This year seems to have started well. Oh, and happy new thing to all of you!

I went to the Dan O’Connell gig on Saturday, my reading went OK (Culture & Politics, Dr. Frankenstein, Eulogy For The Cassette), Anne & Norman’s set was amazing as per usual and I seem to be having more luck writing than I had last year. One poem, two close to poems and another that I’ve been working on for nearly a year is getting closer to the finish line.

For the last few years I’ve been making a new year’s resolution to write at least one poem a month. Admittedly, not the most grandiose of resolutions, but I figure it’s something I can build upon. So this month I’ve already got two poems, and hopefully a third on the way!

Anyhow, my second work this year is something of a dramatic monologue, all the questions you want to ask in different circumstances but are never quite sure if you should or not. I found it interesting how, while separate thoughts, they tell a story as a whole. Have a look under the cut.
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Come join Alex Skovron and I at the Eltham Courthouse!

Hosted by Helen Lucas, Alex and I will be featuring in the magnificent stone acoustics of the Eltham Courthouse.

When: Thursday, 21st February, 7:30 for an 8pm start.
Where: Eltham Courthouse, 728 Main Rd, Eltham (near the corner of Brougham St., about center in the map)
What: $5 entry, open mic, free tea, wine, coffee, biscuits and door prize.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to do the happy dance, then write frantically for approximately 5 weeks.

Listening: Matthew Good Band – Weapon

Reading: London Review of Books, January 3rd, 2008

It’s time for me to recommend a podcast.

I’m slowly working my way through the Indiefeed Performance Poetry podcast on my way to work in the mornings. What currently amounts to 300-and-a-bit poems recorded around the slam and open mic gigs of North America (including several recordings from great poets further back in history such as Auden, Ginsberg, Millay, etc.). There’s a wide selection of brilliant poetry of every stripe. This podcast is really worth checking out if you love the spoken word in all its many splendid forms.

The link to the site is http://performancepoetry.indiefeed.com/. Worth getting an iPod for.

It should also be noted that “Words In Your Face: A Guided Tour through Twenty Years of the New York City Poetry Slam”, the new book by Cristin O’Keefe-Aptowicz is out and about, the prologue containing none other than the grand Melbournian poet Steve Smart. Sounds like a great book and I may be chasing a copy of it.

This message, may or may not have been brought to you by me entering a competition to win said book. Thus it is I fulfill my new year’s resolution of last year by enteing a poetry competition. Almost.

Listening: Taylor Mali – Labeling Keys
Reading: The Rattle Bag (ed. Ted Hughes & Seamus Heaney)

Between Pillows

I slipped my hand between your pillows to see
if the experience was the same as when I did with mine.

The space between your pillows

was smooth and cool. Between mine, the cotton had become
rumpled and hot. The experience, having manifest,

wandered off into memory
looking for a job
as a metaphor.