Ali Jane Smith



Storm front, roll cloud

“Maybe it’s a thing you could call the subgrime” Jill Jones to Claire Albrecht I’ve been looking at my hands holding the knife, at the skins, pips, cores, stalks at the sink filling I’ve been looking at tiny writing on …

Posted in 106: OPEN | Tagged

The Language of Flowers

The very glossy dark leaves of camellias mean ‘boredom’ the papery bougainvillea mean ‘turning out better than expected’ and the yellow and white frangipani flowers mean ‘get it while you can’. Some things are strange, but not interesting. Some biscuits …

Posted in 95: EARTH | Tagged

Poetry, Whatsoever: Blake, Blau DuPlessis, and an Expansive Definition of the Poem

William Blake pinches himself. Yes! He is alive, not in heaven or hell for all eternity, but on earth, for just as long as I need him for the purposes of this essay. In the almost two hundred years since William Blake died many things have changed.

Posted in ESSAYS | Tagged , , ,

Clodhopping

Cut a hole through the ceiling, the insulating batts, tin sheets. Climb out that way, spacetime jelly-wobbles. I might revisit the demolished pub, say something else at the rock pool decline the offer of a garden tour, take my plate …

Posted in 78: CONFESSION | Tagged

Review Short: David Brooks’s Open House

In Open House, David Brooks makes it look easy. These poems appear to be simply set down, flawless panes of glass framing scenes from a life. For the attentive reader, however, even one who doesn’t know the extent of Brooks’s work as a poet, a novelist, an editor, a translator, a researcher and writer of books about other poets and poetries, there are clues to the years of deep thinking, constant writing and serious, engaged living that Brooks brings to his own practice.

Posted in BOOK REVIEWS | Tagged ,

Davistown

after Bill Manhire My turn with the binoculars. The Honeyeater flies straight into the sliding-glass-door. My brother. My yellow t-shirt. His. My sister’s curly red hair, same as mine. My somersault into the nasturtiums. My best friend. Wendy. My hands …

Posted in 59: GONDWANALAND | Tagged

Mogul

How long since he’d sliced and salted a tomato? There was almost nothing he touched: silverware and bed covers, expensive notebooks sometimes the floury crust of a gourmet burger the younger skin of a grandchild or subordinate. Somewhere, another old …

Posted in 47: NO THEME! | Tagged

Bankstown

It's the Saturday morning fruit and vegetable market in Berkeley, California. There are trestle tables with artichokes, bok choy, carrots, sugar cane, strawberries, looking as though they would taste sweet, and a stall selling organic sauerkraut. It's not a big …

Posted in 11: COPYLEFT | Tagged

SuperX

At the SuperX there are pro riders in the demonstration events and local kids riding in the races. When we first arrive there are bobcats all over the place, they're still building the track. It's exciting just watching the bobcats …

Posted in 11: COPYLEFT | Tagged