Ruby Street

Work has been going on a pace on the digital bridge which is being constructed as a result of the first of two trans-Tasman symposia organised under the rubric of Home and Away . It includes a page of poems in various formats here . There's another page where the elements of a collaborative digital poem are being assembled.

You should get yourself a copy of Mark Young's latest book, Genji Monogatari .

The Emerging Writers Festival will be running from 21 May until 30 May this year in Melbourne. The program is now up on the website. I'll be around for part of the festival as one of the ambassadors , me - for poetry. I'll also be 'stuck in a lift' with Scott-Patrick Mitchell on Saturday 29 May, 1.45pm in the Swanston Hall at Melbourne Town Hall. I presume we emerge from the lift at some stage.

You should get yourself a copy of Pam Brown's latest book, Authentic Local . There are other new goodies also from SOI3.

Feathers within falls, entrances of rain, dust noise in nights hidden against a curtain also torn How facts occur or what leaves demand from the past, uproars, riots, ignition, a credo

I have just come back up the road from three days of a poetry festival at Goolwa, a town at the mouth of the Murray. On the drive back, cows crowding in fields, in black and white (friesians?). A flock of galahs circling the hillside and the dam. Calves, lambs, small horses. Vines in autumn modes. Dangerous drivers on holiday Monday. As part of the festival’s closing Lionel Fogarty reminded us that English is not the original language of this place, that there’s a sense all English is obscene here. He reminded us it was a white festival. Goolwa and Hindmarsh Island, of course, are contested places. I took some time of from the poeting. Saw the mouth of the Murray, the breakers of the southern ocean, the many flocks of birds. Walked on the Goolwa barrage, watched the dredging. The huge problems of water and country, and the failure of policy and practice. The festival raised and confirmed a number of things for me - positives and other. I got the impression this was the case for some ...

The science experiment is over, the bells ting, litmus paper is discarded, muddled like today’s tunes time flicks, half hour by longitudinal push, if you can bend yourself, fend if you are sorry about the desert you find when you look to the north over the beautiful hills.

Michael Farrell, Bel Schenk and myself will be doing a lively panel on the making and being of Out of the Box: Contemporary Australian Gay and Lesbian Poets at this weekend's regional poetry festival at Goolwa. It's on Sunday 25th April at 11am in the Regional Arts Building at Goolwa. And if you are in Melbourne in May, there will be a reading from Out of the Box at Readings bookshop in Carlton. The date is Monday 10 May at 6.30pm and the readers will be Peter Rose, Susan Hawthorne & Michael Farrell. If you missed the Melbourne launch, here's your chance to catch up with some of the great poetry in the book. Don't be late or presume it's running on poet's time - it's a short and sweet event, but running to schedule.

Adam Aitken was at my Sydney launch and, lo and behold, has blogged some of his cool pics of the event. Thanks, Adam.

discover you don’t work going beyond the target, in forgotten shifts discover it doesn’t work the end of the moment beyond objectives, missing

I like the poison but blood wears itself out anyway stuck in the midst of old skies, the ancient gipsy on the run but this time high above the planet, spinning around hurts the heart, its valves, who would be pink in the darkness

Looks as though this is the first review of Dark Bright Doors . Small but pretty neat, courtesy of regional media. One thing not quite correct is that the quotes on the front and back of the book are from past reviews or articles. But maybe they still hold for this one. Hope to see some of you on Saturday at the Sydney launch .

Fresh work at moria . Poetry by Tom Hibbard, Michael Marks, Arkava Das, Brad Vogler, Kirsten Kaschock, Dion Farquhar, Matina L. Stamatakis, Holms Troelstrup, Jeffrey Side, Kristina Marie Darling, Peter Grieco, Adam Fieled, Justyna Bargielska, Jerrod Bohn, Steve Halle, SJ Fowler, Joel Chace, Amy Garrett-Brown, Francis Raven, Chella Courington, Lance Newman, Pat Clifford, Emeniano Acain Somoza, Jr, Steve Roggenbuck, Sam Schild, Anna Elena Eyre, Robert Verdon, David Harrison Horton, Nate Pritts, Jill Jones, Louis Armand, Charles Perrone, Michael Brandonisio, John M. Bennett, Raymond Farr, Mara Gálvez-Bretón, Gina Myers, Connor Coyne, Andrew Topel, Paul Siegell, Alexander Jorgensen, Phillip Lund, Audacia Dangereyes, Sean Burn, Teresa K. Miller, Awan Amali. Also, Aryanil Mukherjee on Ashbery and Vertigo; and rob mclennan on Sarah Manguso.

Fresh things in the latest e.ratio . Poems by Laynie Browne, Jill Jones, Jane Adam, Jeff Encke, Joseph F. Keppler, Mark Cunningham, Jadon Rempel, Keith Higginbotham, Anne Fitzgerald, Halvard Johnson, plus E·ratio Editions E·Chaps: Bashō’s Phonebook by Travis Macdonald, and Polylogue by Carey Scott Wilkerson. And The Alan Halsey Interview. Read online or download the pdf.

My latest book, Dark Bright Doors , published by Wakefield Press. To be launched by Debra Adelaide Saturday 10th April 2010 3.30 for 4pm Gleebooks 49 Glebe Point Road, Glebe This the first west island (Australian) launch. Dark Bright Doors has already been welcomed into the world in Auckland and more welcomes are afoot closer to my current abode.

Here's the beginning of the digital bridge , starting in Auckland, stretching to Sydney (and beyond?). I still have not caught time back, quite, since I arrived back from Auckland, but I brought back with me books and ideas and, most importantly, friendships. Also, wondering about all our understandings and mis-understandings across the ditch. Note, I don't think understandings or mis-understandings are bad or good, they are. Something to work with, un and mis/un. Material and flex. Much energies from a great harbour city. Full sail.

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