States of Poetry 2016
States of Poetry 2016 Podcast | State editor Lucy Dougan introduces the Western Australian anthology
In this episode of the Australian Book Review's States of Poetry Podcast, state editor Lucy Dougan introduces the 2016 Western Australian poets: Barbara Temperton, Charmaine Papertalk Green, Carolyn Abbs, Graham Kershaw, JP Quinton, and Kia Groom
... (read more)Melbourne is home to numerous poetic institutions, including Australian Poetry Inc, Collected Works (Australia's best bookshop for poetry), and, of course, Australian Book Review. Among these institutions there are vibrant – if sometimes occult – print, audio-visual, and spoken-word scenes. Regional Victoria is far from eclipsed by the metropolitan cent ...
States of Poetry 2016 - TAS | 'Upper Heights and Lower Depths' by Graeme Hetherington
Upper Heights And Lower Depths
What heights remain beyond our reach
When dog whistle and tuning fork,
Straining to listen though we may,
Sound notes pitched too high for our ear,
Deserting us yearning to rise,
Freed from the confines of our lives?
Nor can we hear how far below
The scales a crow's cawing might go,
Summoning t ...
Avila
(1)
The badly wounded and the poor
Move round the city with the sun
And little else to keep them warm,
While time softens cathedral stone,
Plucks eagles bald and breaks the wings
Of St Teresa's doves in flight.
(2)
A fine day shows up broken teeth,
Club feet, ten thumbs and squinti ...
On World Heart Day
I notice your scars more than usual -
life-saving stuck zippers.
I want to plant kisses
like votives along each one:
along the delicate ribbon of light
between your extroverted nipples,
along the scythe shaped slash
de-freckling your right calf.
Hospital flowers bloomed, petals fell
in the sterile-fresh air th ...
Part of the main
is what Donne wrote when he wrote about men
not being islands and what I’d been thinking
when my friend posted the photo.
Our Lady Help of Christians, Grade 1 -
thirty five six year olds in pigeon grey
with a hint of ascension blue.
Those faces exactly as I remember them -
crushed or beaming, self contained, ap ...
Woman
the real sea snoring half a mile away
the scrubbed brick walls of the double lounge and its
samples of african drums flood the speakers
Is that your shadow, weightless,
a smudge of grey dust
in the black trickery of the she-oak?
the ...
Swallowing the sky
What can I say about this
spring day but that the leaping
dog cloud has stolen my attention
away from all earthly blooms.
Such fine points of ears,
legs built for speed, for the hunt,
tail set to thump nothing into being,
open jawed, tasting life on the hop.
Yet even as this poem takes shape,
its inevitable dissolve has b ...