States of Poetry ACT

In Place of a Bio

Can we not take all these prizes as given?
The awards, fellowships and accolades
that greeted an awaited first book, the driven
milestones of a talent in spades?
Must everyone describe the same lookouts
from Parnassus’ slopes, Calliope’s redoubts?

When all are gods, let the lame smith stand forth:
just for once, couldn’t th ...

The Poetry Exam

The hall begins to fill. The students sit.
She sets her papers neatly on the desk
and rolls the lines around her mouth, flits
from word to word, moves her lips. The rest

is left to memory. The tests are stacked
for passing out on perfect, icy lines
of tables set in single file, tables packed
away when half-right answers whine

Paris Evening

13 November 2015

It is Friday, around five. He is
strolling on the rue Voltaire, flâneur
for the young century. The afternoon is crumbling,

the trees are shutting down for winter,
leaves pirouetting to the street
and cracking like small bones beneath his feet.

All around him, the streetlights are coming on,
can ...

Mark, Pauline and Me

1970

John Foulcher

Holly and Will

1972

John Foulcher

Before the Storm

John Foulcher

Just leave your mark here

I won’t do you no wrong
I’m a man that you can trust
I’m not like the others
I’m a honourable man

Some people say
there’s no honour among thieves
but let me tell you straight
We, guberment men,
sent by the King we steal their land
by one stroke of the mighty pen.
But don’t tell anybody that.

Red Earth

dirt
sunset
sunrise
sunburnt
Old fella
Blackfella
Culture
Creation
Biamie
Dreaming
Belonging
Me.

Kerry Reed-Gilbert

Wiradjuri country

1,000ks Wiradjuri country
Eagles, angels, sun bursts,
gum trees, geraniums
and a pocket full of poetry.
I travel my country,
my land,
my life,
my religion.

The bush calls me back
to the time of before.
Before tar and cement.
Brick walls and tin roofs.
To the time of Creation
where men were men
a ...

Got ya

I knew he was mine
frothing at the mouth
(literally speaking)
I was waiting for him
my body ready to strike

Like a leopard
on the verge of attack
I waited, biding my time.
I held my breath.

My muscles taut
prepared to pounce
to strike, to maim.

I knew the moment was at hand
the spirits played around him