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States of Poetry Series Two

Anna Jacobson States of PoetryAnna Jacobson is a Brisbane-based poet, writer, and artist. Her poetry has been published in literary journals including Cordite, Rabbit, Australian Poetry Journal ...

On Pompeii, 79AD

The violence of that night. I sat
notating Livy, through
the earth’s contractions.

A thin dawn-choked sky
shook chariots. The crowd rolled back
onto itself. Neptune threw up animals.
Every thing convulsed. On the shore
across, a great black cloud broke

with light. Shrieks rang out: endless
night, with gods up ...

1. Toowong

A possum nestles
in the split
                 crook of the kitchen’s
                 plasterboard ceiling.

I shake my attention
back to the man who peddles
the empty front ...

It’s a town with a veggie patch
in the cop shop yard.

Outside the grocer, with shelves
of tins and faded VHS tapes,
a boy on a scooter asks,
Are you looking for wi-fi? as if
he’s bootlegged some to sell.

In the café we bemoan the goat-track
we drove in on: the Elephant Pass.
Swaying huge and daft,
the van was elephant enough< ...

Maroochydore, 1999After 10 Things I Hate About You

 

A girls’ weekend. Just me, Mum
and Blockbuster, probably fish ‘n’ chips,
surely chocolate.

Maybe I mistook the word menarche
for men-ache, watching Mum watch Heath Ledger
croon the song that she said
once lured her into marriage: ‘You’re just too good

\\ everything before was
fine \ sure \ orderly love
\ I recollect \ aisles of ex
in home-brand \ sober
\ procedural acts \ leg
by leg \ recipes for low-
fat sex \ clear-cut \ past
tense \ a lab report on
routine me-and-thems

\ but \\ oh // and then

/ emboss the date of I
and you / you effortless /
a loo ...

Zenobia Frost States of PoetryZenobia Frost is a writer from Brisbane, Australia. Her work has appeared in Overland, Cordite, Arc (Canada), Scum, Woolf Pack, and the ...

Circa September, 2015
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

I first admired your arms, brown and unrefined like mine, the scars and veins unhidden. Straight
back. Strong neck. An inanimate object that would never be cau ...

For my late mentor,
(Kumantjayi) Uncle Martin Harrison

Be sharply accustomed to the anatomy of your writing; inside and out...Where you have
slivered the bones of your storyline, mark the points of ruin and resurrection ... Count the
gouges ... Here is where you lunged ... Careful! ... There was a finely delivered se ...

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