Ruby Street

... a little under par of late, as you may have guessed.

... the word I'm looking for is heterodox (for what I do). It's a thought.

... about cities and Jane Jacobs, an article by Elizabeth Farrelly. In excerpt: "In fact, our long suburban tradition sprang from England; from Ebenezer Howard's 1902 polemic, Garden Cities of Tomorrow . But the fact that we were relatively late adopters does nothing to take the emotion from the debate: our suburban apologists, from Hugh Stretton through Canberra's Pat Troy (to whom Heartlands is dedicated) to Gleeson and Salt, defend suburbia as one of their own. "The essential argument is this. Suburbia is something we've always had (wrong). In fact, we bloody near invented it (definitely wrong). We like it, a lot (sure), so we are entitled to go on having it (nuh-uh). This elision, from want to need to birthright, parallels Michael Costa's argument on roads, or the child's on Macca's; we want them, dammit, so we've a right to them. ... "But give the last word to the good wizard, Jacobs. She noted that Howard's garden suburb "set ...

... a John Coltrane afternoon. Coltrane Plays the Blues , Ole , Blue Train , Giant Steps and A Love Supreme .

There's some more remembrance of Grant McLennan on Steve Kilbey's blog .

I've added some more pages to my off the street site, including new pages of hay(na)ku, list type poems and some travel poems.

Cattle and Cane Forster/ McLennan I recall a schoolboy coming home through fields of cane to a house of tin and timber and in the sky a rain of falling cinders from time to time the waste memory-wastes I recall a boy in bigger pants like everyone just waiting for a chance his father's watch he left it in the showers from time to time the waste memory-wastes I recall a bigger brighter world a world of books and silent times in thought and then the railroad the railroad takes him home through fields of cattle through fields of cane from time to time the waste memory-wastes the waste memory-wastes further, longer, higher, older And a reminiscence by Bernard Zuel .

A real cold wind is blowing through Sydney at the moment. I had to get out my Swannie. New Zealanders will know what I'm talking about though mine is not the classic bushman's shirt but a slightly more zooshie girly style. You can see it here, mine being black not red .

Michael Brennan is the Australian editor for the wide-ranging Poetry International Web site. He has just put up a page with some of my work and another page with an essay about my work . You may be interested in that, as well as in the site in general.

Check the long and interesting post on poetry book buying and other digressions at Michael Farrell's blog. Just the other day I received a package of poetry books from the US. It was lovely getting the cardboard box and unpacking books I'd almost forgotten I'd ordered. For the record they were books by Alan Dugan , Ange Mlinko , Mary Rising Higgins , Wayne Koestenbaum and Pier Paolo Pasolini . Mixed bag or what? Sure, I could order from overseas via an Australian bookshop but we've had some hit-or-miss experiences in that regard. I suspect most bookshops, small or large, aren't really interested in doing that kind of thing so you're lucky if they ever remember to place your order. Especially poetry books (the kind they put in the most inaccessible part of the shop). I am of course, exempting a few good Sydney bookshops and definitely Collected Works in Melbourne, a bookshop based around poetry, but with some other lovely stuff, and run by two of my favourite p...

This is slightly predictably naffness or, making fun of the Da Vinci Code schtick.

And here's a listing of (some) Australian literary blogs and other interesting things.

Kerryn Goldsworthy has something to say on literary prizes over at her blog. It's all part of the annual Miles Franklin flurry in the world of novels, but interesting to note.