Ruby Street

It's a busy November for me, as it turns out. As well as marking and administrivia stress outs, I'm dancing poetry around Australia, even in the current home town. First up, because it's confirmed, and it's, urrm, first up, I'll be reading in Adelaide at the first Lee Marvin reading for November alongside David Mortimer, Heather Taylor Johnson and the maestro, Ken Bolton himself. So, that's Tuesday 3rd, November at Dark Horsey, the usual 7.30pm for 8pm. The full Lee Marvin November program , a pretty tasty one for the beginning of the summer season, is as follows: November 3rd  Jill Jones  •  Heather Taylor Johnson  •  Ken Bolton  •  David Mortimer November 10th   Cath Kenneally  •  Naomi Horridge   •  Gretta Mitchell  •  Shannon Burns November 17th   Jelena Dinic   •  Mike Ladd  •  Alison Flett  •  Peter Goldsworthy November 24th   Francesca da Rimini...

Yesterday, at Brighton Beach. One of the first continually sunny days for a while. Spring, almost. I don't really know Brighton, it's possibly only the third time in my life I've been there. Still, it's only a train journey away from home, so there I went, walking about, taking a photograph, writing a note or two: afternoon sunlight turns silver on Holdfast Bay clouds tack behind the hills days are what tracksuit pants are for another octopus pulled up onto the jetty babies are simply babies, phones are for taking pictures of the dog pig face, beach reclamation, vanilla or something more, he's yelling instructions at the kids, 'head for the sandbank' if you were here, or I was young in early spring with stupid hats, dogs' bums, eternal prams fishing tackle, without breaking like a wave having the moment's recurrence like a breeze through the gulf

lists flutter in the social breeze of course, all the tribunals, modern tribes a coast dark blue with them, somewhere I go down to the gulf one day join the breeze and I don't know anyone tide has washed in pieces of broken brick the gulls dive for fish if that means I don't care though I pick up a piece almost circular, red, mineral-specked I could skim it I put it in my pocket it's still rough there seems no point in keeping it it's in a bowl on a low table today is a grey day I felt it just now

A long time away from the page, of here. Slowly making a way back. A few years living not in my home city have led to various rethinkings of place, position, worth, work. For starters. I recently had an argument with a friend (I rarely argue with friends) about how a place like Adelaide is seen in the 'big scheme of things'. He admitted (we were talking more broadly of 'the yartz', not poetry specifically) that, well, the east coast (ie Sydney and Melbourne) are where the money and activity is and, the implication being, why fund much where not much is happening. Which is correct if you're talking purely about profit and bang for buck, ie treating the 'yartz' as a profit-generating activity. There's no bang for buck here. Not much bang anything, apart from the loud construction noise going on in my street at the moment (Adelaide has finally decided to electrify its train system - welcome to the 20th century ... oh, wait...). All this as a way of sa...

One thing I have missed, and will miss, living here in Adelaide is the physical presence of poetry 'stuff', the talking, reading thing. I am surrounded by books of poems, in my office at home and my office at work but that's not quite enough, I am finding. There are poets on line. There are poets I know, a flight or two away. Poetry things, poetry 'stuff' happens here - quite obviously - but it does not seem to synch with my stuff, with how I get with poetry. This is not a criticism or, if it is, it is a self-criticism. In recent times I've been somewhere else to talk poetry (Sydney, Melbourne, Auckland) but can't, quite, get to what's here. I'm too much of an alien, an east-coast klutz, with no history here. I am in the midst of accepting that.

seeing air blue-filled world white dark

anyway, a willingness to flitter in the grit where the pace of air seems to change tasting of bark, hay, wattle

in good nick between parklands

Monday 17th is International Day Against Homophobia . One focus this year is on homophobia in sport. In conjunction with this, there's going to be a reading of poetry (not a sports event) hosted by Friendly Street Poets on Sunday 16 May, here in Adelaide (amongst other events, including a rally for same sex marriage on 15th). So, here's the details: The Sport of Anti-Homophobia Poetry Event - Speaking the Silence Hosted by Friendly Street Poets Guest poet: Jill Jones + FSP poets + open mic Sunday 16th May Aids Council of SA 64 Fullarton Road, Norwood. 2-4.30pm $4 conc/$5 waged, wine & nibbles

Motherlode Reading/Adelaide launch Saturday August 15th, 2.30pm SA Writers Centre, Rundle Street Readers: Jude Aquilina Jennifer Harrison Jill Jones Jeri Kroll Kate Llewellyn Jan Owen Kate Waterhouse Motherlode: Australian Women's Poetry 1986-2008 , edited by Jennifer Harrison and Kate Waterhouse (Puncher and Wattmann), is a 342-page book featuring 126 poets on subjects relating to motherhood and family: from colonial experience and the world at large to pregnancy, children, loss and death. It includes poems by Judith Wright, Gwen Harwood, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Dorothy Hewett, Kate Llewellyn, Dorothy Porter, Jan Owen, Jennifer Maiden, Joanne Burns and many other well-known and newer poets. The readings include South Australian poets featured in the book plus the two editors.

Just out - a new anthology of poems and stories about Adelaide , the city where I currently work and live (most of the time).

... err, uncontrolled blackouts as well. We lost power suddenly last night. Literally we and the neighbours were struggling around in the dark. Sure, the street lights were still on but, as it was still well in the 30s, no-one was going to stand around outside in their jim-jams and shoot the breeze. Any poetry in heat? Not sure.

We are now having 'controlled blackouts' due to the heat. And the train lines are buckling. Still days of this to go.

By the way, it's just tipped 45 degrees in Adelaide here today (that's Celsius, which is about 113 Fahrenheit). My eyes melted when I went out to lunch. Actually I began to resemble something from a Dali painting. But it is a dry dry melt. The air smells as though it is burning. In Sydney, I'd be a humid little puddle in such heat, here it's like being blasted with fire. Just thought it worth a mention. Tomorrow will be a positively balmy 41, as will the day after (update: tomorrow is predicted to be the same as today - urrgh). Still, it's 2 degrees in Paris France and -11 in Paris, Illinois. I'm not sure who's having more fun.

OK, I don't ride a bike. Tried. Failed. But I do like to watch the Tour de France on the telly each year, and not just for the scenery. And, because I'm currently living in Adelaide why wouldn't I go and watch the last stage of the recently completed Tour Down Under last weekend, which was 18 circuits of North Adelaide's parklands? What I was not prepared for, as I stood on the side of the road with no barrier between me and the cyclists, was the extremity of the pull of the peleton as it passed. It was almost as if I would be sucked into the ongoing stream of energy produced by the swooping mass of men and wheels. I only had my happy-snappy with me so, as you can see, my photographs are crap. In the one below you can see Lance Armstrong - I only know this as he always wears black socks and he was wearing a black and yellow helmet. I met a woman who was standing next me as the race whooshed past who had met Armstrong at the Women and Childrens Hospital which he was vis...

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!

I've moved. Hope to settle for at least a little while. Walking to work, which has to be a good thing (ah, but what about Adelaide summers?). Hoping the poem writing fairy alights upon me again. There's some noisy landscaping taking place outside my office, five floors down. I suspect they are building the Adelaide Uni beach, but I could be wrong. Weather is all over the shop. And there are more sirens along North Terrace. That would make sense if they were ambulance sirens, as the hospital is next door, but they are fireys. Been like this for a few days. And spring has sprung, of course. White apple blossoms and the budding of roses.

I'm on the move again, from the south-west corner of the city to North Adelaide for a couple of weeks while I take a lease on, and furnish, a place just off Hutt Street in the south-east corner of the city. North Adelaide has a hill. Adelaide appears to have Melbourne-type weather, four seasons in one day. Even some snow in the hills yesterday, supposedly. Chilly today. I often see parrots in the tree outside my office window. Off to Melbourne briefly on Sunday, then back to somewhere in Adelaide early next week. Only partly writing, need to do more.

The sky is blue again today, though there are some clouds coming in. Wind sets the leaves going on the tree outside my office window, dying leaves sounding like rain. It does rain here; I have seen it, heard it, felt it. It is a city of car parks (and maybe churches). I don't have a car or a license so I catch the tram to work - free in my case, as I travel within the 'city mile'. Someone said to me the other day, 'Adelaide isn't like Sydney, people tend to meet in their houses'. That explains a lot. Certainly, they don't hang around nor entertain strangers readily. I amuse myself. There are a number of birds that fly above and around the place I am living in for a short while, in the south-west corner of the city. They seem to be the same, or not quite the same, as Sydney birds. I must get ahold of my bird book. They are the main reason I took a short lease here, as the area and the house itself is ordinary. It is also only a shortish walk to the Central Ma...