Ruby Street

Andrew Burke has been encouraging poets to post some comment on the composition of one of their poems. So, finally, I got around to doing something on my prose poem While All This is Going On .

Sydney, after four and a half months away. still smells the same. It's dense and humid, stuff happening. But when I walk in the door, the first few minutes, it seems cramped and small. But also huge, with the air smelling of fume. It's something you can touch. And already, I know, I am heading back west, packing bags again.

Sometimes, y'know, I don't follow what anyone is talking about.

This anthology claims to be made of poems by members of the poetryetc list. I do recall writing the poems attributed to me that are contained therein.

I once wrote a poem that I titled ‘Reputation’. It reads, in part: Sorting through stones, large flat ones, the dry earth scraped away. It’s soothing until I wonder what to do. … I could strike a stone against the rocks near the wall. The impact is hard. The momentary effort. It’s all-consuming, it seems, this causing. … It appears that a small storm has broken out about an ‘anthology’ just recently posted on a site called ‘for godot’ (and while I’m obviously aware of the reference, I keep thinking ‘fergeddit’ when I read the url). My first reaction, and it probably still is, was laughter. It’s a joke, a stunt, a conceptual art/writing thing. Here are 3,785 poems by 3,785 poets, all with the same names as nearly 3,785 poets (apparently a few names appear more than once, and I think it’s agreed a few of the names are pisstakes and a few are names of people who, to anyone’s knowledge, have not written poems). Because, just as obviously, the poet named, for instance, ‘Jill Jones’ who is ...

The LEE MARVIN READINGS continue this October in Adelaide at Gallery de la Catessen. OCTOBER 7th o LEE MARVIN RUES THE DAY Peter Pugsley Heather Taylor Johnson Kahil Jureidini Shannon Burns Rachel Hennessy OCTOBER 14th o LEE MARVIN IN ROCKABILLY HEAVEN Brian Castro Linda Marie Walker Cathoel Jorss Patrick Niehus Cath Kenneally OCTOBER 21st o LEE MARVIN IN YO-YOs WITH MONEY Aidan Coleman Ken Bolton Jill Jones Kyriaki Maragozidis Simon Robb It all happens at 9 Anster St, Adelaide (off Waymouth at the King William end). 7.30 for a prompt 8 PM start. Price $5. It's the place to be!