24 hours in Sydney. Found the next morning, kilometres from where he started, he had no memory of who he was or where he had been. In Dark Night: Walking with McCahon, Martin Edmond traces McCahon’s possible footsteps, past pubs and monuments, art galleries and churches, barracks and parks: to accompany him some way into the darkness of his end. Edmond’s record of the journey is a brilliant exploration of a city and its denizens; of the nature of art and the foundations of faith; and of the shadowy crossroads where they intersect.

Read about Colin McCahon here.

And for Martin Edmond, click here.

19.8.11

I’ve added a link to Blogs & beauty spots on the deletions sidebar to the Sydney Eastside Radio (89.7 FM) program ‘Something Else’ podcasts.

I was invited to their studio in Paddington Town Hall last night to read poems and converse with Justine Poon. Here’s the link. The podcast should be on the web soon. You can listen to earlier poetry readings and talks by visiting the podcasts link above. There's also a blog.

If you go to Blogs & beauty spots on the sidebar you’ll also find a link to Cath Kenneally’s program from Adelaide, Writers Radio, which has extensive podcasts of poets and novelists readings and interviews. Just scroll down to Television & Radio.

5.8.11

An incredibly various, eclectic group of Australian poets who might often differ in practice and thinking are here translated into Mandarin by Song Jijiang, Debby Sou Vai Keng and Iris Fan Xing. Edited into an anthology by Australian expatriate poet, editor, and academic in Macao, Kit Kelen, who was ably assisted by Song Zijiang. Cover drawing by Carol Archer. Published by ASM Poetry, Macao.

Adam Aitken : John Bennett : Pam Brown : Anna Couani Rae Desmond Jones : Carol Jenkins : Kit Kelen : S. K. Kelen : Andy Kissane : Martin Langford : Myron Lysenko : Chris Mansell : John Mateer : Ron Pretty : Clive Ralfe : Philip Salom : Beth Spencer : James Stuart : John Tranter : Chris Wallace-Crabbe : Les Wicks : Song Zijiang

A pocket size (10 x 13cm) book of poems by Rae Jones, published by Cerberus and ASM Poetry, Macao

Rae Desmond Jones was born in the mining town of Broken Hill, in western New South Wales. He migrated to Sydney at the age of 17, but still maintains contact with his origins. He published number of books of poetry through the 1970s, and several novels in the 1990s. After becoming Mayor of the inner Sydney Council of Ashfield (& retiring in 2007), he published ‘Blow Out’, a further book of poems in 2009. He has a family of two sons and a daughter. Barring a resurgence of irritation with the holders of municipal power, he wants to devote the rest of his life to literature, so long as literature is as keen on him as he is on her.

Kit Kelen’s new and selected collection ‘China Years’ also published by ASM Poetry, Macao

Christopher (Kit) Kelen

1.8.11

Corey Wakeling has written a summary of the recent Poetry & the Contemporary Symposium in Melbourne. It's published in Cordite online magazine here.

and here's Corey (in the cap) at the Bella Union bar during the conference -

(photo by John Tranter)

26.7.11

Book Launch - Sydney - Sunday Arvo 14th August

click to enlarge

19.7.11

photo by Elsa Dorfman

The blog 'The Allen Ginsberg Project' has a video interview with Allen Ginsberg made during his trip to Australia in 1972. Jeune Pritchard made the interview, I think for the ABC program, 'GTK.
Visit the blog and watch the video here.

17.7.11

VLAK 2

Litteraria Pragensia's second issue of VLAK magazine is an exciting issue. It includes Ali Alizadeh's essay on contemporary 'experimental' poetry in Australia - 'Avant-Garde in the Antipodes'.

The editors for this issue are Louis Armand, Ali Alizadeh, Edmund Berrigan, Stephan Delbos, Jane Lewty, David Vichnar and Carol Watts.

For information and to buy a copy click here.

click on the itinery to enlarge

13.7.11

Recently, many Australian poets were interviewed by Michael Brennan for Poetry International Web

If you’re wondering what Vladimir Mayakovsky’s book cover and Allen Ginsberg’s signature have to do with Australian poetry,
then click here to read Michael’s interview with me. You’ll find
all the other interviews on the sidebar of the page.

Links to mentioned Mayakovsky poems -
Brooklyn Bridge here
A Cloud In Trousers (part one) here

28.6.11

Poetry and the Contemporary Symposium
7-9 July 2011
Venue: Victorian Trades Hall, Melbourne

Convened by Ann Vickery & Michael Farrell

For further information, the program and details about a reading at the famous poetry bookshop ‘Collected Works’ click here

Over two nights, join us and some of Australia's best poets for papers, panels, roundtables, readings and book launches.

THURSDAY 7 JULY - 5.15 for a 5.30 start

Pam Brown - Complaints Department: what I've heard - a few gripes about the incorporation of Australian poetry plus some whining about poetic content, or, what's wrong.

Pam Brown is an associate editor of Jacket and, currently, Jacket2 and a past poetry editor of Overland, she is the author of numerous collections including Authentic Local, True Thoughts, Dear Deliria (NSW Premier’s Award for Poetry winner 2004), Text Thing, and 50-50.

Vivienne Plumb - Fact or Fiction: Meditations on Mary Finger.
A performance lecture that comments on the symbiotic relationship between the critic/curator and the writer/artist/creator

Vivienne Plumb writes poetry, drama, and fiction. She was born in Sydney and has lived in New Zealand for some time, and presently lives between Sydney and Auckland.

Grand Parade Book Launches:
* Perrier Fever by Pete Spence, and
* 6am in the Universe by Benjamin Frater
with Alan Wearne, Kris Hemensley, and John Hawke.

There has to be limits to suffering the sheer volume of poetasters and their doggerel (no matter how 'free', no matter how 'well made') that continue to swamp Australian verse. For although all poetries have and have had them, toleration is finite. Come along then to the launch of these two magnificent books.

Five Islands Press Book Launch:
* Vishvarūpa by Michelle Cahill
Launch by Jill Jones
Of ‘Vishvarūpa’ Chris Wallace-Crabbe writes: “Can there be any Australian poet who has entered with such lyrical depth into the intermingling voices of Australia and India? Our literature is immediately changed by ‘Vishvarūpa’?'

SATURDAY 9 JULY - 6.15pm for 6.30pm start
Book Launches:

* One Under Bacchus by Duncan Hose
The second collection of 2010 Newcastle Poetry Prize winner, Duncan Hose. With its title a cunning anagram of the author’s own name, One Under Bacchus will whet the appetite of poetic truffle hunters. A supersaturated cosmic wealth of cornucopiac phrase, it taunts much & invariably delivers a banquet of soft-skun, delicately chewed, and poutingly cured textual delights.

* Career by Liam Ferney
The second collection by Liam Ferney, a past editor of Cordite Poetry Review and associate editor of papertiger. A ‘Daewon Song meets Jackie Chan’ spectacular, Ferney frees cliché from betwixt press releases and promos, snapping apart short-order culture & shuffling sharp critique with an effervescent dodge of the syntactic curb.

Steamer and Rabbit Launch Special
with MCs: Sam Langer and Jessica Wilkinson
and readings by Emily Bitto, Stuart Cooke, Will Druce, Marty Hiatt, Fiona Hile, Sam Langer, Tom Lee, Jal Nicholl, Sharne Vate, Corey Wakeling, Nick Whittock, Jessica Wilkinson, Caroline Williamson, and Tim Wright.

Rabbit - a journal for poetry is a new print-based quarterly journal for poetry, poetry reviews, and interviews with poets, with an emphasis on new and emerging rabbits.

Steamer is the first Australian poetry magazine to employ André Breton's principles (as defined in the first Surrealist Manifesto) of Automatic Editing, in anything like a rigorously systematic manner. Since November 2010 the magazine has been committed to searching out and presenting the most exciting poetry and anti-poetry of its times and places in an affordable, visually attractive, and portable format.

For the Bella Union site click here.

11.6.11

more night art

John Gillies: Parramatta Road Project (no1)

a site specific video installation

ARTICULATE Project Space
247 Parramatta Road
Leichhardt, Sydney
(opposite Cass Bros)

Tues - Mon 17.00 - 09.00
21 - 27th June

view when dark from footpath or vehicle

opening

Tues 21st June (winter solstice)
17.00 - 20.00

You can find out more about John Gillies here & here

10.6.11

VIVID

Sydney Opera House before Lights On

Vivid a festival of light, music and ideas is about to wind up in Sydney this weekend. In 2009 the first Vivid festival was curated by Brian Eno and last year by Laurie Anderson and Lou Reed. Each of the festivals project images and light onto the 'sails' of Jorn Utzon's Sydney Opera House. I missed seeing both preceding light and image shows due to geography (living out of Sydney) and indisposition.

I've been curious to see it and now that I'm living in Sydney again I've visited this event. This year it's curated by Sydney-based Steve Pavlovic a.k.a 'Pav' from Modular Recordings. He invited a young French trio, SUPERBIEN to do the projections and they are super.

There are professional photos on the web site (click on 'Vivid' above) but here are a few of my snapshots (obviously taken with a pocket camera, no flash, no tripod) of the lights.

Sydney Opera House just before…

Some city buildings have projections - including Customs House and the Marriot Hotel. The AMP building is blue and the Circular Quay Railway Station façade turns red and blue, framing the bay for the Opera House projections.
Around the Quay there are light sculptures by local artists. I love the stalactites, by Katharine Fife and Andrew Daly on the ceiling of the walkway under the Circular Quay railway tracks.

Stalactites

When you see a city lit this way you look at other lights and neon signs more keenly. The final snap is the speed limit sign on the railway.

22.5.11

Puncher & Wattmann
invite you to a booklaunch -

Ken Bolton's Sly Mongoose
(launch speechette by Pam Brown)

at
The Fiend in Hand
58 Cowper Street, Glebe
Sunday 5th June 3-5pm

Sly Mongoose deals with the vagaries of the Adelaide
art-scene, the career of Cy Twombly, the Sydney of the 1920s, 40s
and today. A quartet of poems treats a single locale and time-frame
from the point of view of an ‘ordinary punter’, a beaver, a worried
mother and a cyclist; and there is a sequence drawn from a diary of
travel through an imaginary Africa in the 1970s, each entry partly
structured around a buried pun or near-pun; a further pair of poems
deals with after-echoes, among his friends, of the passing of John
Forbes.

Ken Bolton is self-described as a gay, light-hearted bastard, who cuts
a moodily romantic figure within the dun Australian literary landscape,
his name inevitably conjuring perhaps that best known image of him,
bow-tie askew, lipstick-smeared, grinning cheerfully at the wheel of his 1958 Jaguar D-type, El Cid.

Ken Bolton has published a good deal of art criticism, some of it
collected in Art Writing (Contemporary Art Centre of South
Australia). He edited Homage To John Forbes (Brandl & Schlesinger)
and wrote the monograph Michelle Nikou. He edited the magazines 'Magic Sam' and 'Otis Rush' and has published many books of poetry. Wakefield Press published The Circus in 2010 and Vagabond Press A Whistled Bit Of Bop. His earlier titles from Wakefield Press are At The Flash And At The Baci and Untimely Meditations.

16.5.11

The Coalcliff Days exhibition closes next Sunday so there is still some time to visit. Here are a few images from the exhibition and you can find out more about it here.