FEATURES
Jacques Derivative: Interrogating ‘John Leonard’
First we must say something about the history of the inscription, “John Leonard”. Australian poetry, that world which is small enough that we can indeed say “world” and not “worlds” when placing it under discussion, is occupied, allegedly, by two …
Paul Mitchell on Sleepers at Next Wave 2004
“Sleepers Prevents Bad Poetry” Next Wave Festival (Festival Club) Monday 24 May 2004 This event was presented at the Next Wave Festival in a bar venue – after a big crowd had finished fawning all over American cartoonist, writer and …
10 Driver Songs by The Fauves
So, Andrew Cox says he doesn't have the courage to submit poems to Cordite. Well, we've done it for him: here's ten samples from ten Fauves songs, all of them about cars or some other mode of vehicular transport.
Louise Swinn: Maybe We’re Just Not Angry Enough
Def Poetry Jam 13th January 2004 Metro Theatre, Sydney Considering Melbourne has, arguably, the most active and vibrant spoken word and hip-hop scene in Australia, it's a real pity that this show didn't come further down south. I attend quite …
The Last Cameron by Evan Maloney
'I think the plastic arts are so quaint,' said one successful Australian artist when she was asked to comment on Hayes's work several years ago.
Are You Searching For Me?
I've played about with rule-generated writing once in a while, trying to find something within the genre that resonates with me. Early last year I combined a section of text taken from a dinosaur book with the track-listing from Frank Zappa's Strictly Commercial and ended up with a prose-poem called “The Third Fruit is a Bird” that I'm really happy with.
DJ Huppatz: My thoughts on Google poetry
John Cage came to me as an obvious start so I initially plugged in the words “Portrait of John Cage” only to find dick higgins has already written a piece called “jog he can” so instead I tried “Portrait for …
Search Poems: Introduction by Cassie Lewis
The Poem of the Day Project on the email discussion list Poetry Espresso started in December 2001, as a result of discussions on the list about starting our own anthology. Andrew Burke initially suggested the concept. We produced a 13-month …
Anna Hedigan surveys Australian journals on the web
Few of these journals have capitalised on the cross-over between people who love to read “hard” books and journals, and web-readers. Do they think we're all searching for porn? Or are they worried that posting content from their journal will dilute their brand?
David Prater experiences Roo-ku (LIVE)
LIVE: Roo-ku (Overload Poetry Festival) Saturday 23 August 2003 I was flattered to receive an invitation last month to MC a reading put on by the Overload Poetry Festival with the mischievous title of “Roo-ku” – as in Australian haiku, …
Kieran Mangan ‘survives’ ‘Undead’ …
…what the Brothers Spierigs give us is exactly what we got (and loved) with Peter Jackson's Bad Taste. In fact, Undead is even technically a notch up from Jackson's work. I guess this Spierig/Jackson comparison is inevitable. How could you not do so if you make a super-solid and funny zombie flick in these great Southern parts of the world?
Robert Merkin: "Draft Dodgers & Veterans"
A friend of mine, a math professor, has shown me a paper from around 1995 which shows that the Vietnam birthday lottery draft was fundamentally misdesigned, favoring some birthdays, making others significantly more dangerous. I find the implications of that — well, I don't know how I find them.
Robert Merkin: "Returning, We Hear the Larks"
A lot of literature, unfortunately, tends to heap unique, exquisite beauty and virtue on Dying Young; impressionable young readers are encouraged to think they are missing something, and have failed Truth and Beauty somehow, if they reach age 30 with all their limbs.
Robert Merkin: "On Thomas Pynchon & Mass Hypnosis"
There's a lot of popular (and insightful) American fiction and screenwriting beginning in the '50s that plays around with this living-death lifestyle of mass hypnosis.
Robert Merkin: "As a little introduction to me and zombies"
As a little introduction to me and zombies, my head has always been filled with popular music, novelty songs of the moment, and one of them that had always stuck with me, from around 1960, was an American version of a Trinidadian Calypso song called “Zombie Jamboree” (or “Back to Back”) was written by Conrad Eugene Mauge, Jr, who performed as Lord Invader.
Paul Mitchell: International, Interspecies – Welcome Chimps…
The situation became out of hand; no agreed cut off point for percentage of human DNA in an animal could be reached. Various insects and shell-bound molluscs – some of which claimed to have been in government for hundreds of years – also put in claims.
Moses Iten: Because I Was Brought By the Road (3)
The road off the highway became a dirt road until eventually we were driving around a maze of rough dirt roads, weaving their way between humble homes. Camelia's large and jolly mum constantly quaking with a bout of laughter, gave us all a hug on arrival and wanted to give her son – one of nine – a duck. After a proud tour of their beautiful pig – “More handsome than Camelia himself,” teased Jesus …
Moses Iten: Because I Was Brought By the Road (2)
“Come and have beer,” shouted my friend Jesus, waving me over to a chest-fridge just metres from the shore. The local cantina: a corrugated-iron roof with a full fridge, an assortment of plastic tables and chairs occupied by a handful of fishermen. The chicken-feet joker was swinging in a hammock stretched up between two poles. Grabbed a beer and paid the owner, Don Julio, sitting on his throne of five stacked-up chairs. Crowned by large straw hat, with his sceptre – a walking frame – standing in front of him.
Moses Iten: Because I Was Brought By The Road (1)
One boat remained out in the ocean, beyond the rock. The other twelve boats had pulled ashore before we arrived. Not a single little fish had been in their nets today. The fishermen of the whole village would have to eat crabs from the lagoon. Scrape together some pesos to feed their families. So we headed to the lagoon nearby for some crabs.
Laurie Duggan: Cover Me [borrowed title]
It's in the nature of poetry that sampling, covering, or borrowing, conscious or unconscious happens all the time. We all try to write like people we admire. In the case of satire we may try to write like people we don't like at all. In language there are only so many riffs there for the taking and what makes a poem interesting is the manner in which it performs its little (or big) thefts.
Nic Fit: The Day the Sun Went Away
A backlit black disc hangs in the sky low over the western horizon, like a hole in the atmosphere. An eerie, incongruous twilight has descended, yet the hills on the horizon in all directions remain sunlit.
Nick Whittock: Watching the Grass Grow
When it is cricket that is the matter, all forces return to the ball at the limits of the universe. The grass is still growing. It is photosynthesising, there is a flow of moisture involved here among other things (sunlight, carbon dioxide…)
Christine Davey: Old Men Forget
Flashback to December, 1984. The cricket is in majestic swing. It's the time of year when pop songs are blown off the dial by commentary disputes involving field placings, team selections and bowling changes.
Paul Mitchell: The War On Cricket
It's now becoming obvious why the Bush administration for most of 2002 delayed military action against Iraq. George W. Bush's cricket loving good friend, John Howard, convinced the American president to hold off and watch the Australian cricket team provide a crucial military blue-print, crushing an undermanned and injured opposition …
