Evangelyne

Poem for the Day - A Morning Walk with Irish Cows

2012-02-10T13:49:00.000+08:00

A Morning Walk with Irish Cows

Walking out to check the fields,
I sense a common skin. Moist and risen
the land and hills are Irish ancestors
leaving Kings County, convicts, young.

In laneways, blackberries hide my first
surveillance. Only when I click this scene
do they run, halt and wonder; a rusting gate
sparing me from an Irish mis-adventure.

I retreat. They step closer, their tough
hides, restless, as if I called them "meat".
I'm a little chilled by the immensity of their
twitching rumps, eye-level stare, broad bodies

suppressing earth and tufts of new green shoots.
Each cow suspends my safety as I check for brands.
Only yellow ear tags, black and white tattoos
mapping a distance from Louth to County Monaghan,

Cavan and Galway. There's an eye patch the size of
Dublin. I imagine these cows, first born in spring,
slipping wet mucous skin onto Irish soil. First, small
markings growing larger into black and white, inky

patchworks, as a blackened sky might sprawl with a
crescent moon; the moon's black side slipping behind
cloud. It's the same evening when Friesian cows bed
down, dreaming of an open gate, and a woman whistling.

Poem for the Day - Three poems

2012-01-22T10:27:00.000+08:00

Lines composed while thinkingabout St. Mary’s Cathedral

after Billy Collins

How agreeable it is sitting here in Perth

not thinking about St. Mary’s Cathedral,

the Domain or Hyde Park’s flowering morning.

No need to stand in queues for the Museum or

the Opera House with its sarcophagus of lights,

or count the pigeons lunching at El Alamein,

the wrinkled outlines of its spray like saints in glass.

No need to get lost in the streets of Glebe, memorizing

a succession of streets to the Friend in Hand,

or view Picasso’s masterpieces in gallery frames.

How much better it is to be at home in thirty eight

degrees, with the air-conditioner on, books on the lap.

And after the heatwave, a trip to the supermarket

to buy a journal, some pens, to record just how

a monumental sun drags itself down like a dungeon

ball, sets at dusk, like a rucksack into night.

* * *

A Spyglass on Sydney

I would have liked to get to know

the city better than three years.

I have so many memories I don’tknow

what to do with them. On secondthoughts

I’ll move my table closer to theharbour.

My binoculars spin on my neck toget

a better view. Further from thebridge

there’s a bottle of wine on theferry,

group activities, everyone my age.

I’m reminded of the workplace,shoes

paired in chronological order, wedges

from George Street, platforms from Kings

Cross. There is attention instiletto heels.

I shoulder my way into Wynyard, formore

shoes. I can learn to dance, incircumspect.

Only at the movies do I face a newproblem,

not the sailor, or that Damiennever phones.

I’ve left the iron on, and no-one’sat home.

* * *

Home for the Holidays

Home for the holidays and I’m threestanzas

between country air and deepcompression.

Up there the clouds are snowfields,icecaps of

Antarctica.From my window, I feel the force

into Mascot. I have a stubborn prunein my throat.

I’ve been away studying Flaubertand Mallarme.

Parents think I’m Judith Enright,but it’s Marco Polo

I am, back and forth, back andforth, amongst

a constellations of random stars. Sydney, the green

blotter of my youth, pimples and Tafecertificates.

Prince Alfred Park where I almost died,tripped

by four iced legs. Sydney, ah! The harbour at dawn,

spinnakers at sunset, seabirds onthe Opera House.

Rock stars & concerts Isometimes lost track of.

Let’s leave the house, catch aferry to the zoo. Hear the

same peacock cry, giving out hiswoodwind sound.

* * *

Poem for the Day - The Laneway

2012-01-19T16:26:00.001+08:00

The Laneway

The laneway is always something I'll remember
of Ireland. Seams of light and dark green

further back into the hills where cows graze.

Tall grasses sway amongst trees, the wind
sounding like a flute playing, lone farm houses

in orchard cover and solid hedgerows.
Returning from Westport to Newbliss, I stop,

my hands firmly clenched on lollies, drinks.
The Coke and juice moving quickly through my body
while I travel hours on unfamiliar roads, five hundred
miles, so it seems. No more service stations on this
lonely stretch, no shops, no verge, until a laneway!
Time to compress all that liquid into a slow trickle.

Now there's nothing between this thought and
my relief, until a grey car arrives, blocks me in.

I'm like a dog wanting to put down its scent and
this landowner is jerking my lead. Shades of dark

sun glasses walk towards the car. It's not the owner
it's "The Garde!" I'm the Australian abroad, caught,
but well before my tail reaches Irish soil. Crikey!
Two men approach, both clean cut, one stares into
my window tells me farms are being robbed. I'm acting
suspicious. I admit, I need a quiet corner near this field.
They hardly stop to blink, back away in their unmarked
car. I walk further into the lane's interior, squat
long enough to count two cows, rotating jaws,
their black and white bodies staring me down.

Poetic Graphic of the Day - New Year's Resolution

2012-01-12T09:05:00.001+08:00

2011-12-23T08:17:00.000+08:00

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my friends, followers, readers, sneak peekers! More poetry to arrive in 2012. I am currently working on an e-book for you to read about my sojourn & writer's residency in Ireland (produced by ISSUU). The e-book will contain poetry, photography and art. Stay tuned!

Recently we found a stray kitten (only 5 weeks old) and the only group who would take it was the Cat Haven. I hope little Smokey is happy in her new home. You can donate here http://www.cathaven.com.au/donate/

Here are my two scallywags!

Poem for the Day (a villanelle) - Tawny Frogmouth

2011-12-20T16:26:00.000+08:00

Tawny Frogmouth

in heavy blades of a grasstree
light catches a nest, the colour of birth
two chicks glowing in awkwardness

nearby a tawny frogmouth, blue stare
awaiting dusk, the quiet cusp of flight
in heavy blades of a grasstree

time is demarcation in shadows
but a patient bird will contemplate
two chicks glowing in awkwardness

looking on, two honeyeaters darting
the wind lingers
in heavy blades of a grasstree

menace is the camouflage of hunger
but where is reprieve, a parent's rescue for
two chicks glowing in awkwardness?

and the bush, in thirty five degrees,
heightens a meal swaying
in heavy blades of a grasstree
two chicks glowing in awkwardness

This unrhymed villanelle came from an article in the Post Newspaper (17/12/11). Margaret Owen of Wembley sent in pictures of two Honeyeater chicks and this rather bluish, menacing stare of a young Tawny Frogmouth. He is so cute, I just had to write about him! - also awaiting permission for pic.

Poem for the Day - My Tao Name

2011-12-09T15:48:00.001+08:00

My Tao Name

What do you think of my name, Joyous Lake,

I asked my daughter over the phone,

when I had finished deleting

another sex site on my Twitter account.

A loud burst of laughter followed. It

descended down the line, over the waterfowl

paddling the lilies and into the rivers beyond.

Further still from the poems I had created with the
Chinese I-Ching, an ancient Taoist symbol. The Lake

regardless of change can achieve tranquility in

disturbance, Chinese scholars say. Why can't

"Bliss" and "Jude in the Mood" tell thisapart

from a whorehouse of sexual arousal. Nothing

surprises me in this virtual world, these ladies

imagining 'Joyous Lake' as a red light district.

Might they compare the deeper soft petals of silk,

black-stringed corset to a lotus flower on a lake,

magpies in taught suspendered trees, caroling.

Poem for the Day - Fireworks

2011-12-07T17:49:00.001+08:00

Fireworks

They slumber in their corners,

In soft light, till the wind lifts

Till a first spark propels them away.

Into the new century or year

They rise half blown, exploding sombreros,

Wide-brimmed hats, ribbons of colour.

Fireworks, caught in the moment,

Pulled into voluminous splays

Of fire, handwriting the night.

Adorned by the moon, and the soft

Hands of stars their memory

Drifts onto children’s faces their small

Fingers languidly pointing

To the sky.

Poem for the Day - Repainting the Scream

2011-12-04T08:09:00.001+08:00

Repainting the Scream

How pretty fine it is to be born

under a blue sky.

To watch garden roses unfolding

their 'double delight'. The ones

crimping out their pink skirts,

giggling in the wind ─

their cream undies showing.

How terrible, then, an expression on a face,

standing on a bridge, swirl of dark water beneath,

a red sky full of pain. And so many

steadfast hours going into the work

of a silent, yet unsettling scream.

Nothing about Edvard Munch’s scene

will ever change. Yet, I want to repaint

that unhappy face. Swirl his body around,

zero in with just a tiddly-wink of smile.

The bridge gone, water gone, blue sky

now shouldering disheveled dobs of cloud.

I want the man to see exquisite

lady beetles burrowing into double delights.

I want his eyes looking out on this urban

garden where rough beds thirst and the

stocky butcherbird on the tippy

buoyancy of a branch, sings.

The Attitude of Cups, MPU Anthology - Out now!

2011-11-25T12:29:00.001+08:00

This is the front cover of the latest anthology from the Melbourne Poets Union of poetry about tea, wine & coffee (however, I'm still waiting for the book to be listed in bookstores for real cover). Nevertheless it's a beautifully presented work by many well known Melbourne poets, and I'm proud to have a poem in there called "Left Over Wine". Here's part of the poem only, because the anthology would make a great Christmas present.
Contact MPU for details.

Left Over Wine

It’s fragile and rehearsed in this mind cask
home pleasures are like the sentiment
of crisp, summer wine.

It mouths ‘get help!’
so you dive unexpectedly
into the freezing brook
through wooded trees
perfectly still.
Only you’ve had more wine than usual
and distortion wins.

The grass is intense
and there’s plenty of green-
it’s like having a bottle
you’ve saved all these years.
Blackberries hedge the railway bridge
mulberries give a whole new meaning
to bottled jam-
the purple avenger stays before tea.

Saturday Poetry Workshops at the Grove (Cottesloe) for 2012

2011-11-19T09:31:00.002+08:00

Saturday Poetry Workshops were successful at the Grove Library in 2011 and OOTA will again offer this after-hours course in 2012. Tutor, yours truly, Helen Hagemann.

It will consist of fortnightly Saturday Poetry Workshops for casual participants. Each Workshop will introduce contemporary poetry for those poets wanting to write contemporary poetry.

Participation in the Workshops will cover the study of poems, discussion and several writing exercises. In a recent survey the consensus was that most writers wanted to continue with the same 2011 format, with a minor introduction of the classics and traditional poetry and its forms. Poets wishing to attend can view the times and dates on the OOTA blog (Out of the Asylum Writers Group) and also Writing at the Centre blog. Classes are earmarked to start in 2012 on Saturday 4th February. 1.30pm-3.30pm.

The Grove Library now has a coffee shop and we will continue to incorporate this social side of our poetry group after class.

OOTA Click here for more information
Writing at the Centre Classes

Poem for the Day - The Stonechat

2011-11-17T14:40:00.001+08:00

The Stonechat

for Marie Connole

Visiting the capital cityof Ireland,

its country lanes anddrumlins, I took off

on desired paths that tookme across

the breadth of Monaghan toSligo.

Funny how you want to stayin that curious

spell of country, its tidytowns of hanging

fushias, paintedshopfronts, an Irish aria

of 'how'ya doon' in themornings.

And the best was yet tocome, a mailed painting

of a perched Stonechat,autumn flush of chest.

Can you hear him, chippingnotes and sounds

like small stones shakenin your fist?

The Stonechat looks outtowards fields,
towards Knotweed’s opportunity,

two drops of blood falling, red as the

ear tips of stag, or slain Celtic gods.

'Every Stonechat has a drop of the devil's

blood', says the artist, but I would rather think

this tiny bird will pull out a severed thorn.
Fly off, spreading its wings against the sun,

a sprig of mischief on its mind.

This painting of the Stonechat by Marie Connole is called 'Weed or Knotweed?'and is part of a series by her which was commissioned by the Galway County Council for the Aughty Public Art Projects. Visit Marie's great artwork @ Marie Connole

Poem for the Day - Granddaughter & Grandmother Poem

2011-11-08T17:00:00.012+08:00

Granddaughter & Grandmother Poem

My granddaughter is weaving a web
of desire, her shoes clapping
the undersides of a chair.
She waits for six candles
to be lit on her grandmother's cake.
From a match they glow in their soft
bodies of wax: two pink, one green,
two yellow, one blue. Candles in spirals that
decorate the baking of butter, apple and cinnamon.
She takes up the custom, learning now
by age, by each year's celebrations
of cousins, of mother, of father.
When we blow from different depths,
candles light our journey, as if this
is a tiny avenue aflame with moon shadow
and we are walking hand in hand.
We are in a dream bell of polished thoughts,
when a wisp of smoke disappears,
staring, smiling at each other.

My Irish Pics, Annaghmakerrig & Dublin

2011-10-31T16:00:00.014+08:00

Poem for the Day - Her Blue Dress (artwork by Janice Mason Steeves, Canada)

2011-10-29T11:20:00.002+08:00

Her Blue Dress

for Janice

You will want to know

the season

how a gown can slip itself over nose and cheek

and be visible from art

how Emily Dickinson stood by a window

pressing her pink hips

through a passage of time

lifting a blue taffeta dress

over her shoulders

to reach

cool, upturned toes

where poems lay like stepping stones

on the hardwood floor.

The long blue dress

was too big for this slip

of a girl

but she proceeded down the hall

where a mirror

motioned her to look

at the poet she would become.

I was instantly drawn to Janice's artwork at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig, Ireland where we met and were housed in rather large cottages. Her series included separate paintings joined as one. I have used one panel only from her work titled Thoughts of Stones to represent a mirror and a blue dress. I saw Emily Dickinson's blue dress inside the painting (and, I guess, I was also inspired after reading Billy Collins' poem Taking Off Emily Dickinson's Clothes

So there we were ( including Rebecca Crowell from Wisconsin- another fine artist!) each in our separate units, inspiring each other, and both encouraging me to visit the Megalithic art at Loughcrew. I have many more poems to come! Janice's Thoughts of Stones and her full art work can be viewed at Janice Mason Steeves

Cartoon for the Day - I Love this Irish One!

2011-10-27T16:47:00.000+08:00

Three Poems in Eureka Street!

2011-10-25T07:20:00.005+08:00

Three poems published today in Eureka Street. Must be the luck of Ireland still on my shoulders. Thank you Mr. Tyrone Guthrie for bequeathing your house to artists. What a wonderful place it was, the people more so. I now have lots of Irish friends and others too, from all over the world! The Tyrone Guthrie Centre
You can read the poems at Eureka Street
Poems are also read by broadcaster Peter Thomas with the gorgeous radio voice.

Helen is Back from the Land of the Leprechauns!

2011-10-14T01:41:00.018+08:00

The Return of Saturday Poetry & A Possible Hands-Up Count
This is a hands-up count to those of you who are interested in attending Term 1 of the fortnightly Saturday Poetry class at the Grove Library in 2012. The library is once again very supportive of OOTA and is requesting a confirmation from me regarding the booking. (Apparently the Flax room is in high demand for 2012!). It would be great to secure our original space – that lovely quiet room with the plush-red chairs!
Once again this class is "drop-in-style, no booking required". Saturday Poetry is suitable for community writers/ OOTA regulars, part-timers and casual attendees. So you can go off on holidays when you choose and we will still be there when you get back!

• Dates: 4th February to 7th July, 2012 (Saturdays & fortnightly thereafter) TBC

• Time: 1.30pm to 3.30 pm.

• Where: The Grove Library, 1 Leake Street, Peppermint Grove.

• Cost: $15 OOTA Members $20 Non-OOTA members.

• Class numbers required: minimum 6 – maximum 10

So here are the questions as a sort of poll to gauge your interest about the class. Please feel free to answer all of the questions or as little as you want.

• Does the time suit you? Yes / No
• Are you happy with the cost? Yes / No
• Do you wish to mainly workshop contemporary poetry? ⁯ Yes / No
• Would you like Readings or Workshopping each other’s poems introduced? Yes / No
• What about more of the Classics, Traditional Poets, Traditional Forms? Yes / No
• Other – please feel free to add further comments

You can add your answers in the comments section below or alternatively for privacy & confidentiality you can email me at hagemann.helen@gmail.com

Many thanks for taking the time,
Helen Hagemann

Poem for the Day - Bull's-Eye (revised at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Ireland)

2011-10-04T15:52:00.004+08:00

Bull’s-eye

The whole house turned wild
took a deep breath
with the noise of it
like snapped wood

It was before the dartboard
before father fixed a flywire door
before anyone thought
of a startled death

My young brother
too sick of dying
from archaic flow of arrows
from Robin Hood’s deathly yowl
from behind the staghorn wall
where a graceful thrust of sword
pinched him to the floor

took
the sharpest tool from the shed
and with a garrulous burst from the woods
cried ─ ‘Bull’s eye, you're dead!’

Missing the older brother by an inch
the knife split the wood
writing the veranda door
back to a Celtic myth

My young brother vanished
for most of the week

My older brother
sucked awe through his teeth
gauged the battle scar

This was what he wanted
to stand
as one peels back armour
in pride of his life
saved

Poem for the Day - Camping (revised at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Newbliss, Ireland)

2011-10-01T00:32:00.004+08:00

Camping

We pack after Christmas,
a band of pilgrims heading out
on the open road.

This is the best time of year when nights
are full of stars and clouds have slung
their guy-ropes across another town.

Cruising Walpole, trees cast their long shadows
like mesh across insects and streams. We explore
pioneer camps, axe handles in old markings,
phantom footprints of an agreeable time.

We have the night sky all to ourselves. It warms
us like saplings around the glow of fire sparks.
We join the moon couched in tangerine, all
asleep under the heavens and all tucked in.

Now, this is something different. The children’s
grown-up diction makes bittersweet an absent
father, a Ted Hughes. And echoing Plath’s words,

The man was a lion and had the voice like the thunder of God.

But none of this can be wasted. It’s part of time, the memory
of young children fishing, coursing mountain walks, spider
webs that hung their sticky tremble on narrow paths.

Our surfcat leaving the shore, the dog’s abandoned bark
filling the bay, his black body slapping forward in a confusion
of wind and wave, as we sailed further away.

Poem for the Day - Kewpie Doll (revised at Annaghmakerrig, Ireland)

2011-09-22T20:07:00.006+08:00

Kewpie Doll

            And nothing that moves on land or sea
           Will seem so beautiful to me – Equestrienne, Rachel Field

Little doll, carried home from carnivalé,
rustles her Giselle skirt in the wind.
She is as old as Ray Lawler's
Summer of the 17th Doll.

Her faded lipstick pouts an "O" as the mouths of girls,
words forming seduction in their heads.
She has lost her wand, her diamond ring
but not her good luck charm.

At the windowpane she raises her suppliant wings
and reaching for the stars
taps her ballet shoes against glass.
Fairy wings dispersing dust, as if she is back there

circling the Ringmaster’s voice
body upside down, pointing toes in the air
         - a girl in pink on a milk-white horse
           cantering over a sawdust course.

Pics from Ireland, at Annaghmakerrig, Carrickmacross & Ballybay

2011-09-22T15:17:00.005+08:00

I just love the names of these northern Irish towns. e.g Cootehill, Clones, Rockcorry. I'm in thick pastoral country, a rich green canopy of trees, cows and emerald fields. The roads are like winding narrow pathways. Suddenly you come into a town, like a time-warp, Irish architecture as solid as its stonework frontage. Immemorial, its land and its culture dating back to the Late Stone Age. No big shopping complexes here, just traditional shop fronts, with pubs along the street, just a few paces with your feet and you have a bar, then another bar, and a bar & grocery shop!

Poem for the Day - Quotidian Days

2011-09-14T09:10:00.015+08:00

Quotidian Days

men built ships
and sailed to Byzantium
they loved the smell of conquer

on and on, it went
Constantinople

captured by the Turks

and the way changed

and the name changed
death wasn't new but they liked

the feel of it

The Amity, in quotidian days,
contemplating the mischief of weather

headed to a southern shore
and subsequently ferried men's feet
to darker skin
standing in line

for flour and tea

some waited hours in front

some clanked behind
fetching water

turning tricks

Princess Royal Harbour, Albany, was one of the places where the Aboriginal Minang people lived.

For a short time in the winter *maggaro, the Minang people would leave the coast and move inland to hunt possum, wallaby and kangaroo.

With the Amity's arrival and the establishment of the military settlement, the local Minang people were paid in flour or sugar for jobs such as firewood collecting or the fetching of water. They became more and more dependent on European food, resulting in the disruption of their traditional way of life.

Video poem for the Day - Wild in the Dry Grass

2011-09-03T23:03:00.023+08:00

Wild in the Dry Grass by Helen Hagemann from H2 Design on Vimeo.
This poem also runs at the end of the video (best viewed small)

Wild in the Dry Grass

in wide brim hats

they rise from the

crest of earth

meet discreetly

cousins in white coats

like lovers

man & woman
the soil, a container
to look briefly into

as if they had eyes

as if they had lips

to share under umbrella or table

before

the blue heat of day
curls them into the soft crest

from which they came
---

Music: The Queen by Taylor Hayward. Listen to Hayward's piano renditions
@ http://taylorhayward.org/

This is one of many and new collaborations of photography, poetry and music, self-produced. Pics downloaded firstly from a Sony Cybershot HX9V digital point & shoot, then uploaded to Windows Movie Maker, and finally transferred toVimeo - early days!

Melbourne Poets Union 'The Attitude of Cups' launch at Collected Works

2011-09-02T09:06:00.004+08:00

Melbourne Poets Union's anthology The Attitude of Cups (about tea, wine & coffee) will be launched at Collected Works on Saturday, 15th November. Left Over Wine is a poem first published by Walter Ruhlmann in English/French @ mgversion2>datura and will be in the publication. I'm absolutely pleased to be in the book with such notable poets as: Ron Pretty, Jennifer Harrison, Kevin Brophy, Alex Skovron, Mike Ladd, Ivy Alvarez, Peter Bakowski, Ross Donlon & two other WA poets Rachael Petridis & Frances Macaulay Forde. Carmel Macdonald Grahame (my old ECU tutor) is in the book & hopefully will be at the launch, so I can say hello. All this is worth a trip to Melbourne & to visit my daughter!

Poem for the Day - On Entering the Strands of Trees

2011-08-27T16:07:00.003+08:00

On Entering the Strands of Trees from evangelyne on Vimeo.

On Entering the Strands of Trees

You walk towards a landscaped field
which raises your heart level. You leave

behind bad news, broken geraniums.
The park is freshly mown and the winter

so green it's no longer a rogue patch
of kindling and leaves, February heat,

and you’re avoiding the mobile phone
while listening to Natalie Merchant.

The grass trees are damsons twitching
amongst the strands of trees and there

is order in the urban vortex, a magpie and
willy wagtail morphing their visual song.

The park opens a pathway to an artist's future,
newfound aesthetics in Cedar, Olive Green

and May. A mimesis. The scene rises slowly
into itself, methodically in Derwent tips.

French and Gunmetal change the symmetry of
a blank page. The bush, a drug of infinite

detail, permeates a calm of egg and bacon plant,
purple wisteria, a photosynthesis of bark.

You scrape the page, and almost hearing the
struggle, the shade reaches out like a hand.

Music by Taylor Hayward, http://www.taylorhayward.org
PS: I've removed the video clip, but still practicing!

Heading to Annaghmakerrig too in September!

2011-08-26T16:20:00.000+08:00

Anuna : Whispers of Paradise from Anuna on Vimeo.

Michael McGlynn produced this video of his time at The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig, Newbliss, Ireland. I'm hoping to film the same lake, grounds & also the house soon in September. Magic! You can find out about Michael on his website.

Poem for the Day - Odd Blocks by Kay Ryan

2011-08-25T11:44:00.002+08:00

Odd Blocks
by Kay Ryan

Every Swiss-village
calendar instructs
as to how stone
gathers the landscape
around it, how
glacier-scattered
thousand-ton
monuments to
randomness become
fixed points in
finding home.
Order is always
starting over.
And why not
also in the self,
the odd blocks,
all lost and left,
become first facts
toward which later
a little town
looks back?

From "The Best of It" by Kay Ryan. A good poet to read for her quirkiness, turns of phrase and that have you thinking 'why can't I do that?'

Poem for the Day - First Burn by Tracy Ryan

2011-08-23T17:21:00.007+08:00

First Burn
by Tracy Ryan

All day she has pitched dry grass, Hardyesque,
perched on the stack, helping to raze the block
in a race against shire deadlines: fire risk.

Only her colours are wrong — curls a stark
hedge in English autumn, young fragile skin
dead-of-winter white. But she will work

to feel she's useful, wanting to fit in,
all my cautions thrown to the easterly,
hot from the desert. I've done all I can —

this is the point, the moment beyond me
for which we've struggled, locked like Gabriel
and Jacob, though the outcome may not be

a blessing. She is tall and capable,
strong on the outside — surely that's enough.
To look at her now no one else could tell

what tinder, what touchwood she was made of.
By evening there appears a subtle glow
upon her shoulders, imprinted as if

someone had held her fast; by morning so
reddened and furious she is aflame
with reproaches, and cries: You made me go

to England and then you made me come home.
Non-sequitur, she knows, but all the same
I am the mother, I must wear the blame.

Currently reading Scar Revision and The Argument by Tracy Ryan. A great poet, highly understated and overshadowed. Her poetry is rhapsodic according to Geoff Page, but it's more - concise, succinct, accessible, minimalist, enough intertextuality without the whole academy. Poetry that engages the reader with form and feeling, and interesting subjects as well to simply enjoy. Precisely what poetry is meant to do! Check out Fremantle Press

Poem for the Day - Some Ordinary Flower

2011-08-11T14:35:00.007+08:00

Some Ordinary Flower

If the body could float,
of course you might ride motionless
on the breeze,
skydive aerial arms slowly
down this ravine
feel the fuzzled damp
of foam
lightly touch rock
some ordinary flower

2011-08-08T08:10:00.012+08:00

Writing Children's Literature with Andrew Lansdown
Come along with your ideas and aspirations to this series of three workshops by Andrew Lansdown and be inspired and instructed by the masters of children’s literature.
1st Workshop is Friday, 12th August, 2011 – Fiction writing for children/teenagers (1)
Classes are casual in this series with no booking required. Cost: OOTA $20/Non-OOTA $25. Classes commence (each Friday fortnight) at 10.00am-noon. Room 9 (North Wing), Fremantle Arts Centre, 1 Finnerty Street, Fremantle. More information at Writing at the Centre

Clip of the Day - A Wild Experience

2011-08-07T22:29:00.004+08:00

Poem for the Day - Between Wheat Fields : a cinquain

2011-07-31T16:20:00.008+08:00

Between wheat fields

river,
rich, belly-up,
dunks a wild duck at noon,
and tree shadows dissipate the
dive ring

Poem for the Day - A Perfect Perch : a cinquain

2011-07-29T12:17:00.006+08:00

A Perfect Perch

July

with faint, bush sounds

like leaves crisping below,

the heron sits in winter's sun

mindful

Two Poems published in French/English in mg2_68: Indian Ocean Voices

2011-06-30T12:18:00.015+08:00

Just published by mgversion2 at ISSUU, Calaméo and Lulu.com. You can purchase mgv2_68: Indian Ocean Voices @ LULU
There are photographs and an article on Western Australia by moi. Page 103.
Here's the beginnings of "Paperbark Owl & No-Ghost Mountain" in French - ooh la la, mais oui, merci beaucoup to Walter Ruhlmann.

La chouette du paperbark - Paperbark Owl

Ta vision n'est qu'un ciel du soir cramoisi
après une journée de sommeil dans le creux d'un banksia des marais
Paisible obserateur sur fond de lune,
tu tournes la tête: un cadran cyclopéen.

----
Pas une montagne fantôme - No-Ghost Mountain

Blackwall, tu ne's plus un fantôme
mais un souvenir vert de jeunesse.
Montagne rusée! Quelle surprise.
Tu t'es cachée des promoteurs,
une seule route où des pneus brûlent passe à ta base.

Par écrit: poetry of the feminine - e-book by Helen Hagemann

2011-06-22T12:11:00.004+08:00

Open publication - Free publishing - More from Evangelyne

Poem for the Day - Photographs Always Remain the Same

2011-06-19T13:18:00.023+08:00

Photographs Always Remain the Same

All the little girls gather round,
school girls with bad haircuts,
mother poor in her school photograph.

In teenage years, waistcoats hug her
skirt, black waistcoats, white bobby socks,
arm in arm with friends on the promenade.

Only in a photograph does she look like
Lauren Bacall. Only in a photograph does
she smile with Humphrey Bogart.

Humphrey Bogart is father, cool, blowing
smoke rings as he walks. Why keep them
walking I do not know. Around town, round

in my head. You have to keep walking
when "WAR ENDS". Tickertape, tickertape
icing soldiers' heads, hats in the air.

White trails on mother's three-piece suit.
White confetti on father's tuxedo coat. White
icing on a swirl of silk, mother pretty.

She hugged her first, loved her first,
kept him safe on her knees. Move down
the fender please! Knees, knees

I never had a rock like a rosy chap
on weatherboard steps, only with Gran,
it was unplanned. Father's stiff

from all the drink. I imagine them
up there, in heaven, rocking on verandah
chairs, avoiding one another.

Latest Westerly Journal 56.1 out now!

2011-06-16T08:32:00.005+08:00

This issue is officially announced on Westerly's website. The cover is impressive - once again - so is the list of contributors. I find myself published alongside so many "ladies", poets I know, have met or been on poetry webs with. Congrats to Annamaria, Caitlin, Renee and Janet! Check out the latest journal here...

Poem for the Day - from the Mawson Poems

2011-06-12T17:12:00.009+08:00

The Aurora

A Summer Visit to Caroline Cove
December 1911

Caroline Cove, and away from the strong westerly’s, the Aurora
anchored its length and breadth in a plateau-like interior. In a channel
no more than eighty yards wide, Captain Davis knew what to focus on.
He was a man who knew the reefs from earlier days. Although
anchorage quickly changes identity, we were circumspect, eager to
rendezvous with what we’d heard. We rowed towards the entrance,
leaving the ship’s masts, sails drawn, skeletal. The landscape painted
us in, thick tussock-grass, steep hillsides, rocky shores and a crowded
sunlight swirling with sea-birds. The land was a treasure trove of
primitive nature, rookeries of eggs, nests of giant petrels and
thousands of penguins. In mild weather we were a band of schoolboys
on excursion. Royal penguins called to us as slaves, they
pecked our legs, chattered at the highest pitch, and as if we were
marched to court, we followed their whirring flippers, their crested
eyebrows pointing us south. Massed in uniforms of long golden
feathers they filed into rank, lead us away in haste, not by
danger from waves, but with their own desire not to swim.

Clip of the Day: Russian Newsreader in Fits of Laughter

2011-06-09T12:18:00.002+08:00

Acknowledgement: A big thank you to Carol Novak of Madhatter's Review http://www.madhattersreview.com/
http://carolnovack.blogspot.com/

Australian Poetry Library

2011-05-30T10:26:00.003+08:00

Australian Poetry Library
A great resource for poets, students, teachers. Needs filling in some.
http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/ Poetry Library
Acknowledgement: Thanks to Andrew Burke at High Spirits

Helen Hagemann's new e-book "The Joyous Lake"

2011-05-26T15:44:00.009+08:00

Open publication - Free publishing at ISSUU - More Australian

You can view my new e-book at
http://members.iinet.net.au/~helen.hagemann

and also at

http://issuu.com/evangelyne/docs/par_ecrit/

Poem for the Day - Ducks on Water Hollow

2011-05-25T15:36:00.007+08:00

Ducks on Water Hollow

No one can claim this space

here amongst the lily pads.

We are eighteen, some of higher rank; musk,

wood ducks, wild ducks who never stop shifting.

We eat curls of bread with fresh butter thrown into the river.

Someone screams ahead, the last of

the picnickers ceasing their wild rampage

over a round ball of leather.

The quiet grows.

Already, we feel the cool coming in. Hear

feet sloshing, dogs funneling noses into earth.

When the light fades, we glide into black aisles,

into a night’s rest on lily-pads,

into our water hollow, that green hollow

of soft earth filled with dark shadows.

Sleep comes easily in this world of wild reality.

Puddle, bush and mist and the weight

of human has gone in our triumph.

No one can claim this river

unless they can place their heads

upside down into mud.

Poem for the Day - Good Wine is a Familiar Creature

2011-05-17T15:50:00.003+08:00

Good Wine is a Familiar Creature

When the sun goes down we meet

for an evening meal.

We bring three bottles of wine, one champagne

their depth soon to be released absolutely

enjoyed on the tongue

Unsure of which

succulent dish arrives first,

we pop the champagne, froth in the glass

bringing us back to life.

Curried chicken with rice has a status of its own

strikingly familiar

with the one at home.

The waitress brings the pork, then the fish. Something

spills on the table as minute as a bead.

It rolls under the carousel

and is gone.

White wine is the fruity kick of glass.

Three of us are very drunk.

The fourth, who drives us home, who doesn’t drink,

enjoys the evening just the same

and marbles

the glazed eye of a fish

through the wet space

of the coffee table

spilled with roiled droplets…

Poem for the Day - A Holiday of Ordinary Things

2011-05-14T08:56:00.058+08:00

A Holiday of Ordinary Things

We arrive

in one of those country towns

where you still hear church bells ring

through a gothic tower, a spire that holds
a miniature cross.

The town has a river where water lilies bloom

and in the late evening on our walks

the ducks scuttle their way to the banks

shaking, listening for the burst of
plastic, a rustle of toast and crumbs.

You have to cast your pity aside, for the river

is rich. We waggle a finger, only guppies for you, we say.

There’s everything you want in this town

beside your own itinerary: hotels,

restaurants, take-away, coffee shops.

You’ll unpack a busy city

for a latte, a piece of cake. The shopping centre

is a quick pace across the railway line.

Saturday morning markets.

You must open your eyes when you enter.

Young country women are round, their bodies

sculpted with a new being inside.

Young men are brash, vocal and

you know it’s the drink as they circle the town
like pacing boxers, ready for a fight.

Out of town, a graveyard mists, the dam's half-full

but God is here with his kindred spirits
as bells refrain from the highest hill.

Easter when the blood of Christ was spilled.
And you know, you have more chance than that to live

on a holiday of ordinary things, in a hall

that bursts a slatted dawn of light.
Every day, by evening, there is nocturnal song,
frogs and crickets, a lily-flowered river

where black shadows intersect with parrots' wings

on two people withdrawing into themselves

the dim and flicker of a spotlight
searching the park, the river
under the bridge
for their greyhound and their whippet.

Poem for the Day - a haiku

2011-05-11T08:19:00.002+08:00

at the Perth airport
a comfortable-trouser family
a row of tracky dacks

Acknowledgements to Joanna Preston for her prompt on "comfortable trousers".
http://jopre.wordpress.com/

Happy Mother's Day to all those mothers in control!

2011-05-08T14:03:00.000+08:00

Poem for the Day - The Ship inside the Cavern

2011-05-02T11:38:00.018+08:00

A glimpse of the Aurora
from within the cavern in the wall of the shelf-ice
of the Mertz Glacier Tongue,
Commonwealth Bay, Adelie Land,
Australasian Antarctic Expedition,
December 1913. Photo by Frank Hurley.

The Ship inside the Cavern

The Aurora is caught
in a clamped iced year,
an amphitheatre of walls,
a large cave that puddles
each time winter leaves.
The great opening of ice
looks out as if the ship
has been emptied into the sea.
A chiaroscuro of light and dark
shadows and dims the bridge,
the sail-less masts, the hull
buoyant above the water-line.
Accompanied by great clumps
of ice there is a scent of brine,
damp boots in circuitry
from anchorage to sled.
Beyond, distance looms like shallow
breath. Mawson and Hurley
catching up with the shuffle
of Adélie penguins.

Poem for the Day - The Dinghy and the Roller Coaster

2011-04-29T14:25:00.031+08:00

The Dinghy and the Roller Coaster

A blackness flashed across my eyes
and the ground fell away from under me.
I was a mother so I had to remain calm
like a hero in some familiar movie. I think
it was Wonder Woman. I look back imagining
my cardigan whipped by the wind as I strode
away from the Roller Coaster. A braver person
like Emma Peel, from the Avengers, would have
high-kicked her boots in the air, the structure
feeling her firm heroics. All that movement
corrugated turns, nothing to hold onto, except
a bar like an oar across the seat. A dinghy moves like
that on water, bounces a paddle or two on a rocky
surface. There’s nothing to hold onto as it goes
from side to side. Often the sway of the boat moves
in full circle, a maelstrom taking you any which way.
It was like that, and it was like the Roller Coaster,
all ripples and turns, the eyes bleeding
because you couldn’t see anything solid,
but of course it was an outing with your children
and the movie of Wonder Woman was over.
I remember how close I was to them then, in the
constant grinding, lurching, a stacked world
of rough steel that brought us closer than
we’ve ever been. I swayed a little on the timber,
the grains, the steps to the ground, rung by rung.
Glad to feel the press of earth, not breathing
as if I was lunging down foaming rapids in a kayak,
and then there's the bouyuant correction. And
where are the children? Out on the lake, paddling a 3-D view of
a dinghy, yellow-tipped oars, red and blue base.
In the middle of a natural spring, as deep as its breadth,
I worry about my boy and girl because the bottom
is an infinite bog, a huge trout. Nothing pulls them apart,
as they pull together, stroke after stroke, splicing
water, splashing pebbles in the sun, the bow making
familiar sounds like deflated air against the jetty.
Landing, a run up the bank, legs over bikes, not a
wailed ride like the Roller Coaster, because that
is another poem and the children are cycling the park
while my dream-dinghy is out there on the lake
a soap bubble, popped, gone.

Poetic Graphic for the Day

2011-04-17T14:10:00.002+08:00

Poem for the Day - Penguins in Frost

2011-04-14T08:35:00.018+08:00

Penguins in Frost
Ice cased Adelie penguins
after a blizzard at Cape Denison
photo by Frank Hurley,
National Library of Australia.

White glossed, unbearably chilled
these penguins are piqued in glare

nothing moves except shadows
the music of the ice as it drips on

fur and face. The north wind
sings, unbuttons their coats.

Their statuesque flippers defrost
as water leaks from their stance.

These pensive birds are used to the
frost, snow, the sudden flood

of blizzards. Look! flakes shimmy
and the buried one is no longer

a totem pole and moves ahead
from a stiff wall of ice.

Poem for the Day - Bon Voyage

2011-04-11T09:38:00.002+08:00

Bon Voyage

The day we buried grandma
the day of five funerals

a day when fun hid itself
behind the trees

with the bees

yes, that day of dark cloud,
mounds and rounds

of soft grey earth
I wanted to say to the lowering,

to the box in the ground
to the white lilies going down

Where Gran? Where to now?

Poetic Graphic for the Day

2011-04-07T08:33:00.001+08:00

Poem for the Day - Toffee Apples

2011-03-17T13:49:00.001+08:00

Toffee Apples

In years gone by, women
made toffee apples before they died.
They passed the recipe down
through the fruit trees that swayed
and rolled apples on the land. We
collect their apples now from memory,
the heavy branches blinking a gloss
of Delicious Reds, crisp, evergreen
Granny Smiths. We leave them in
their skins, the toffee boils in the pot.
A liquid of glucose, castor sugar
cochineal. Toffee apples form a perfect
sphere like miniature worlds with sticky charm.
Popsticks placed within the core
are like peace flagpoles, one a piece.
Cool and clamped in their tight red bellies
the apples cry out ‘eat me, eat me.’
Sirrrip! The toffee lifts as lip, as ledge
for the mouth’s first bite.
Red balls like the sun, a stitched ball
in your hand, the earth’s red blood.
Crimson candy you have to work your way
into, mouth dribbling a spillway of saliva.
Toffee that can only be eaten
in that first deep crunch,
a crack between teeth
like the breaking of ice.

Poem for the Day - The Green Wall

2011-03-14T12:23:00.008+08:00

The Green Wall

From my window
I see a green wall.
A quiet space with only the sounds
of shoes passing by.
In Sendai, one thousand two hundred
people have lost their shoes.
They float by windows
like tiny boats sailing
on a splintered sea.

In the time I've been visiting
this grove
I've never noticed
the green wall
never known the faces
of the shoes
passing by.

I've never known so many people
losing their shoes
in one day's
drowning holocaust.

So many taken in a quake of 8.9

Poem for the Day - Sand Dunes

2011-03-12T09:12:00.003+08:00

Sand Dunes

Close to the ocean
lying on a slope
we hugged towels into sand.
At the back, in the holiday house we rented,
my mother distributed fairy bread.
A tiny pebbled meal.
On the beach, we ran green
with salt and spray.
Half way up the dunes
under a sackful of clouds
we bombed our candied mouths
into the dune’s caress. Three kids stomping
the tune of the grand old Duke of York
marched to the top of the hill.
We were neither up, nor down. Me, and my
brother aged nine; his arm pulling the day
from my legs. Pushed me forward to tumble
like Spinifex. I rolled with the custom,
down into the loft of a thousand grains,
sand in my hair and teeth.
My cousin stayed up there,
crumpling her skin in laughter.
Until she too was pushed, headlong
into the bug-eyed stare
of olive lovers.
We ran home,
gritty with shell-flint,
our bright grins, ready to spill.

Poetic Graphic for the Day - Poetry Slam

2011-03-06T15:41:00.002+08:00

Poem for the Day - The Monroes

2011-03-04T15:42:00.009+08:00

The Monroes

Back in the 50s I grew up
with the Monroes.
There were so many children
in the family you lost count.

I remember Billy, the eldest,
Bobby, Jane and Susy, then there were
two sets of twins. Later, more

babies, a boy, a girl, another girl
as in Cheaper by the Dozen.
Most of all, I remember Rex,
and their bare feet swinging

on the front gate. How different
they were in glamour to the buxom
lady in Some Like it Hot.

They didn't own shoes. During summer
their dresses holed, and their denim
overalls frayed and fringed
like water over sea anemones.

They hardly said a word. They didn't
laugh, or smile, or cry, but performed
tricks for us kids and the neighbours.

After several handstands, bodies piled
high like a pyramid they gobbled fairy
bread, or our grandmother's hot scones
bubbly hot from the oven.

Next, it was Rex who called for their
Saturday lunch. Back on all fours
and with a cue from the boys,

the dog would howl the rising octaves
of a Tarzan call. It was more a wild
jungle call, like the big man
pounding his chest amongst the vines,

and more memorable than Marilyn's
rippled skirt on a vent. We criticized
those scrawny, unkempt kids and never
did see the poverty above the laughter.

Poem for the Day, No-Ghost Mountain

2011-02-18T10:40:00.045+08:00

No-Ghost Mountain

Blackwall, you are no longer a ghost

but a green memory of youth.

Clever mountain! What a surprise.

You've kept developers from their view,

only one road burning tyres at your base.

It's been a while, as we climb a narrow slope,

our breath deep and measured, until our bodies

are intimate with each step. Brushing flies,

our hands sweep a course across jetties, oyster

leases, a plethora of boats below. Tiny finches

cut through the cracks of leaves, gracefully

unseen. At intervals, we sit like chipmunks on a

rock, dizzy with the heat, the weight of our packs.

Huge shadowy forms arrive above our heads:

geometric granite, cool caves and

atoms of frogs beneath. On the tabletop

the greens and malachite blues of the bay

leave us with nothing to say. We sit in the

swishing, murmuring, pinnacle of silence.

A stiff breeze rises, sidles into the cells

of planets, into us.

Poem for the Day - A Small Village Family

2011-02-14T11:03:00.015+08:00

A Small Village Family

My oldest brother is a flamingo, preening his body

at the edge of a marsh. Often, he flies so high that

he cannot land. My mother is a straw broom, standing

proud in the cupboard with other brooms. Over floors

she is never still, sweeping dust & sundry under carpets.

My youngest brother is a large snapper. Already he is

thinking of ways to avoid the fisherman that he will become.

My father is a willow. When he meets another willow he

shakes his frond, tickles his palm. He belongs to a

secret, male society called 'The Blue Aprons of Willows'.

My mother & father think I'm a Hymn Book, poised on a
church pew, where my rhyme is sung like a choir on Sundays.

Both brothers think I'm a duck with a fat bottom, waddling along
the street, taking photographs of other fat ducks' bottoms. But,

I am none of these. I'm a village shop with crime novels, poetry
and fiction. There not written yet, but I'm getting around to it.

Ways to the Metaphor

2011-02-13T19:07:00.004+08:00

Back in 2010, I conducted a workshop called "Ways to the Metaphor". I used a model by Patrick Lane, a Canadian Poet, (partner to Lorna Crozier).

The Metaphor Model by Patrick Lane

You want you to compare each member of your family. If you have five brothers and sisters of course that is too many, but make a choice & stick to your smaller family of mother, father and at least two siblings. eg.

My oldest brother is a wasp, cleaning his body on a bulrush above the pond’s still water. He is almost ready to take flight.

My sister is a small white stone in the clay pot by the kitchen fire. She is so still only the dark can find her.

My youngest brother is the first leaf on the wisteria vine in spring. Already he is thinking of winter the yellow he will become before he falls.

My father is the window box in winter. Everything is waiting for the first flowers to bloom in his wide hands, but where are the seeds, where are the spring rains?

Eventually you will have a poem, especially when you answer, in lines, what they think of you! Finally you write your own personal reply.

More to come...

Metaphors!

2011-02-09T17:56:00.003+08:00

Poem for the Day - One Size Fits All

2011-02-05T11:39:00.004+08:00

One Size Fits All

You know when you bring
your garment home
it isn't going to fit.
It fits your youngest daughter
of which you have one.
You take it back to the store.
Ask for a blouse, extra large.
They have one, in grey.
You want to write to China.
Tell them your measurements,
that you have never bathed
in the Yangtze, worked in
the paddy fields or
owned a rickshaw.

W.S. Merwin, US Poet Laureate 2010-2011

2011-01-29T16:01:00.011+08:00

Friday, January 21, 2011

(Acknowledgement - from Ron Silliman's Blog)

A conversation with W.S. Merwin
with David Lynn & David Baker
of the Kenyon Review

The House and the Garden:
The Emergence of a Dream

Labels: W.S. Merwin

Link -

Poem for the Day - Perth Poinsettia

2011-01-09T17:03:00.068+08:00

Perth Poinsettia
Euphorbia pulcherrima

I count seven florets in the centre

of each leaf which would not be visible

except for the open spread of red

that could catapult them like the season's

pop of Bon Bons. The poinsettias

are fireworks to the eye, an explosion

on New Year's eve, the first red twirl

of a Catherine wheel. It's Christmas

in a backyard thirty years ago,

the red combustion of our lives

with none of the prescience of

oncoming dreams. No matter.

The future means change. The house

in the evening held only

by the wind's disturbance.

A bitterness inside, while outside

the poinsettia is a ruby star.

Each flower driven upward

in its small nature. Perhaps, this is all it can

do before winter's change, to sway there,

a Frida Kahlo objet d'art,

vibrant and dazzling

in the moon's eclectic shine.

Poem for the Day - Blue-Eyed Cormorant

2011-01-04T14:22:00.066+08:00

Blue-eyed Cormorant
i.
November at Tuggerah Lake and there's

nothing here except a jetty, boats pitching
further out in the bay, two teenagers
lost in time staring at a float.

On a side-deck white with age, a cormorant
hangs its sails like furbelows out to air,
equidistant wings, smoky black, white

edged, catching the thermal calm. A human
sound, the bird pivots a direction south.
Its mind dividing itself in this four-way
calculation. There is a slow impulse to fly

as it shifts from foot-to-foot, the cormorant,
sheathing wings in close, rises to the sounds
of mooring rings pinging on the pilings.

ii
I think of Mawson travelling the ice.
Those magnificent birds he glimpsed
in ethereal blue, the curious pageant
of penguins, seals on magic gondoliers.

Macquarie Island, southern side, sea elephants
wallowed in bog-holes. Old males with tusk-like
hairs in large nostrils weighed four tons.

Out from the Aurora across dark reefs,
snake-like kelp below, he spied blue-eyed
cormorants, the fluff of a day's rookery rising
white against the bluish-tinge of ice.

iii
Here in the poem there's neither weather
nor ice, but a sea bird holding its own
between lake and home. Of course, there

is more to the sea than a lone cormorant.
Herons are bigger than egrets, though both
have the same long legs. Plovers are cute
and might have plural lovers. Loons sound

like looney-tunes, an albatross is the BIG
boss. Gentoo penguins gently plod along.
Skua-gulls and giant petrels, Mawson wrote,

maraud nests of non-predacious birds. Royal
penguins whir their flippers before marching out
near bright-coloured Maori hens in the tussock
grass. Sometimes the page is a mise-en-scène.

Poem for the Day - Fun Pier

2010-12-28T17:05:00.016+08:00

Fun Pier

From the Heads to the Fun Pier the ocean
goes through its motions of attack. The ferry
rocks and levels, slams the water with its colour,

blue and white, like horses on the carousel. On
the north-side, the carnival is drenched in sand,
lifesavers wanting action, pipe band thrumming

old tunes into sporran and kilt. The boat ride’s a
five minute stride to the pier and vice versa. Old
hopes dwell there in the pink urgency of toffee,

ice-cream, purple dodgem cars, white clowns
twisting bow ties. The ghost train is back in black.
Childhood lurks there, sleeps curled up until crude

laughter breaks visceral, menacing. The phantoms
in the dream are brothers inside the shooting gallery,
eyes glaring over striptease ladies, pinball machines.

As she hurries through the tunnels of the Fun House
the film throws light into its dark. The young girl
carries a ghoul mask spinning it in front of her

brother’s face. At the dodgem cars, she furs it
against his cheek, but she is the wild girl he never
harms, out there on the water, the tides' mutterings

working to and fro against kelp-haired pilings.
The last scene is a frozen look on their faces
when the arcade curls a puzzle of signs, the fun

parlour nailed silent, carousel roped under tarp,
and the blue and white horses, bunched up together,
lie on their side, as if they had just died.

Poem for the Day - Arboretum, Pearl Beach

2010-12-27T12:02:00.015+08:00

Arboretum, Pearl Beach

The thick barrel of the tree stands out. Its

knotted eyes in the wood like a changling.

Light swarms through national bark, Cabbage

tree palms, a child’s slide, tennis courts.

Ms Crommelin lived here for 30 years on a beach

strung like pearls, bequeathed her trees for the

early calls of a rock warbler's taunt, brush

turkeys scuffing feet towards incubation.

The bush echoes a lattice of voices drowned.

And not one tree pulled down. ‘Look there, through

the thicket, the opera is playing Die Fledermaus.'

Min left maxi trees

Pearl Beach at Twilight

Helen Hagemann's Hike Up Blackwall Mountain, November 2010

2010-12-23T09:16:00.003+08:00

Steep path up Blackwall Mountain

I rested on occasions before the massive climb!

This time, drinkies!

I made it to the top, what a view!

View over Ettalong to Broken Bay

On the way down was cool

These granite outcrops could kill you if they broke!

Ah, Blackwall, the massive mountain I conquered

Amazing Bird Life on the Central Coast, NSW Holiday November 2010

2010-12-19T23:17:00.008+08:00

Rainbow Lorikeet in the Grevilleas, Entrance shops

Feeding Pelicans at The Entrance, 3.30pm

All male pelicans - one female

Cormorant drying wings at Tuggerah Lake

Black & White Cormorant about to take flight!

Pied Oystercatchers bedding down for the night, Tuggerah Lake

Duck & Eleven Ducklings in Town!

Ducks live in the streets of Ettalong

Ducks & Pheasant Pidgon side-by-side

Pelicans waiting for a feed, Woy Woy

Puddle Duck! Blackwall Mountain, Ettalong

Pelican, Woy Woy baths

Lone Pelican, Ettalong Beach

Wagstaffe behind Pelican

Rotary feeds the birds

Happy, happy holidays!

2010-12-11T15:35:00.001+08:00

OOTA WRITERS take over Westerly's Pages of Volume 55: 2, 2010

2010-12-04T09:08:00.010+08:00

Check out all the West Australian poets & writers in this latest Westerly Spring Issue Volume 55. No 2, 2010. Most of the poets, FOURTEEN!! all told, are from OOTA WRITERS!
Westerly Magazine

Why not join OOTA WRITERS? We rock!
oota writers

Poem for the Day - My Brother's Farm

2010-11-29T16:16:00.039+08:00

My Brother's Farm

Each evening on the deck you catch the view of a
hinterland, and sheep droppings attack the senses.
You think this is good fertilizer for the orchard,
back lawn, vegetable patch, azaleas down the side.

His farm of twenty acres is hot-wired and fenced all
around. Eight ducks coast by, diffident, eager to test the
boundaries. It's a whole new frontier visiting a home that
moves each year towards completion. The garage awaits its

aluminium hat. The tin shed is due to collapse into itself
like bookends. Yet these two things are connected
by the stack of hay that quickly disappears when the
bleating stops. Ten eggs a day, he collects, enough for pie.

You're at the edge of the Hunter Valley where pioneers
once opened a thousand windows the hard way to mountains
and hills like this, a sheer drop to the back of the property.
Although one would never contemplate a trek down its

contiguous throat. It's the desire to do so that must be
stopped. On the back porch a breeze is all you can ask for
as it carries this moment toward a lone bird call, a pheasant
singing like Billy Joel. His plan, to carry that wail

long into the evening when the stars appear. Their signal,
a thousand tenements in the night's sky. This farm, too,
can't be glazed in metaphor, because there's more beneath
the surface like keeping the hens cool, safe from foxes,

the wood pile stacked − ready for retirement. Relaxed on
the porch, contentment rises above the burble of frogs and
crickets, the day's black snake sending us into long sighs,
the small talk of, 'too early in the season' and 'it could rain.'

Poetic Graphic of the Day - Cow Poem

2010-11-22T12:20:00.002+08:00

Poem for the Day - After John Ashbery

2010-10-23T08:10:00.006+08:00

When you Pass Go, Collect $200

After John Ashbery

How little we know of someone’s brain,
and not that we want to!
Too much static going on.

Who was it who said, “We had macaroni each day,
except Sunday. Wait! I know who wrote that!
It was….

Never mind, the bottlebrushes are blooming
at my window. Geraldton Wax flairs pink.
I envy the spring, signs of new life each year,
while I’m getting older.

Soon, I have to take up riding.
It will be body fat on centre leather. Yet there's
a certain stillness where you push your legs through,
pathways of gum nuts, acacia pollen that backs up
with the breeze, joggers in white headbands.

Whether or not I make it, it will be fun,
nostrils aflare, track suit flapping. I’ll have to
squander spring before the summer comes, thinking
about Sunday lunch, the heat of the two emerging
into walls.

What do I make of walls?

They have freedom when someone’s gone.
I can’t wait to shuffle back into mine, touch
the emptiness. Two relaxed feet under the desk
will be mine, the cat on my lap, too.

When I come up for air, I’ll pass go.
Collect $200.

Poem for the Day - a found poem "Picnic"

2010-10-12T07:43:00.011+08:00

Picnic

Live blue spray kicks against the mountain.
There is a lesson here at the creek, boys
& girls like handfuls of gladiolas arrange

a camp fire, rummaging in the bush for flint,
paper, kindling to smoke out Apache. Geronimo!
The Lone Ranger, high-ho Silver, away!

Roundup time. Cowboy suits flash, arrest the sun.
White shoes hang in trees like cockatoos
nibbling seed pods. Frogs serenade from the

bank, their voices deeper than night. The boys
heighten noise playing bandits. Stagecoach.
Kids playing shotgun in this watery world,

scooping up miniature forts in river mud, until
the myth becomes cannonball fodder. Cazzam!
Shoot the enemy. No enemy, no feathers dancing

only people on the shore, waggy dogs, blue boys
playing tag, shovelfulls of laughter. Hello,
goodbye whisks across the water like smoke.

Cartoon for the Day - The Wrecking Ball

2010-10-01T09:29:00.002+08:00

Acknowledgement: Eureka Street, 1st October 2010

Poem for the Day - Marble Tornedo

2010-09-23T09:04:00.002+08:00

Marble Tornedo

My girlfriend Heather experienced a
weather adventure. The havoc she caused
upset the boys squatting at marbles.
She had several hundred of her own, shoulder-
slung in a string bag, betting everyone.
As the storm bullied clouds off Barrenjoey,
she joined their game with forty of their
Tom Bowlers, Cat’s-eyes and Peewees in the rink.
At the line, the wind lifted her skirt, her plaits
like marionette strings. The Big Bonker she fired
carried itself nicely to a suitable distance
inside the circle, shooting glass for miles.
Strangely, though she collected all their marbles,
she wasn’t injured by their hailstones,
and remained intact.

I'm Such a Feminist!

2010-09-22T15:05:00.003+08:00

John Ashbery on PBS News

2010-09-11T10:13:00.009+08:00

John Ashbery on PBS News

A Perfect Hat

I forget what it is I would rather be doing.
Floral and verbal, I am in the thick
of what I would rather be doing, jumping off a cliff,
rousing subordinates. There are just so many things
one would rather be caught out doing, like measuring the tree,
the swift shadow of which menaces us and bluebirds.
Oh the mill sang of many things but its wheel
was always rolling whether you noticed it or not.
The wheel that is still today but much larger.

It cautioned us to leave but we slept
the exact duration of the idea that never leaves us now.

And this is the perfect poem after teaching Personification on Saturday 11th September, so I thought I would post Ashbery's poem here. During class, we had a long discussion about 'pathetic fallacy' and the difference between this kind of trope and personification. I felt that if we were to worry about such terminology as 'pathetic fallacy' this might stifle our creativity while writing personification. Eventually, we reasoned, that we could attribute human feelings to a poem. Here Ashbery attributes "thinking" (or is it some kind of annoyance for the poet?) to the voice of the hat. Rainer Maria Rilke attributes the emotion of 'loss of freedom' in his poem, The Panther.

Poem for the Day - Log Ride, Hansaland Germany - Yippee ki-aye! Forthcoming in Westerly!

2010-09-09T09:04:00.004+08:00

Log Ride, Hansaland Germany

We enter this watery kingdom,
the yippee ki-aye of the West with its replica
log house, smokestack, a log flume
that sprays into sudden bursts.
Laughter runs amok as we glide
along narrow canals, sense the air change as the bow
opens curved waves, symmetrical wings.
With each thump and twist, our children shriek
at possible horizons, strike sparks of water
that take us to cloud, conifer and ridgeback hill.
In minutes we are beyond the lattés, souvenirs
and gingerbread men, pausing over Sierksdorf,
Lüneburger Heide with neatly clipped
hedgerows, tulips, the purple hills of Sprötze.
Beyond, Hamburg is in miniature
with its shoebox of houses, flea-size families.
At the summit, the log ascends and the world falls away.
White plumes soak riders on either side
and in the distance the roller coaster approaches
concert level, our boy rattling the rail for fun.
In this moment that passes so quickly,
like a German summer,
our children shimmer in tiny droplets
from an avalanche of foam,
and when we alight
another ride is necessary.

Poem for the Day, Ecological Misfortunes of a Bay : First Published in Landscape & Language Journal, Peripatetica: The Poetics of Walking

2010-09-05T08:11:00.015+08:00

Ecological Misfortunes of a Bay

On the sand I read: "No fishing,
crabbing, prawning", before I see 'fine'
the word exactly right for today's forecast.
But then, there is rock, a breakwall, and crabs
are dependent on rocks as mossy edges
or grottos to spawn.

A portrait of home and the land
is pulling away from the shore. Each edge
an erosion of dunes, shoals.

I take a walk on narrow sand,
look at landmarks I once knew.
The past returns like a creeping tide, November
rendezvous with December, dreamy towels of youth.
Father arriving upstream, large snapper
anchored against his coveralls. The bilge water
washing gills, proffered to pelicans, gulls.

How to inhabit this space again, to understand
the ecology of change, the forced greetings to locals
without conversation, words sinking like tackle into an
afternoon breeze. We meet the disappointed, an Italian
neighbour dark on the Shire for higher rates.
A long silence follows. He folds the bill into his pocket,
shoring up his strife.

Along the esplanade, history floats back with
a strong nor'easterly, fishermen returning home with
sacks of fish, crabs, prawns. You want this
starting with today, not just a painting on the wall,
but a channel deepening itself with prawns,
bloodworms, cormorants arriving with their dewy
outlook from feeble swamps.

The bay could be become large again,
budding with life, kites circling on a ramp of air,
families staying till dusk, children swathed in salt,
mothers thinking of dawn, the bay's mist
infusing time and space.

These are only thoughts that float
like wing on thermal. Thirty years on
and there's not one crab, not a claw drying on rock.
You can only hope for a grittiness of shore to return
curved and flinty, feet roving a line of spinifex and dune
beyond this punitive sign
that makes the bay just a pothole to sink into,
a nothing coast.

Published in ECU's Landscapes Journal: Peripatetica: The Poetics of Walking

Poem for the Day - Grandmother & Granddaughter Poem (forthcoming in Mascara Literary Review)

2010-08-26T08:18:00.002+08:00

Grandmother & Granddaughter Poem

When my grandmother was frail,
not knowing it was cancer,
we’d sit in bed, facing each other;
two pillows at cornered walls, a toddy beside.
Gran would lift the lid of a brown suitcase,
where apart from a silver wink in her eye,
she’d show fifty-percent of her life.
Nutmeg, cinnamon & ginger bartered in Malay stalls
at Paddy’s Markets, their spicy air arriving.
Tucked in newspaper: textiles, tablecloths, napkins,
slippers wedged together, a finery of nylon hose.
We’d go deeper & deeper, down into the suitcase,
Gran’s fingers tinkling glass buttons, pins, cotton reels.
Unpacking a day’s shopping, she’d lift my lips to sparkle
them candy-apple pink, round my cheeks with a light
touch of rouge; us mouthing ‘O’s’ like clowns in glass.
Gran just had her pills, so she prided herself with a new perm,
how her body warmed under a flannel shirt of her making.
Like those clowns we’d laugh at Gran’s bedside teeth,
coming out like stars. And she’d bequeath me
more of her life. I knew she was happy, passing me
spindles of Ric-rac, ribbon, guipure lace; our hands
aglitter in bells & reindeers woven into braid.
She eased paper patterns from covers, kept material
when a bride. Citron pillow slips from her marriage bed,
now smelling of naphthalene, frayed at the edges;
her pale fingers, lucent as ice, shaking on the perfect
blue satin stitch of forget-me-nots.

Hagemann's Saturday Poetry now at "The Grove" Library

2010-08-23T11:22:00.006+08:00

Saturday Poetry at The Grove Library, Peppermint Grove

Join Helen Hagemann's second Saturday Poetry class for Term 2 at The Grove, 28th August, 1.30pm-3.30pm. This class will look at the inclusion of “MOTIF” in poetry and ways of making your contemporary verse richer with wider references. Prior to writing exercises we will look at the work of Andrew Marvell, Nathan Curnow, Kate Llewellyn, Michael Ondaatje and Andrew Taylor. The Grove Library is situated at 1 Leake Street, Peppermint Grove (just around the corner from Stirling Highway). Check out the blog for directions and map @ http://www.writingatthecentre.blogspot.com All welcome!

Poem for the Day - Claremont Showgrounds

2010-08-14T07:45:00.003+08:00

Claremont Showgrounds

When you enter this microcosm
 country life meeting city 
you're not thinking of Sideshow Alley.
Your ear instructs you to the polo,
wood-chopping, craft and produce show.

You're not thinking of bunny hops, eagle
drops on the Roller Coaster, your name called last
for the Camel Ride, or the one-off number
you couldn't collect for Big Bear or Panda.

All winter your children saved for the whirligig
of whoops and jolts, the Bumper Cars, Animal Farm.
And later, not wanting the consequence of home,
the tattle of how much money they spent, they ate
all the lollies, cramming each showbag into one.

Aloft and linking arms with your children,
bodies close in sync, you rocked and tilted a view
above the fairgrounds: your small family made up
of, one boy, one girl, minus the boss at home.

Time to reflect then on the good grace
of the author above who tossed down one, pure,
cloudless day under September sun.

The Chair Lift: a slow bird over Claremont
The Fishing Game: cardboard you couldn’t eat
Sideshow Alley: a crushed amble of heads and hats
Carnival Tents: a series of fringes and fur
Fairy Floss: gone in seconds
The Exit Turnstile: one last ride for home.

Vale - Alec Choate 1915-2010

2010-08-13T17:34:00.001+08:00

Vale by Helen Hagemann, 4th August, 2010

I met this lovely man at his book launch of My Days Were Fauve, an Autobiography in Verse. I attended the launch with a friend, enjoyed Alec's reading, the wine and the company of many poets I knew. I bought Alec's book and was amazed at the creative, kinetic energy of his verse that was sustained throughout in imabic pentameter & rhyme. I later discovered that My Days Were Fauve was shortlisted for the WA Premier's Poetry Book Award 2002.
This book is now a good resource for me. I teach poetry in Fremantle, and know that Alec Choate's major works will eventually be held up to the light once more.

Rest in Peace, Alec, where the good poets go.

Poem for the Month - The Only of Only Being Woman

2010-07-18T10:11:00.001+08:00

I want to write the language of my sex
hear the crack of rope again
a childish squeak of crosses into desk
I want the oranges and apples of my chest
to be those grown-up watermelons
I want to feel the crack and split
the burrowing erotic trip between two thighs
I want the moment when a raspberry splits my teeth
the naked juice cascading open lips
I want the bulging sweet fecundity
of birth again
the unconditional taste of love that opened every pore
of earth
earth's sweet parlay of flowers
happy birth
that barefoot walk of motherhood.
I want to feel again those suckling lips
swimming sleepy in my milk
that gentle calm of dummy rocking on my hip
I want a new un-written law
of 'woman' at the washing board
where stooped she dyed the sheets with blue
and hung them on the travelling hoist
or dropped them water cold
to copper hot
I want to
talk about the nothingness of being
backyard bound
the claim that wife and house are one
take out the flack, the jokes, the puns
the only
of only being woman

from Until the Last Symphony Rises

Poem for the Day - Pester Power

2010-06-15T10:02:00.010+08:00

Pester Power

Standing at the front door, I watch
my Burmese cat stretch the thin barrel
of her body a quarter way along the wire.
She waits, as her custom, for a walk
to the park. It's a kind of pestering, like the time
your children, as young as five, gripped the latest toy
from the supermarket, fingers tight as ivy, a Tristan,
an Isolde recalcitrant as tangled vine around your leg.

Each morning the cat at her daily exercise
hangs like a flying fox on all fours. It’s the same kind
of feral display when your boy was two,
spinning like a half-dead fly on a supermarket floor,
Wagon Wheel or Chupa Chup half hidden by his mouth
so that speech wouldn't come, his tantrum an explosion
on his face, until coins clattered their way to the till.
Each time you caved in, caved in to the pressure.
Your driver's seat pushed forward,
their feet pumping hard for a Mr. Whippy cone,
the pealing bells of Greensleeves lasting longer than your guilt.
In the rear view mirror, you watched their triumph,
upending the cone for a rush of cream.
You knew the car would be sticky for a week.

You remember the visit to the zoo.
Their voices persistent as the tooting mini-train,
the dropped bottle of coke, splintered glass
foaming the path. You could have left them there
in the nocturnal house, in the dark,
amongst the owls, rodents and giant bats.
After the chimpanzees, gibbons,
orangutans and snakes you headed home
for the front seat fiasco.
Yes you did. It was your turn this morning, it’s mine now.
No it isn’t. It's mine! MUM!

You will do anything to stop the war.
A trip to the toy section for another Barbie,
a ten minute ride to the beach, longing
for squalling seagull sounds, white waves
lightening the day, away from thumping heads,
knuckles on the first of the month.
You remember your son's hidden tricks,
a scream for junk food, Mum's taxi taking him
straight to counter-top toys; your daughter wanting
the same Big Bird, Gonzo or Kermit the frog.

Today you study psychology, ways to be strong,
a new mother's theory you could’ve used back then.
This is it, the 21st Century, a child’s power renamed,
and Mr. Whippy's in the street, and your Burmese
cat’s bunting her chin half way along the bumper bar
of the ice-cream van.

from Road Carnival (upcoming collection)

Evangelyne & other poems - Poem of the Month

2010-06-12T08:40:00.009+08:00

First Failed Boyfriend

Fearless, he drove his Austin to Patonga.
Steep mountains, rock-slides, wash-aways and slush.
He travelled through these treacherous hills
on winter mornings, on his way to work.
Ambitious, he worked in Woolworths.
I fell in love with his movie-blue eyes
above the beets and sprouts.
He had a cute radio-voice when he announced the specials.
I got to know him, his face cocked in terror
when I asked him out.
‘Elliot Ness eyes,’ my mother said.
We did the courting thing, car ride to Patonga
every Sunday morning, hand-brake cuddle,
his hands going down, where I thought he’d be exciting –
Instead, he raised static on the radio’s lit face.
After six months, his heartbeat flapped
over a new girl in town.
Lined up at the Regal pictures,
dressed in white socks, sports shirt.
She pranced and spun like Elizabeth Taylor.
I tuned-in to Sunday night TV, The Untouchables –
Robert Stack. I fell in love with his undress-me eyes
over Coca-Cola and a bag of chips.

Evangelyne Speaks! 'Play it One More Time' - on CD 22

2010-05-19T07:58:00.010+08:00

“22” is a poetry resource that has been developed for use in secondary schools in Western Australia.

The resource comprises an audio CD featuring 20 Western Australian poets reading selected works. Poets include Andrew Burke, Lucy Dougan, Kevin Gillam, Dennis Haskell, John Kinsella, Andrew Taylor, Morgan Yasbincek, Fay Zwicky and many more...

The CD is supported with an accompanying text publication, in addition to individual lesson plans relating to each of the 22 poems featured on the CD. The lesson plans have been developed specifically to assist teachers to make maximum use of the resource in the classroom.

To download the Lesson Plans click here

“22” has been produced by writingWA with investment from the Western Australian Department of Culture and the Arts, and developed in collaboration with Western Australian Department of Education.

William Carlos Williams in 92nd Street in 1954

2010-05-11T06:17:00.002+08:00

Evangelyne & Other Poems - Read a Poem a Month

2010-05-02T09:17:00.008+08:00

First Sex

After we got into bed, and after he told me
‘I’m glad you’re not wearing lipstick,’
he lay across me like the map of Australia.
I’d heard about ‘the battle of the sexes’
but knew little about naked bodies rolling,
sweating like Sumo wrestlers on a mat.
You could liken my first sex
to martial art.
His sword was searching the scabbard
of my mother-of-pearl.
Glaring – pushing my legs apart –
he fingered the little slit between my legs.
He was hard against me, giving off little grunts
and puffs of air. I remember lying flat
like the map of Australia,
thinking about all the male dogs
in the street,
how they did all the work.

Poem for the Day - The World is a Mud Bank

2010-04-27T07:14:00.011+08:00

The World is a Mud-bank

My father lived by moonlight.
The sea came and cupped his hands
with brackish water. He fished at dusk,
erasing thoughts of sinks, pungent traps.
His days were measured in lengths
and depths of overflowing drains,
winter’s muddy swirl, septic tanks.
Plumber’s views are fixed inside sand ruts,
deep depressions, like his for many years.

We journey to a river he calls ‘a fresh
breath of air’, oyster leases, the shell's scaffolding.
Leaning on the car, we are patient
watching black trees ink the sky.
Above, granite clouds shadow the tattooed
river below. Father re-tells the myths:
cracks in the Brooklyn bridge, sediment
that could swallow a train, piers of sandstone
as history’s monoliths; the story of an old timer
who moonlighted on trains, returning oyster
bottles empty to bags in tunnel darkness.

At Peat's Corner we relax under pines,
soon to separate at these crossroads:
a daughter’s rite of passage, father working away.
Let the man who has minimal time
talk about the old days of selling prawns in summer,
rabbits in winter. Let him talk about jetties
winching fish, the net’s bulge dripping mussel shells.
Watch his craggy body collapse into the land,
his sparse hair searching grass, his rollie puffing
out the smoke of good times: oaring the mangroves,
splitting the glassy surface of a river with drop nets,
working the best trenches of his life.

Read Carol Jenkins' review of Evangelyne & other poems

2010-04-16T07:40:00.010+08:00

Carol Jenkins' Review of Evangelyne & other Poems
You can read this review on my website, along with the Mary Gilmore report from judges, reviews from Roland Leach, Jean Kent and Andrew Burke. I've taken out the negative bits from Carol Jenkins' report of the book mainly because someone's ideas of what poetry should and shouldn't do can be very subjective.
Click here for Reviews Helen Hagemann's Poetry & Prose

Evangelyne & Other Poems - Read a Poem a Month

2010-04-10T09:12:00.006+08:00

Curious About Cormorants

Tempted by the sea's lull to snorkel,
I find their passage curious,
the way these great divers descend
to steal the frugal tips of waves.
Our group jack-knifes from the hem of reef,
paddles out. And something else sinks forward,
a lone cormorant, roused from her fluid stare,
follows the scuttle of sediment from swimmers' legs.
Flippers sink into the eye of the blue,
identical hunters at best, careful over rock
and pool; probing for abalone, shrimp and crayfish.
On channel marker, the cormorant spreads her gown.
Such a wingspan: the sea describing her as meditator,
crouching tiger, the Jing in the I-Ching,
cyclic Tui of the joyous lake.
And infused into her shape, where no oil begins,
is the rich glaze on black feathers,
dark as a rain-soaked night.
Even more curious is that final glide to rock;
a composure of wings drying out like laundry,
and a conviction, it seems, to be that still beauty at sea,
silent as effigy.

Poem for the Day - Lawnmowing the Poem

2010-03-30T14:01:00.008+08:00

Lawnmowing the Poem

Last summer I worked on a poem
that grew from convoluted silence.
I started with spiders, their shivering veils,
an iridescent headland, hair glistening in the rain,
as a fountain pen might do in the writing and re-writing.
No matter how much I tried to cut and slash,
the mushrooms grew thick on the ground,
the moon groped about in the dark
if only a metaphor of light.
A dove flew in like a simile, a white
handkerchief at rest, and with the sun driving
the stanzas, I knew the poem was lost for a
home. After thirty pages, I rummaged
in the shed, pulled the two-stroke out,
hacked at the edges. The birds, previously
perched on a line, shot over the A-4,
as the mower muttered and stalled.
A piece of bad writing makes everything stop.
Especially clichés which I found sleeping,
and mixed metaphors in the long grass.
With the stones spirited away, there’s lots to trim.
I checked the images, gave the two-stroke another
reel, cutting through the slopes of green, forest
mould, butterflies frolicking in wormwood.
I reigned in dogs barking like pistols in a field,
and finally came up with three radical lines
1. bottom cupped to earth/ 2. a bemused sun on my skin/
3. ants buckling beneath.

Southerly 69.3 2010 Launched

2010-03-21T12:52:00.014+08:00

Southerly 69.2 - My poem Ferris Wheel - published in this issue!

Southerly invites you to the launch of 69.3, the Poetry Special Issue. This volume continues Southerly’s tradition of publishing and promoting the best in Australian literature, and with this launch, we wish to celebrate this issue's focus on poetry and poetics.
Venue: University of Sydney,
Address: Common Room, John Woolley Building
Time: from 6 - 8pm
Date: Thursday March 25th.

A poem of mine, Ferris Wheel was recently published Southerly 69.2, so I don't mind promoting this wonderful Poetry & Poetics issue. I found out, you can't buy the magazine in WA! Click on to Southerly 69.2 here at Southerly Magazine

2010 Mary Gilmore Judges' Report on Evangelyne & other poems

2010-03-20T15:05:00.009+08:00

Helen Hagemann's book [Evangelyne] looks the size of a chapbook but is actually quite substantial. Every line is packed with content, in coastal poems of memory and nostalgia that are celebratory, sometimes elegiac, and often both simultaneously. The poems have a wide range of reference even while maintaining a consistency of subject matter. No words are wasted and this with rich imagery creates an emotional intensity, but an intensity that does not preclude humour. The shortlisted poets include Emma Jones, Emily Ballou, Sarah Holland-Batt and Joanna Preston. Congratulations! now to Joanna Preston for The Summer King winner of the Mary Gilmore Poetry Prize 2009 - (9/7/10)

Poem for the Day - Paperbark Owl

2010-03-16T06:55:00.008+08:00

Paperbark Owl

i.
Your view is a crimson evening sky,
a day’s roost in hollows, banksia swamp.
Quiet observer against the moon, you
swivel your clockface, monocular.
Some have called you wise, old whippoorwill.
Others have listened for your inaudible wing.
In monsoon, you might be nudging in the nest
with young, too sleepy by day to taste the black dots
of butterflies; along tree-lined banks, in eucalypts
you might be chasing river wash. By day, a disturbance
might open your shutters to the sounds of handlebars,
bike wheels, cow bells on a gravel road.
Tonight you might venture off, dense bladey grass
full of morsels, not even hunger can abate.
Tawny, pinto, as badge of mimicry,
your eyes covet the hour of sunset; primary wings
silently batting above a scurrying path, your meal
sending up leaves, to save appearances.

ii
Among the paintbrushes, Agavés,
a ceremony of cars, we return to the carport
from a nightly walk, and an owl crystallizes above.
We have nothing to give, its slim body rigid in the moonlight,
its tiny beak clamped on sinuous string.
‘Look at that,’ we say. Never seeing a nightjar
in the suburbs before. Tiny face on eagle watch, motionless,
calculates the distance between bush and escape.
This relationship, we think, might be more than this
one night's promise. We click the camera’s flash
sending its eyes into orange alert.
The bird's impeccable plumage captured for a poem.
In the absence of a lizard or mouse, we scrounge
for bits of bread, but in our haste to hold this paperbark
and lake drawing, the nightjar shifts perspective, tail-rudder
steering north, a shadowy silence pulling away with the tilt of night.
Given new meaning to owls, we are conscious of its painful wait;
the bird’s diplomacy replacing our thoughts of a dying planet.
It's good and bad in our streets, lawns squared in brick, rust
buckets, yet there’s morality in two bush parks,
trees bordering golf course, a fountain-lake with fowl.
In this fragility that shifts second by second,
the next night the owls returns.

Poem for the Day - The Ecological Misfortunes of a Bay

2010-02-24T21:37:00.018+08:00

The Ecological Misfortunes of a Bay

On the sand I read: "No fishing,
crabbing, prawning", before I see 'fine'
the word exactly right for today's forecast.
But then, there is rock, a breakwall, and crabs
are dependent on rocks as mossy edges
or grottoes to spawn.

A portrait of home and the land
is pulling away from the shore. Each edge
an erosion of dunes, shoals.

I take a walk on narrow sand,
look at landmarks I once knew.
The past returns like a creeping tide, November
rendezvous with December, dreamy towels of youth.
Father arriving upstream, large snapper
anchored against his coveralls. The bilge water
washing gills, proffered to pelicans, gulls.

How to inhabit this space again, to understand
the ecology of change, the forced greetings to locals
without conversation, words sinking like tackle into an
afternoon breeze. We meet the disappointed, an Italian
neighbour dark on the Shire for higher rates.
A long silence follows. He folds the bill into his pocket,
shoring up his strife.

Along the esplanade, history floats back with
a strong nor'easterly, fishermen returning home with
sacks of fish, crabs, prawns. You want this
starting with today, not just a painting on the wall,
but a channel deepening itself with prawns,
bloodworms, cormorants arriving with their dewy
outlook from feeble swamps.

The bay could be become large again,
budding with life, kites circling on a ramp of air,
families staying till dusk, children swathed in salt,
mothers thinking of dawn, the bay's mist
infusing time and space.

These are only thoughts that float
like wing on thermal. Thirty years on
and there's not one crab, not a claw drying on rock.
You can only hope for a grittiness of shore to return
curved and flinty, feet roving a line of spinifex and dune
beyond this punitive sign
that makes the bay just a pothole to sink into,
a nothing coast.