My newest book has arrived. The last time I published a collection of poetry, social media did not exist. John Howard was still Prime Minister of Australia and my teenage daughter had not yet been born. Narrative theory was not even a twinkle in my eyes. Thanks Puncher & Wattmann. #poetry #auspoetry
Lovely write up in @thetls.bsky.social on Sarah Holland-Batt's selected poems collection. Her poetry is stunningly sophisticated & cuts deep. Her mastery of language & metaphor is something to behold. #AusLit #AusPoetry www.the-tls.co.uk/literature/p...
A. D. Hope
1907-2000
Inscription for a War
Published. Shared.
#poem #poetry #poet #warpoetry #auspoetry #auslit
This poem will appear in my forthcoming collection, Lines of Desire (Puncher & Wattmann, 2025). cordite.org.au/poetry/treat...
#poetry #australianpoetry #auspoetry #identity
Text of a poem by Bruce Dawe Why Liberation from Dictatorship May Take Some Time Our Great and Fearless Leader (may His Name be forever praised!) like a wise farmer has planted many fields full of ears In the particles of dust from the sandstorms He is also present; if we would breathe we must do so very carefully In those distant clouds in the heavens above us hidden cameras record our every activity Even the birds on the city rooftops as well as those in the distant villages cock beady eyes and fly swiftly to inform Him of all that we say Now foreigners come, bearing (they tell us) freedom - but freedom is only a word we have heard fluttering like a feather on the lips of the dying
Revisiting an anthology from 2006 and this poem from Bruce Dawe feels sadly as relevant as ever.
Why Liberation from Dictatorship May Take Some Time #AusPoetry
Peter Boyle poem: 379,000 POETS AVAILABLE 379,000 poets are writing precisely at this moment. Right now their hands are wavering above a keyboard or their pens hang poised over blank paper or their fingers hover for a few seconds over their phones. Through each poet night and day pulse to their own rhythm and in six thousand languages words start their unforeseeable journeys into the void. And simultaneously everything and nothing is said while over their shoulders the earth's long darkness prepares to settle in. At every instant 379,000 fresh attempts to make hope more hopeful, to put more shudder into sadness, to dust clean while also preserving the webs the spiders weave over our windows, to fine tune all the colours of the world and surreptitiously pour a little more sky into blue.
" and surreptitiously pour / a little more sky into blue."
Peter Boyle poem: '379,000 Poets Available' from 'Companions, Ancestors, Inscriptions' (Vagabond Press) #AusPoetry
Sara M Saleh poem: Unholy Verses How the seas emptied of salt And the tides swelled And the pipelines built And the gas pumped And the forests logged And the fisheries depleted And the reef bleached And the mountains landslided And the bees starved And the stars absconded And the sky broke open And the planet tuberculated And the corporations monetised And the surveillance digitised And the protestors fined And the people calloused And the laws ossified And the women paid first And the bodies of earth testified against us.
"And the stars absconded / And the skies broke open"
Sara M Saleh poem: 'Unholy Verses', from 'The Flirtation of Girls' (University of Queensland Press) #AusPoetry
Poem by Hasib Hourani: HOW TO HOLD YOUR BREATH: ONE take your right hand use your index finger and your thumb to pinch your nostrils shut TWO take your left hand place the palm over your mouth use lots of force to make sure no air can come in or out THREE make your lungs stop moving NOTE if you are my mother don't worry about steps ONE through THREE you know how to hold your breath without doing anything at all
"make your lungs stop moving"
Lebanese-Palestinian poet Hasib Hourani: 'How to hold your breath' from the collection 'Rock Flight' (Giramondo Press) #AusPoetry
Judith Beveridge poem: Black-winged Butterfly When I saw you as a caterpillar eating the vine's new leaves, perhaps I should have flung you to the birds but I didn't want there to be one butterfly less to do the good work we need. Finally, you've emerged— but you can't untwist your wings, their scales can't refract the light and raise your body heat. Carefully I unlatch you from the edge of the chrysalis. Against my fingers legs and feelers work in hard circles, second-hands delirious for extra increments of time. I offer you honey-water— your proboscis, thin as a human hair, sips from my hand. I think of how long you've spent in your sealed bauble: the cocoon turning from green, to thin gold-leaf, to black when the wings quickened. Now unable to open, they're like the banners of a thwarted regime. Soon you'll die in my palm, the only small holding you'll know.
"I didn't want there to be one butterfly / less to do the good work we need."
Judith Beveridge poem 'Black-winged Butterfly' from Tintinnabulum (Giramondo Poetry) #AusPoetry
