Ruby Street

The verse website has recently published the final issue of Salt magazine in five parts. This includes some work of mine , including one poem of mine I'd lost track of (this 'issue' has been a long time coming). There's lots of other interesting stuff in the other parts, including a selection of metrical poetry put together by Annie Finch.

From next Saturday 25 June until 4 September, photographer Annette Willis 's latest exhibition, Wallworx will be showing in the Mercury Gallery of the Wollongong City Gallery . The photographs in Wallworx explore Australian stencil graffiti as a contemporary form of political, cultural and artistic expression. The exhibition is being opened by our good friend, poet and editor, Peter Minter.

Jill Jones & Pam Brown will be appearing this month at The Elbow Room   7 for 7-30pm Thurs 30th June $5 entry (includes wine/coffee) Berkelouw Books 70 Norton St Leichhardt Ph: 02 9560 3200     Pam Brown ’s poetry has been published in many journals both in Australia and internationally. She has published 15 books of poetry and prose (at last count). She has also written reviews, essays, film scripts and performance texts. Her poetry has taken her to a variety of exciting locations. In 1991 she used Australian poetry in assisting English teaching in Hanoi, Vietnam. In 1993 she was a guest at the Festival Franco-Anglais de Poésie in Paris and at the inaugural International Literature Festival in Berlin in August 2001. In 2003 she was a guest at the Australian Studies Centre at the University of Barcelona, as well as spending six months of that year living in Trastevere, Rome, in the B.R. Whiting Studio. She has edited four poetry chapbooks in the Rare Object Series for Vagabond Pres...

We were away this weekend and, as part of our travels, visited a poet friend who had an interesting collection of old Australian poetry anthologies. One, in particular, was edited by Judith Wright and included an essay by her. I was so tired I didn't even have the energy to look through it but Annette read me some poems before I went to sleep, including poems by Nan McDonald (now, who ever hears of her work nowadays?) and Rosemary Dobson. Now, not all of the poems were that terrific but some of them were excellent, including the poems by McDonald and Dobson. Which got me thinking about old anthologies. I have a few which were, essentially, school anthologies, plus stuff I bought too many years ago to admit to, and Annette also has some as she taught primary kids poetry years ago. I assume poetry as poetry isn't taught in schools any longer (it's all 'themes' and 'relevance' and 'constructs' and, generally, bastardised cultural studies. An issue of Do...

Coincidentally, Mark Young at pelican dreaming also has referred to Milk and Honey and offers a pic of the cover I was talking about. By the way, Mark is really going off, ie. really doing some great stuff, at the mo'. Do check out the pelican.

Annette came back from Melbourne with a wee giftie. The new book by Michele Leggott, Milk and Honey (Auckland Uni Press). She wouldn't have known I've got two other of Michele's books and that I was a-thinking of getting this one as soon as I could. She just thought it would be 'my thing' and she and Kris at Collected Works conspired on what would be 'my thing' - that I didn't already have, so far as they could guess. And here it is, now in my hand, ready for reading real soon. With a picture from Slava's Snow Show on the front. Can you believe that? I saw the Snow Show years ago. A was home late. And me again but late by train from St Leonards with much pfaffing between lines. So we're doing the rubbish and it's recycling week. We're rounding up the big box of paper and glass and I'm thinking, as I seem to do these days, it's a bit like my writing. Cast-offs, remnants and a lot of recycling. As though each poem is the thing I le...

And, in passing, you might like to see the mega pic of me on the Salt website. They're updating their author/book pages and I threw this very new pic at Chris just a couple of days ago to try it for size (literally). Annette took it at my book launch the other week. Sort of noir and moody(ish). (I wish!) While you're there you can check out the book, Broken/Open , which needs various new homes with poetry loving folks round the world. (End of commercial.)

Have just been perusing Charles Bernstein's notable books list . Not one Australian and only one New Zealander. Why doesn't that surprise me? (Take that any way you wish.) But the list is worth a browse, for sure. I have a couple of the books, whilst many of the others you're highly unlikely to ever see in an Australian bookshop, apart from Collected Works in Melbourne. Next time I'm in Melbourne (late July it looks like) I will make my usual visit to Kris and Retta. Otherwise, it's the online trawl for US and UK small publishers who accept electronic payment. Don't talk to me about bank cheques, it's too ugly and expensive an idea to contemplate.

Working late again - the taxi guys are making a mint out of me and the company getting its ounces of flesh - but not thinking so much of shadows but the lie of night, its radio talk, the song dreaming its dreams, the way that knows itself by the feel of road and, yes, shadow. Travelling in taxis can be a dreaming space, a lot of turning, the route like lines of poetry, rhythms with their own riffs, variations each time, and each drivers' different soundtrack.

I've been writing shorter poems for a while. Here's a little one on the current theme. after the weight of eleven dreams the dog shadow

I've been working late (yet again) and thinking about shadows. Also, Annette (who is in Melbourne consorting with artists, street artists and studio artists - imagine that for a moment) read me something intriguing about shadows. There is the visual take on this: dark and light, the mingling and emerging of one and the other, the moving edges. There is also the sound. There's a little edge in the midst of the word but the consonant 'd' is tempered by its surroundings, the 'a' and 'ow' and the sibiliance. To me, it is a low pitched word. Shadow is the artist's friend, especially artists working with film. It is also about time, which is what a poem is working with. Me and my shadow, but forget the avenue. We're putzing around the slightly cool old house tonight. So, on our ownsome if not our lonesome. I am a bit dark at the moment but people, kindly, have been trying to talk me through it. It's of no particular moment in the great scheme of th...

Don't wanna be a factoid! I need a new window.

A frustrating time. My ISP has had an outage (what a stupid word) and it's still preventing me from getting access to my mail. No apologies from them, I got a rather pouty little chap on the help line, I have to lump it, apparently. My provider is ihug (or iinet as it is now - it used to be much better when it was ihug). So, they're not a very friendly crew and I can't get any email. Anyone know a better Australian provider at a reasonable price? The thought of changing is a bit daunting (email address, web site, etc) but the thought has been with me a while. Or perhaps they all have crap service and crap attitude? Is 'sorry' that hard? In Australia, of course it is. Exit screen left, muttering darkly.