CRAFT + DESIGN CHALLENGE

And that’s a wrap — 

Some fabulous work created by almost 400 artists and makers during July thanks to the Craft + Design Canberra Daily Creative Challenge 25. Thirty-one days of creating in some shape or form, on the theme of ‘Rewilding.’ All the participants produced really impressive and inspiring bodies of work. You can see it all on Instagram. Including stuff by me. Writers welcome so there I am – infiltrating as as one friendly voice said.

The theme fits well with my current poetry project. (Tell you later.) I wrote draft prose poetry, semi-memoir (as poetry often is) and micro poems/haiku, sometimes combining them with quick splashy paint sketches as a (desperate) way of presenting them visually (not that that’s essential). Some days I produced art & text works which I do periodically — acrylic paint on small canvases with either found text or original haikuish pieces. It depended on what time I had that day or whether the daily word prompt had me flowing or floundering. 

Mostly motivating though occasionally frustrating, like when you come up with a great response to a prompt one day, only to find it fits a future prompt even better dammit. 

So … 16 small art & text canvases, a bunch of haikuish bits, a sprinkling of prose poetry drafts. Plus my Instagram account has moved from ‘No posts yet’ to 54 posts and 341 followers (I was so lagging) including many amazing creatives — thank you all. 

Prompt: Propagation 
Size: 13 cm x 13 cm #cdccreativechallenge25

I’m very grateful to Craft + Design Canberra for this opportunity. It came at the right time. Just when I’m pushing hard at getting back into the swing of writing and thinking about those same subthemes in a Binalong to Canberra context. (Prompt words included: water, moon, abundance, rejuvenate, nest

twined, rhythm, naked, feral ...) A big shout-out to artist daughter Aroona Murphy who still keeps a close eye on the Canberra arts scene all the way from Ireland, and brought it to my attention. 

So July challenge … I guess that’s a wrap! Or is it … have already started on art & text on canvas versions of the sketchy pieces. Let’s see what the end of August brings. And PS: regional poetry workshops rolling out soon — Yass, Young, Goulburn.

Prompt: Rhythm — Take 2
Size: 13 cm x 13 cm
#cdccreativechallenge25 

Prompt: Rhythm — Take 1
#cdccreativechallenge25 

POETRY & PLACE = JOY

 

[Riff] 

Unbelonging 

Place. ‘Mind your place.’ It’s not your place. It’s not my place. A place at the table. Stay in your place. Do you have a place? Give up your place. 

Place. New place old place lived in that place moved to this place moved from place to place settled in this place are you settled will you ever settle? Settled. Settler! 

Belonging. Not belonging. Unbelonging. 

Longing. 

This place. That place. No place.

Displaced. 

Place through the eyes of longing. Joy of place. 

Place through the eyes of unbelonging, longing. Poetry. Poetry of place. Joy of place. 

That’s the one. Joy of place. Poetry. Place poems. Share the joy. Here’s one. Hope you enjoy. 

grasses breezy 

land alive with skitter and crawl 

wedge-tails circling the rising air 

smaller raptors stooping 

dropping through sky 

Excerpt from the title sequence in my latest collection 

Bitumen Psalms (RRP $12.50 Flying Islands Pocket Poets, 2024/25)

One of eight new FIPP titles

Watch for readings

COMING BACK TO IT

Coming back to it.  Finding that the keyboard tray in this gifted desk offers a perfect space just under the laptop for scribbling research in a journal. Finding the decorative letter opener waiting with its sparkling faux gemstones and the marcasite butterfly – surprisingly ergonomic — and remembering the dear poet who chose this farewell present. Also remembering that when I open letters (invoices in!) I forget that I have a letter opener. I love letter openers. Sitting in the room at the front of the house reclaiming its ‘writing room’ status and recalling the view of the tracks just as the CountryLink train flashes passed. Thinking of the passengers on their way to Melbourne and reminding myself I always get directions wrong. So. Edit: Sydney. Then. Catching the sunset. And Venus I think. Next. Try catching poems.

RAINBOW SUITE

 

When you look out the kitchen window and see a distinctive golden glow to everything, that you can't quite describe and find yourself thinking it's the exact gold — pink-gold/brassy gold/amberish gold/slightly blood tainted gold as — and take your own word for it and dash outside and sure enough! The neighbouring land is a rainbow spot. This is possibly the longest bow I've seen stretching from neighbour on the left to neighbour on the right, some distance. I haven't heard who got the pot of gold. 

(Speaking of gold, there is bound to be a tube of paint with just the right name ... ) More views with and without in the changing light. And now for some haiku — I hope.

GIDDY-UP FOR POETRY IN BINALONG

 

Gallop in to A Brush with Poetry this afternoon 1.30 for 2.00 pm (or arrive when you can). Bring a poem (or a song) or just come to listen. It's serious, it's fun, it's moving, it's a bit silly, it's bush, it's contemporary, it's story, it's bloody good poetry. Something for everyone. Bring a friend. New and experienced very welcome ... poets/performers that is as for the friends that's up to you. It's in The Hive at the back of Café on Queen, Queen Street. (This is a photo of the Binalong Mechanics Institute this morning — not to confuse you — just to show you a typical Binalong day. There's a time when that might've been me! Seriously.)

I'll tell you about the amazing Jacqui Malins installation Wrack and Salvage later. Today is the last day. Take a trot (groan) over the Belconnen Arts Centre if you can't get to Binalong. Cheers.

IT'S ALL CONNECTED YOUTUBE LAUNCH

 

Here's a wonderful opportunity to hear a dozen or so prominent feminist writers from the forty contributors in It's All Connected: Feminist Fiction and Poetry (ed. Pauline Hopkins, Spinifex Press) — go to this YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIkFtfkNdbg to view a recording of Wednesday evening's Zoom launch. 

Among others you will hear Diane Bell talk about the importance of feminist writings at this time and give the backstory to her short fiction. Gina Mercer introduces us to 'Elevensies' a new form of poem developed by Kerry Shying. Sandy Jeffs reads excerpts from her epic poem Christmas Hills Rhapsody, Robyn Bishop tells how she moved from theatre to writing fiction and the shifts she worked through and Patricia Sykes has us thinking about the communities that anthologies of writing help form before reading her poem Elaine for her sister. Spinifex publishers Susan Hawthorne and Renate Klein and editor Pauline Hopkins are also included — on this occasion they have all written short fiction. The writers are also anthropologists, aerialists, actors, comedians, teachers, environmental activists, hockey players, health experts and more.

I was pleased to have the chance to read my poem The Poet inspired by a painting by Lily Prigioniero of the same title.

Thank you to Sarah St Vincent Welch for her eloquent launch speech in which she managed to reference every contributor. By the way Sarah is a featured poet in Geoff Page's poetry program along with Matt Hetherington, Monday March 6 at Smith's Alternative, Canberra at 7 pm.

A HEARTBEAT OF POETRY

 

I just discovered Racquel McKee in the Video Showcase of Writers in Northern Ireland on the EastSide Arts website. It's a very interesting representation of writers and worth a look at them all but make sure you stay tuned in until the end where Racquel talks about her storytelling traditions and recites The Sound of our Own Heartbeat. This piece was commissioned for the Links and Legacy 400 project organized by the African Carribbean Support Northern Ireland to commemorate 400 years since the start of the Transatlantic slave trade. It references Clifton House a landmark building opened in 1774 and known as The Poor House which gave voice to the enslaved.

Photo: Detail of the ancient Belvoir oak tree in Belfast

POETRY CALLS — BE QUICK!

 

Some poetry submission opportunities:

March 5

Quick! The fabulous Cordite Poetry Review's current submission call is for Cordite 109: No Theme 12, with guest editors Caitlin Maling and Nadia Rhook. Closes 11.59 pm Melbourne time, March 5.

April 28

Rabbit: A Journal of Nonfiction Poetry — always fascinating — is calling for submissions on the theme of Archive: 'How can we, as poets, return to the archive and reanimate voices and lives silenced through time and the resolve of official record-makers?' Closes April 28. Check the guidelines here and consider this: 'Name a poem that you like that draws on/relates to archival research/thinking and why you like it.' That's got you thinking! Send brief response with your poems and bio. Guest editors are Anne Casey and Jason Wee.

Open

Go to https://www.poetryfoundation.org for information on submitting to the Poetry Foundation's Poetry Magazine. Submissions seem to be open. Poetry has been running for 110 years. The Poetry Foundation also publishes essays, interviews, profiles and podcasts on its website.

Palette Poetry is open all year. Guidelines here: https://www.palettepoetry.com/submit/ Palette says: 'The world is eager for poets. In 2016, more people spent their hard-earned money on poetry books than in any other year on record.' Good news — I'd love to know more about those stats ... 

Photo: Ask a Rabbit by Lizz Murphy 

(acrylic and found text, 10 x 10 cm); private collection of Brad Scowcroft; 

from the solo exhibition Piece of Place 2022 with thanks 

to the Rabbit journal for the text (found in their Contents pages)

NOSTALGIA COMES IN BLACK & WHITE

 

Abridged is an exquisitely produced poetry and art magazine available in print and online. The poetry and visual work is so splendid that their launches often feature exhibitions of the visual work. Submissions are currently open and the theme is TERMINUS. Closing date: March 10. (I'm assuming it's still open to international contributors.)

The theme outlines are a delight in themselves: When the end feels all too near, the old lines, walls and boundaries ...  ... Nostalgia comes in black and white. Just some of many possibilities and prompts should you need them.

This issue is a collaboration with the Belfast Photo Festival. Submit your photos for exhibition, publication (Abridged) and cash prize opportunities.

Abridged is supported by The Arts Council of Northern Ireland.

Image: detail of charcoal drawing by Lizz Murphy

IRISH POETRY READING ARCHIVE

 

If you have any interest at all in Irish poetry — and who hasn't! — you might like to visit the Irish Poetry Reading Archive, Ireland's only curated digital collection where the voices of Irish poets, both North and South, doing readings, scholarly masterclasses, and in conversation, along with digital copies of poetry related materials (anthologies programmes posters) are preserved for future generations. If you're in Dublin, you will find the archives in the James Joyce library at the University College of Dublin (UCD) otherwise you can jump online and find them here. 

Poets include everyone from Nuala Ní Dhomhniall and Mary Dorcey to Theo Dorgan and President Michael D Higgins to Andrew Jamison [related by chance?? — nee Jamison here] and Michael Longley to Medbh McGuckian, Maíghréad Medbh and Christine Murray. You will also find Australian poets Anne Casey, Robyn Rowland and myself, all part of the Irish diaspora. This is just a sampling — all the poets are fascinating. 

I must thank and thank Anne Casey who put the Archive in touch with me. It was such a great experience to visit the James Joyce Library and to meet co-founder Ursula Byrne and her team — great thanks indeed to them. It was fun too, travelling from Belfast to Dublin on the train with daughter Aroona Murphy and testing the Guinness at a couple of venues before the return trip. 

Here are my eight recorded poems, including links: 

A Woman’s Work (after Jenni Kemarre Martiniello) from The Wear of my Face (Spinifex Press 2021) 

The Weight of Tomatoes from Two Lips went Shopping (Spinifex Press 2000) 

$600 from Six Hundred Dollars (PressPress)  

Departure from Stop your Cryin (Island Press)  

Felt from The Wear of my Face (Spinifex Press 2021) 

Out of the White from Walk the Wildly (Picaro/Ginninderra)  

Brown Hills from Two Lips went Shopping (Spinifex Press 2000) 

Syria’s Children from The Wear of my Face (Spinifex Press 2021) 

Photo: A Dublin afternoon in January

MAY DAY MAY DAY POETRY CALL OUT

 

If you’re writing about Antartica here’s a new opportunity to be published. Send up to four poems (of up to two pages each) to Griffith Review 77: Real Cool World (published in partnership with the Australian Antarctic Division) by May 13, 2022. Real Cool World will explore Antarctica as a place and as a canvas for imagination. This vast, dry continent drives much of the Earth’s weather, part litmus test for change at the world’s extremities and part canary in the coalmine...

Island Magazine — premium literary magazine of fiction, poetry, nonfiction and arts features — open to submissions from Australian and New Zealand writers until May 15. Island pays a fee of $125 (less cost of Island subscription if not currently subscribed). The current issue includes the winning entries of this year’s Gwen Harwood Poetry Prize. 

The Australian Centre for Leadership for Women (ACLW) is calling for prose and poetry submissions for a fund-raising anthology titled Prose and Poems for Ukraine by Women of the World. Deadline: May 22. 

Rabbit is currently accepting submissions of nonfiction poetry for Issue 36: the ART Issue. Think not: what does 'non-fiction' do to poetry; think: what can poetry (+ art) do to non-fiction? What do poetry and art bring to one another? How does one open and enlarge the field of the other? How do they enliven the 'real world'? More information here. Deadline: May 31.

Photo: Mini snowman by granddaughter Ruby (Belfast, January 2022)

BRANCHING INTO TREE POETRY

Monday Night

Just call me Twiggy — oh but that name is already taken!— and I’m not that build any more! — just that I can’t wait for tomorrow night’s Canberra Tree Week/Kindred Trees reading, with a grand posy of poems from prodigious poets Samia Goudie, C E Collins, Tony Steven Williams, Jacqui Malins, Amanda McLeod, S. K. Kelen, Shezhad Hathi and Jen Webb (and myself) and more tree themed treasures from the open mike. It’s a Monday night so of COURSE it’s at That Poetry Thing that’s on at Smith’s Alternative on Mondays, Alinga Street, Canberra. Huge thanks to Sarah St Vincent Welch for her exceptional ongoing Kindred Trees project — visit Kindred Trees online for superb tree poems and photographs.    

LOOKING SIDELONG AT POETRY

Saturday’s Poetry Reading 

There is a sense here of a poetic intelligence looking sidelong, as one looks to the night sky to see objects of beauty — even when the subject of the poet’s focus is something concretely calamitous. 

Thank you, Penelope Layland (Panorama/The Canberra Times), for your deeply thoughtful review of my latest poetry collection The Wear of my Face (Spinifex Press). 

I will read from The Wear of my Face at The Yass Book Store on Saturday at 3 pm. There’s an open mike and a chance to mingle and have a cup of tea with us poets. Host is Yass Book Store owner Joanna Hicks. Joanna has lived in Yass since 2009 and is thrilled to be able to share her love of books and reading with locals and visitors. 

The Yass Book Store is a treasure chest of current books on wide-ranging topics, regional art and craft and bric-a-brac. You should visit. Take your purse. You will definitely need your purse. Do people say purse? Wallet. Take your wallet. You will definitely need your wallet. Every time I go in I find something totally irresistible. 

RSVP to jo@theyassbookstore.com.au or phone 0408 654 911 or click here to register: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/310802497637

Photo: Don't be frightened — it's just a poet. Well actually, 

it's a bad-weather/possum on the aerial pixelated photo of a TV screen.

OK RIGHT — POETRY & BELONGING

Here’s an interview I did for the Belfast Telegraph one of the main papers in my hometown: ‘Place is belonging and writing about place can be a search for belonging' (October 16, 2021). I slipped it in before life went pear shaped. The first poem in The Wear of my Face is not about pears for nothing. However, with floods and wars, other people’s lives are currently even more peary. 

This is what I was thinking at the time: ‘I sometimes think I write to find solid ground in a story of loss, migration, colonisation and class. For me, place is belonging and writing about place can be a search for belonging – an attempt to understand one’s own displacement or the displacement of others and what that must be like.’

PS OK so the photo was actually taken in Dublin (January this year) rather than Belfast.

IPS RITES OF WOMEN ZOOM

What a blast it was reading with Marion Clarke (Northern Ireland), Amy Louise Wyatt (Northern Ireland), Kiri Piahana-Wong (New Zealand) and Makyla Curtis (New Zealand) in the International Page and Stage (IPS) Rites of Women Zoom event on Sunday night (my time). Great thanks to Gordon Hewitt for the invitation and Susan Millar DuMars for hosting the event.

The poetry was varied and evocative, rhythmic and striking and as someone else said — just sumptuous. These events Zoom and FB livestream, then remain on the  International Page and Stage Facebook page to be accessed at any time afterwards. Now that I have discovered it I am working my way through previous events and enjoying poets from all over Ireland and from all over the world.

Thank you friends/colleagues Deborah Faeyrglenn (Canberra), Curt Linderman (US) from The Cool People, The Night People FB group (Billy Collins followers) and Victoria McGrath (Yass NSW) for being there on Sunday. Thank you also to Jenni Kemarre Martiniello whose capturing glasswork was the inspiration for my poem A Women's Work which was of interest.

I've provided links wherever possible to everyone's online presence or examples of their work, and here is the link for Sunday night's Rites of Women recording: https://www.facebook.com/Internationalpageandstage/videos/305292555050900  Watch the IPS Facebook page for new events.

THAT POETRY THING MONDAY NIGHT

 

The charismatic Moni McInerney of the Belconnen Arts Centre (BAC will do me the honour of launching The Wear of my Face (Spinifex Press) at the sensational Smith's Alternative on Monday April 11 at 7 pm. The equally vibrant Sarah St Vincent Welch is MC representing the also sensational That Poetry Thing that's on at Smith's Every Monday. (See leaflet below.)

That's neither of them in the photo by the way. Thinking about BAC's lake setting reminds me of my days during the first Covid lockdown. My isolation/social distancing was not as active this person's — you did notice the pic is taken from within the car, right? Laptops, books, flasks of tea, chocolate biscuits ...

I'm one of two launches on the night. The inimitable Kit Kelen is the other with his Book of Mother collection. Short open mike. Free admission. Pass the word on, eh.

A LOVE POEM

A poem for Bill (excerpt) published in The Wear of My Face (Spinifex Press 2021).

 

Photo by Séan Hicks

SCARPERED

2021: Up and down. In and out. Bereaved. Scarpered.

City Hall Belfast

Arrived in Belfast on New Year's Eve. Here we are whizzing by the City Hall on our hunt for open (as advertised) Covid testing clinics on the required day. No luck. Isolation extended from 2 or 3 days to several days. No worries. Plenty of 'essential supplies' plus daughter's good friends made welcome-back door drops. Ironically, just after completing our iso' the UK gov ditched that requirement!

Cavehill

Did I mention it has snowed on and off? Rain of course in between. This is the view from my January bedsit. Rubbing shoulders with Cavehill. You can see all of Belfast from the top. The outline of Cavehill is likened to the profile of a sleeping giant and is said to have inspired Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels. And oh yes, sunset is around 4.30 pm.

ANCIENTS

 

One of two ancient trees left on our patch. I think it's a Eucalyptus melliodora (yellow box) but would have to double check (I used to know). Really this is me trying to resolve some Blog loading problems. I would like to write a poem for these survivors though. Just read that the flowers come in groups of seven. Fancy that.

Oh by the way there was a review of The Wear of My Face (Spinifex Press) in The Canberra Times recently. Great thanks to Canberra poet Penelope Layland: There is a sense here of a poetic intelligence looking sidelong, as one looks to the night sky to see objects of distant beauty - even when the subject of the poet's focus is something concretely calamitous. You can read the whole review online here.

POETRY OPPORTUNITIES

 

MYSLEXIA

Myslexia is a UK magazine for women who write. It publishes feature stories by well-known women writers and poetry and fiction by new and established. Submissions closing October 11 (I think) include: 

 

Eyeverse — a short poem of up to four lines on any subject, plus an original illustration related to the poem. 

 

Poems for the Planet — poems up to 40 lines. Theme for the next issue is 'Birds.' Judged by Climate Writer Linda France. NB This one is for subscribers only. 

 

Poet Laureate — poems up to 14 lines on news items and issues of topical importance. They’re interested in local news as much as world news. Include a link to your topic or news item of choice if possible. 

 

The next Showcase theme is to be announced — submissions will open in December. Meanwhile their Women’s Poetry Prize closes on December 6. First prize 2000 quid with 2nd and 3rd prizes. Poems can be any length.  

 

 

QUARTET

Quartet is a quarterly poetry journal featuring work by women over fifty. Send three poems between October 8 and November 8 to be considered for the next issue.They say: 'We want to read poems that tackle difficult themes, that bend or honor traditional forms, that surprise and illuminate, that are genuine, that have momentum and play with language.'