N e w s
“It is difficult to get the news from poems yet men die miserably every day for lack of what is found there.”
—William Carlos Williams
The Shape of Hope
Of the six poems I had shortlisted for the Australian Catholic University Poetry prize this year (2022), whose theme was Hope, I held out least hope for “Cubist Landscape.” But it came third this year, and I see now how it enacts the hope that poetry performs—the movement from the abstract to the actual, from the inchoate to the embodied. Touching, too, to share the medals with my mentee, graduate of my online poetry masterclass What the Light Tells, Kevin Smith.
Old Beginnings
From 7pm on Saturday 28 May 2022, Russell Tredinnick will perform songs composed from poems in my new collection A Beginner’s Guide at an event of the same name at the Bowral Art Gallery. An evening of poetry and songs. I’ll read alongside the wonderful Greek-Australian poet Dimitra Harvey. The event raises money for CanAssist and is one of a number of events that form this year’s Blue Square Art Prize. Book now.
Stephen Jones MP launches my new collection, A Beginner’s Guide, 13 May 2022
A BEGINNER’S GUIDE is my fifth poetry collection. It’s a book of mornings—not so much morning as a subject, but dawning, beginning. As a way. Of life and of art and of governance. I’m honoured to have the book launched, on the eve of the election, by Stephen Jones MP, the local member (Labor) at Ngununggula, the regional art gallery, 3:30 for 4pm Friday 13 May. Join us.
Making Something Happen: Poems for Flood Relief
TURNS OUT sometimes poetry CAN make something happen. At the end of week of flood and war and loss, Poetica Bondi (Miriam Hechtman) and Poets Out Loud (Sarah Temporal) have announced an open mike reading for flood relief this coming Thursday 10 March at 7pm. Bookings essential, because the event is ticketed and the tickets go to the relief of people affected by the catastrophic floods that hit Lismore and Murwillumbah and places further north.
Raising Lyric Voices for Ukraine and for Freedom
Join a rallying cry for freedom—featuring Ai Weiwei, Mario Vargas Llosa, Katia Petrowskaja, Yevgenia Belorusets, Irina Bondas, Timothy Garton Ash and others—in Berlin this Sunday 6 March. or follow the live feed. A cry for Ukraine, a cry for all freedom, a refutation of the violence and disregard for human liberty and dignity enacted by the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The event is auspiced by the Berlin International Literature Festival, whose guest I was in 2018. I stand with these writers in making this protest.
A Night of Poetry at the Sydney Jewish Museum: 7 April 2022
Join me and Marcelle Freiman at an evening of poetry at the Sydney Jewish Museum to launch Mike Leibowitz’s first book of poems, Looking In. 6pm, Thursday, 7 April 2022. And my first reading from my forthcoming book, A Beginner’s Guide (May 2022).
A Fistful of Chords: Santiago Festival of International Poetry 2021
HAPPILY, I AM a guess of the Santiago FIP (International Poetry Festival) this year (2021) ; sadly, due to the difficulties of international travel, I will appear this year only by video. Here is the video. Many thanks to Noelia Ramon for that—and for the translations, which she reads here. And to Javier Llaxacondor for the invitation. Catch me live from Santiago in recital 10, Saturday 11 December.
Great Northern Launch of Walking Underwater
The northern launch of my fourth poetry collection, Walking Underwater (September 2021), takes place at the Gallery by Bacaro, in the Tweed Regional Gallery, Murwillumbah, on Thursday 9 December (6:30 to 9:00). The event is the December feature for Sarah Temporal’s Poets Out Loud. Honoured to be her guest, and to be launched by Adam Van Kempen, Chair of the Byron Writers’ Festival.
https://poetsoutloud.org/event/poets-out-loud-gallery-december/
How to be as Clever as a Tree, as Wise as a Mountain, as True as Time
My poem “Why You’re Here—In Case One Day You Need to Know” articulates a lyric philosophy of schooling oneself in oneself by noticing how country does it, and doing the good (to a piece of the world and to those you love and in your work) that only you can do, by becoming the being that only you can be—no matter who they want you to be and how they try to stop you. It’s in my next book, A Beginner’s Guide, and it was Blair Mahoney’s poem of the day this past Wednesday on Medium.
You’re here
To fall back all the way, if you can,
Into the beauty you arrived with, the
Beauty you cannot quite convince
Yourself you carry, for the world
Is often ugly when you look there
For yourself. And you’re here to die
Back out of others’ bad ideas of who
You are and what they reckon you’re
Worth.
Put a Bird In It: Pocketry Interview Part Two
Part two of Indrani Perera’s interview with me for her podcast series Pocketry goes live Tuesday 10 August 2021. We talk about inspiration and the uses and difficulties of competitions, the importance for poetry of the world beyond identity, self and all the human world. And birds. Thanks Indrani.
Can the Lyric Save the Earth?
Can the lyric save the earth? James Laidler’s conversation with me about my poem “Litany: an Elegy,” which he has made into a stunning video poem.
Pocketry Podcast
Listen in to Indrani Perera’s interview with me about the craft of poetry and the politics of the lyric on her Pocketry Podcast
Poetry & the First Ever Berry Writers’ Festival
I’m proud to be appearing with a stellar cast in late October this year at the inaugural Berry Writers’ Festival in Wodi Wodi Country between the Kangaroo Valley and the Coast. 22–24 October 2021.
Register now for my latest Online Poetry Masterclass, starting 11 July: learn the craft that keeps us human
Poetry enacts values—dignity, integrity, freedom, empathy, forgiveness, an idea of beauty and reverence—and it tries to do a kind of justice to our lives and all lives that nothing else does. When we don’t do poetry, we lose sight of those values, and society grows ill. Look about us right now... But poetry is also a craft—lineation, rhythm, metonymy, form—and you can get radically better at it under tutelage. I’ve seen it happen. I’ve seen it happen, for instance, in my online poetry masterclass, What the Light Tells.
Vessels of Love: A Short Essay
Love is how we close the distances down, while keeping our mind and our heart open. Love is a profound generosity, a radical and uncompromising kindness, a stance of immaculate affection. It may be most of what we mean by the Divine, and poetry, the art of connection, is its first language. Vessels of Love, a project of Poetry Sydney invited a bunch of Sydney poets to post a video of a love poem, along with their thoughts on the nature of love. My poem, “The Godwit Shores” and my thoughts (see some above) are up on 11 February. A dress rehearsal for Valentine’s Day.
Walking Underwater
My fourth collection of poems, Walking Underwater, comes into the world in early March 2021 from Pitt Street Poetry. Read about it and how you get hold of one here.
The News only Poetry Tells: Register Now for the Final Online Poetry Masterclass of 2020
The third series of my online poetry masterclass, What the Light Tells, begins Monday evening 16 November (Australian East Coast Summer Time) and runs, through six sessions, till the week of Christmas. A second stream runs on Wednesday mornings, from 18 November (Tuesday evenings, from 17 November, in the US and Canada). Register now at my website while places last.
What Dying Teaches Living
In a culture that does not believe in endings, how will we deal with heartbreak? Stephen Jenkinson plaintively asks in this interview I found in my research. His answer: “less heart.” More pills. More shrillness, I’d add, and shaming and ghosting and outrage, more self-righteousness at what barely counts. Instead of what poetry practises and might teach one to perform—the transfiguration, through an attention to the lyric of one’s words and actions and days, of pain into beauty, of loss into love. Hear him speak of this and the wisdom of time in conversation with me Tuesday evening (AEST)/ Tuesday morning Ontario time, 20 October 2020.
Poetry Masterclass: Enrolments for November–December Series Now Open
Enrolments are now open for the third edition of my online poetry masterclass, What the Light Tells—run over six weeks from 16 November 2020. Register now.
Recasting Life’s Exquisite Spell
We live inside a climate catastrophe; we find ourselves becalmed inside a contagion that is killing our elders; we inhabit an epidemic of loneliness. And it could be poetry, that tender ancient code and mode, we need to buoy us. To recast life’s exquiste spell.