POETRY FESTIVITIES

Poets in the Newcastle Writers Festival —
here I am with Bronwyn Rodden (right).

Countdown 

And action!

Had a fantastic weekend at the Newcastle Writers Festival earlier this month. Another group launch/reading from Flying Islands new releases and an opportunity to see long-term poet friends and colleagues in person instead of mainly on Facebook. Pictured on standby above: Maggie Ball (MC), Nathanael O'Reilly (left), David Adès, Tug Dumbly, Brian Purcell, the empty chair (me), Bronwyn Rodden — and Maggie in action. All the poets were sensational — the audience seemed to agree.

My next readings include: 

•National Folk Festival over Easter with Postcards from the Sky 

•Manning Clark House April 24 — (just an informal gathering of Flying Islands poets at 5 pm and dinner) then Christopher/Kit Kelen Flying Islands Series Editor and MCH featured poet of the month 

•Yass Book Store (watch for changes there) April 26 — with Jane Baker, Victoria McGrath, Robyn Sykes, Ali Whitelock.

POETRY RAGE

Poet and co-MC Maggie Ball
launches 100 Poets

 

Poet Sarah St Vincent Welch launches
Bitumen Psalms (Kolkata/Calcutta style).
Photo: Dylan Jones

Poet and singer/songwriter Clark Gormley (left)
has a moment with co-MC Richard James Allen

So it was a raging success! A ton of Flying Islands poets, friends and supporters at The Shop Gallery in Glebe, January 26, all celebrating this year’s seven new Pocket Poetry titles, alongside Flying Islands’ first anthology 100 Poets! 

The pocket books are: Filmworks by Brian Purcell, Flower Ash by Huang Fan — translated by Josh Stenberg, The Heart’s Lush Gardens by David Adès, Separation Blues: Poems 1994-2024 by Nathanael O’Reilly, Stranded by Bronwyn Rodden, Tadpoems by Tug Dumbly and my own Bitumen Psalms. 100 Poets is edited by Brian Purcell and Flying Islands Series Editor Kit Kelen. 

Richard James Allen, poet, filmmaker, choreographer and performer was an entertaining emcee for the 2025 Pocket Poets section. The engaging Maggie Ball, poet, novelist and podcaster, launched 100 Poets and kept the lively mood going during readings by quite a number of contributing poets. 

All the launch speeches were thought provoking. A special mention to dear friend and collaborator Sarah St Vincent Welch, writer, image-maker, editor, and writing teacher. Sarah gave me a Calcutta style launch where basically every time the new book (tied with red ribbon) is held high, the whole audience applauds resoundingly. And they did. It added to the joy of this celebratory occasion. I especially enjoyed Sarah’s personal story of having to write out Psalms at school, a writing exercise she enjoyed. Very special thanks also to Dylan Jones for the book design and Kate O’Connor for the author photo. 

The readings were inspiring, amusing, enlightening. Across these new poetry titles, you will find poems on the history of great films, poems of wonder and sadness, poems of cultural or political absurdity, poems that get to the heart of the matter, travel through times and homelands, and poems that explore the strange worlds of everyday life and other complexities. 

Phyllis Perlstone reads her poem
published in 100 Poets

Visit https://flyingislandspocketpoets.com.au/product-category/2025/ to see these books and their striking covers. Click on each cover image for full information (and from where I borrowed descriptions in the above paragraph). Subscribe to receive all of this year’s new releases and a bonus two Flying Islands books. Alternatively, you can just order individual titles. 

A bonus for us all was sharing the space with poet, musician and artist Brian Purcell’s solo exhibition Floodlands. Whether tantalising waterscape or delectable still life, Brian’s paintings move with colour and vitality. You can see more here: https://brianpurcell.art Of course we all owe enormous thanks to The Shop Gallery owners, poet and artist Anna Couani and sculptor Hilik Mirankar.

At The Shop Gallery:
Floodplains exhibition by Brian Purcell;
Pocket Poetry sales on the pavement

Poet and exhibiting artist Brian Purcell
— also co-editor of 100 Poets

ST BRIGID PATRONESS OF POETRY

 

Pleased to be reading with Irish-Australian poets Moya Pacey and Rosa O'Kane at the Canberra Irish Club on Saturday. We are celebrating St Brigid patron saint for poetry, learning, healing, protection, blacksmithing, livestock, and dairy production. Also Celtic Goddess for the same.

There's a great read at Image — 'Brigid: The original female trailblazer' — where you will learn that Brigid liberated women from slave and bondswomen roles, had healing powers, was a master brewer of ale and as Abbess managed 15000 nuns. Ireland only recently gave her a public holiday of her own putting her finally on the same level as St Patrick!

Anyway come along on Saturday at 1.00 pm — there'll be poetry, singing, dancing and stew! And I'll show you my new book Bitumen Psalms.

LAUNCHING THE YEAR WITH POETRY

Nothing like the launch of a new collection at the start of the year to get you back into it. Bitumen Psalms will be launched with six other Flying Islands Pocket Poets collections and their special anthology 100 Poets on Sunday January 26 (yes Australia/Survival Day) at 2 pm in The Shop Gallery, 112 Glebe Point Road, Glebe. All welcome. 

I am thrilled that long-time friend and stunning writer Sarah St Vincent Welch has agreed to do the honours. Her words as always will be eloquent and thoughtful. Sarah was one of my readers at manuscript stage offering fabulous support and advice. Dylan Jones, designer and photographer did an excellent job of typesetting and designing Bitumen Psalms and was also a dream to work with. Looking forward to the road trip to Sydney with this talented team. Forever grateful. 

Please see the invitation above for all the new books. The other 2025 Flying Islands Pocket Poets are David Adès, Tug Dumbly, Huang Fan translated by John Stenberg, Nathanael O’Reilly, Brian Purcell, Bronwyn Rodden. The 100 Poets anthology is edited by Brian Purcell and Kit Kelen. RRP $12.50 pb; $6.25 e-book. Buy the books on the day or order online. Support Flying Islands Pocket Poets by subscribing. 

These new releases will also be launched as a group at the Newcastle Writers Festival in April. Watch for various individual launches and events in between.

SIGNATURE POETRY

The new year is up and running with Poetry at Manning Clark House in Canberra tonight (Thursday, January 19 at 7 pm) and A Brush with Poetry in Binalong Sunday week. 

Manning Clark House (MCH)

Great round-up this evening at MCH with almost thirty poets reading one of their ‘signature’ poems. They’re all so fabulous I can’t pick a sampling, so here’s the whole list: Michelle Brock, Rohan Beuttel, Penelope Cottier, Judith Crispin, Christopher Dorman, Suzanne Edgar, Paul Hetherington, Kathy Kituai, Jacqui Malins, Kerrie Nelson, Penelope Layland, Lizz Murphy, Gemma Nethercote Way, Mark O'Connor, Rosa O'Kane, Moya Pacey, Geoff Page, Sandra Renew, Sarah Rice, Barbie Robinson, Shane Strange, Jen Webb, Sarah St Vincent Welch, Luke Whitington, Tony Williams, Kimberly Williams. Hosted by Hazel Hall and Kimberly Williams — a dynamic duo. See you at Manning Clark House, 11 Tasmania Circuit, Forrest. 

A Brush with Poetry

Then it’s a country drive for A Brush with Poetry on Sunday, January 29 at 1.30 for 2 pm. It’s a shared mike afternoon with all styles of poetry and performance — from ballad to sonnet to free range; from bush narratives to contemporary topics — read or recite, sing or make music. A Binalong Arts Group (BAG) signature event. BAG President and Brush Coordinator, Robyn Sykes is available by text on 0401 289 178 for any queries or bookings. Free but donations welcome. Join us at Café on Queen, Queen Street, Binalong — light meals, snacks, cake, coffee, wine etc available. Supported by Southern Tablelands Arts (STA).

Please note: no Zoom available on this occasion.

PS Happy New Year everyone.

POETRY — IT'S ALL CONNECTED

It’s All Connected: Feminist Fiction and Poetry has just arrived from Spinifex Press. It looks luscious! 

Edited by Pauline Hopkins it features new work by almost forty writers including Dianne Bell, Merlinda Bobis, Susan Hawthorne, berni m janssen, Renate Klein, Primila Venkateswaran, Patricia Sykes and the late Jordie Albiston. 

My poem The Poet is inspired by a painting of the same title by artist and poet Lily Prigionero. It was a challenge posted by The Ekphrastic Review in July 2021. While my poem didn’t get selected for that journal — you can read the twenty or so wonderful selections here — I am thrilled that this more developed version was accepted by Pauline for her anthology. 

Lily’s painting took me on a journey through time and place, covid and caring. The Canberra café I write about as opposed to the café in the painting, is Café 2615 in Belconnen, where I would frequently spend a few hours while my late husband Bill was on dialysis (three times a week). Under the veil of the pandemic this normally hectically busy café was surreally quiet, emphasising our changing world. 

Anyway, this is my reading for tonight and I’m so looking forward to it. Pauline Hopkins’ own piece Paige will stay with me ... forever ... you will find it on page 195. 

You can order It’s All Connected from all good bookshops and from the Spinifex Press online shop. 

PS There is a little more about that day in the café and a seed of the poem in this post from 2020.

 

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.

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.

CANBERRA LAUNCH MONDAY 7 PM

 

POETRY LAUNCH ON YOUTUBE

Spinifex Press turned on a great Zoom, loads of people turned up and Merlinda Bobis was fantastic. If you'd like to hear Merlinda’s launch talk and poems from The Wear of My Face you can catch it all on YouTube here.

THE WEAR OF MY FACE

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I don't know how it happened but suddenly I have a new book! The Wear of My Face Zoom launch is on Thursday September 16 at 6 pm. YES! That's today! All welcome but you need to register (tickets free) with Eventbrite by 4 pm. Here's the link: thewearofmyface.eventbrite.com.au Award winning author and playwright Merlinda Bobis is doing me the honour.

For more information and to order the book visit here. Thank you Spinifex Press. Thank you Camilla Duffy for author photos. Thank you ACT Government for support.

BOOK OF THE WEEK!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you jump on to the Spinifex Press website now you might be just in time for a 25 per cent discount on Two Lips Went Shopping — it’s Book of the Week! 

 

There are poems from both sides of the shop counter. Some a bit of a laugh while others are eye-rollers. Still others document important change — equal pay for example — yes I was working when that all happened. The book doesn’t stay on the shop floor though. It covers a range of social issues … Published a while ago I think it still holds its own.

 

(The title poem is another story. Small, visual and on the fun side it was inspired by Dada poetry.)

 

Two Lips Went Shopping was supported by the ACT Government through a 1998 ACT Creative Arts Fellowship (Literature) and I continue to be grateful for the chunk of writing time that provided. (I’m also sorry the ACT Creative Fellowships were discontinued at some point.)

FOXLINE - POETRY LAUNCHING TODAY

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

If you want to ‘sing and weep’ read Foxline by Chris Mansell (Flying Island 2021). My precious few moments for myself lately have been spent in the sun with this riveting collection where ‘the moon arched like a fox eye;’ where ‘the farmer cuts back in despair’ and the fox ‘sniffs the long dead line of them.’ This book is never still. Delightful foxlines; wrenching foxlines.

 

It is launched today by Jean Kent at The Shop Gallery, 112 Glebe Point Road, Glebe (2.00-4.00 pm) alongside another seven Flying Fox titles by KA Rees, Steve Armstrong, Robert Edmonds, Myron Lysenko, Irina Frolovo, Ross Donlon, Harold Legaspi. Congratulations to all the poets and poet/publisher Kit Kelen. More info on this event here: 

https://whatson.cityofsydney.nsw.gov.au/events/flying-islands-pocket-poets-book-launch

Sorry this is just a quick note — flyin! Cheers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

POETRY @ MANNING CLARK HOUSE

 
Carmel Summers (Canberra) Tricia Dearborn (Sydney) Marianne Boruch (USA)

'It's a superb lineup of three great poets and definitely not to be missed,' Hazel Hall, MCH Poetry Coordinator.

April 25, 2019 at 7.00 for 7.30 pm Manning Clark House 11 Tasmania Circuit Forrest ACT. 

$10 entry includes nibbles and wine and door prizes. 

Carmel Summers Canberra

Camel Summers writes technical manuals in the daytime and poetry at night and wishes it was the other way around. She's had poetry published in journals in Australia and overseas and been shortlisted for poetry prizes including The Blake, Glen Phillips, Adrian Abbott and Magic Oxygen (UK). Carmel’s latest book, The last day before snow: An invitation to travel won the 2017 ACT Writing and Publishing Award for poetry.

Tricia Dearborn Sydney

Tricia is an award-winning Sydney poet. Her third collection, Autobiochemistry, is just out from UWA Publishing. Her poetry has been featured in significant anthologies including Contemporary Australian Poetry, Australian Poetry since 1788 and The Best Australian Poems. She will be appearing at Poetry on the Move 2019 and is a judge of this year’s University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize.

Marianne Boruch USA

Marianne is an Emeritus Professor in the Department of English at Purdue University, West Lafayette. She’s visiting Australia as a Senior Fulbright Scholar at UC to write a series of poems on Australian wildlife. Marianne is fascinated by Australian history, especially Aboriginal stories and records of the first Western contact with the wildlife. She has published 11 collections of poetry. Her most recent works are The Anti-Grief, Copper Canyon Press, (forthcoming 2019), Eventually One Dreams the Real Thing, Copper Canyon Press, 2016 and Cadaver, Speak, Copper Canyon Press, 2014.

Thank you to poet Hazel Hall for this information and for her grand contribution to poetry. Btw photo from my garden — not Manning's :)

MORE OF THAT POETRY THING!

Marie MacMillan (Sydney) opens the open mike!

That Poetry Thing! that's on Monday Nights at Smith's, Smiths Alternative, 76 Alinga Street Civic ACT

Had the best time at That Poetry Thing! on Monday night. Apart from stunning poets Sarah St Vincent Welch and Anna Couani and their book launches, there were good performances in the open mic session, starting with Marie MacMillan and her entertaining acronym tongue twister. Thanks to the team of poets who keep this lively program happening every week. See below for programmed features over the next few weeks or visit https://www.smithsalternative.com/calendar (and thank you to poet Hazel Hall for including this info in her own mail-outs).

 

15 April

Featuring a reading from Behrouz Boochani’s award-winning No Friend but the Mountains. Special guests. Silent auction. For a donation, read your own poem or another poet’s on themes of exile, expatriation, border crossings, transposition & assimilation. 

22 April — Richard James Allen + Steve Armstrong

For Easter Monday, a pair of NSW poets both published by University of Western Australia Press. Sydney's Richard James Allen introduces his new collection The short story of you and I, while Newcastle's Steve Armstrong presents poems from his debut Broken Ground.

$10/$5 on the door. Open mic.

29 April — Tricia Dearborn + Gregory Piko

Tricia Dearborn will launch her third collection Autobiochemistry (UWA Press). Tricia has been widely published in literary journals and anthologies. She is on the editorial board of Plumwood Mountain an online journal of ecopoetry.

Gregory Piko's writing has appeared widely. His awards include joint first place in the WB Yeats Poetry Prize for Australia and first prize in the New Zealand International Haiku Competition. Gregory collaborated with Vanessa Proctor from Sydney in writing Blowing Up Balloons: baby poems for parents (Red Moon Press).

$10/$5 on the door. Open mic.

6 May — Asha Naznin + Vesna Cvjetićanin

$10/$5 on the door. Open mic.

13 May — Mother Tongue Multilingual Poetry Night

That Poetry Thing! starts off with a diverse open mike — 
PS Cottier adds her voice

Robyn Sykes (Binalong) performs her poem from the exhibition Bimblebox: 153 Birds

Robyn Sykes (Binalong) performs her poem from the exhibition Bimblebox: 153 Birds

Writers Tip: 
Make use of those open mikes to test your voice, hone reading or performance skills, get your work known.
 

OPEN BY POET SARAH ST VINCENT WELCH

Sarah St Vincent Welch talks about her new book OPEN

Had the great pleasure of launching OPEN by Sarah St Vincent Welch at That Poetry Thing! that's on at Smith's every Monday Night, this week. 

Sarah and I met properly in 1991. I’d noticed this interesting writer and was keen for her to submit to a book I had on the go, and she had already picked up the leaflet and wanted to know more about it. Thanks to this and an opportune moment, we had a wonderful getting-to-know-you conversation — on a Canberra kerb’s edge, as speeches came to an end, other Gulf War protesters swirled and parted, and some lay abreast the length of the road holding large placards for a photoshoot. Sounds like a metaphor ...

Sarah is a writer on the edge, observing, witnessing and — just as often in the midst of it — experiencing. She is one of the most poetic prose writers I know, and I’m looking forward to seeing more of her short stories in print along with her award-winning unpublished novel. Meanwhile it’s exciting to see a volume of poetry from her, and I have no doubt it is the first of many.

Open is not a large volume, yet it holds so much of a life. We meet significant people including the poet’s son Lawrence and the poet’s husband Dylan — both loved as much as Sarah — and the poet’s mother Molly too. In Archaeology of Gardens Sarah still observing, digs and cuts back while her mother watches: ‘from the high window/as I watered our garden in summer/you let me be lost in my dreams, this better place/the best place I could be, and I think you knew …

There are poems that are dreamlike and poems as surreal as dreams.  There are poems that take the everyday world and make it other-worldly. In 821.3 in old Civic Library she builds a world for the reader from what goes on inside and out — I’ll read an excerpt from the beginning:

Look through the darkness

of light-sensitive glass

at the interchange

the missed connections,

takeaways and deals

Hold your sweat wet

call slip, and watch

while the infirm wait

for a kneeling bus …

It’s an unsettling poem —the sense that one move out of step and everything will come tumbling down. You feel a butterfly somewhere move its wing.

I heard it explained on TV that the reason tenors are so popular is because we can actually feel the voice in our bodies. I thought that’s a bit fascinating. Then one night in the heat of a Sydney summer I was standing in a circle of people at an exhibition opening, holding an open bottle of water against me. When the MC began the formalities in his beautiful tenor speaking voice it vibrated through the bottle into my hand and through my body.

Sarah as you may have noticed is not a tenor … but the tenor of her writing voice is such that it enters you, it holds you, it holds on to you.

Melinda Smith MC Extraordinaire

Anna Couani reads from her new collection Thinking Process also launched on the night