So get cracking people!
QLD Poetry Festival is without doubt, the finest festival of its type in this country and is renowned worldwide, as one of the hottest events on the global poetry calendar.
So if you want to mix it up on this worldclass stage with some of this country’s and the world’s finest, head on over to the QLD Poetry Festival website, download an Expression of Interest form and set yourself to work.
Expressions of Interest must be received by Thursday February 24.
Filed under events & opportunities
We’re right in the thick of a golden live music streak in Brisbane at the moment and tonight I’m heading out to see the criminally underrated, Swervedriver. Got a feeling this one’s going to give the ears a good workout…
Here’s what I mean:
Big 90′s guitar sounds here I come!
Filed under who listens to the radio?
Dawn
beside my wife,
news on the radio,
a black cloud in my head.
There is steam
in the earth,
a brief gust of summer.
Curtains lift,
a simple matter
of millimetres.
We marvel
at the damage —
broken bedside lamp
on the carpet floor.
Filed under poetry
I am not a big believer in the Valentines Day hype, but I am a big believer in the beauty of the love poem/song. Great love poems & songs are often the most difficult to write, but are also often up there with the author’s finest works. Because when they work, they truly sing…
There are many love songs that I have carried with me over the years (Nick Cave’s, West Country Girl; Tom Petty’s, Here Comes My Girl to name a couple), but the one that is singing loudest inside of me at the moment is Lloyd Cole’s, ‘Are You Ready To Be Heartbroken?’
When Cole poses the question, Are you ready to bleed?, it sends me every time. The openness this question demands is truly thrilling… here’s the proof:
As for me… I feel I have only ever penned a couple of love poems that I am truly happy with. Fortune, from my latest collection, Ocean Hearted, is my particular favourite so I will leave you with that. So no matter what day it is… may love find you wherever you are.
Fortune
and when, after I’ve wasted a lifetime looking
picking over poets, browsing beaches, shopping malls
when, after I’ve up and quit, you suddenly
adopt me, smiling from the carpet of the Royal George
when you renounce your wilderness and move in
living in the back room as its sage, my other
the one who will teach me to desire
only what happens
when you come, inscribed by solitude
dog-eared, faded, packed with former lives
inside you like a matryoshka doll
when you gather
when you fold
when you find me as the moon
found Li Po in his drunken boat
when you speak to my heart of its heaviness
the soft facts of erosion
when you whisper in that
infinite tongue all that the world allows
all one could wish for
though it can’t be
we both know
Filed under poetry, who listens to the radio?
Brisbane is about to be flooded with words, as the first of three events raising much needed funds for those who have experienced siginficant loss as a result of the Jaunary floods or Cyclone Yasi, fires up on the deck of the beautiful Riverbend Books.
The Riverbend Poetry Series has been a highlight on the Brisbane poetry calendar for the last 6-years, and the opening event this year features the stellar line up of Alan Wearne, the launch of Brisbane New Voices II, which brings together Chris Lynch & John Koenig’s debut collections and mistress of all things sonic, Pascalle Burton.
Described as an avant-garde performance-poet musician-lady, her experimental manoeuvres with words and sound are an elegant dragnet. She gallivants across the theatrical tightrope between poetry, sonic art and music, and will be tied to none. Pascalle has performed in a ridiculous amount of venues and festivals over the years, both in Australia and overseas. Recent projects include The Stress of Leisure, Flight and ouTsideRs (with David Stavanger), and The Lavender Room’s Zine-in-a-Matchbox and Tortured Poet series. Her debut poetry collection, A Vast Laugh, was released through Small Change Press. She is currently messing with the idea of ‘reversible poetry’.
Here’s something new to give you a sample of what Pascalle has been up to:
Staghorn
hold on, host
sucking water from clouds
getting your fill, you don’t see me
watching you flirting
I’m lurking
winding my way like a
shark assassin or
tentacle terrorist
ready to take the next few years of this
hoping if it won’t kill me, it’ll take care of this
we’re all thieves
they’re all hosts
birds under threat will peck your accessories
real estate law will provide measures for these
prime property squatting
sharpening beaks and images
blink when they’re lying and frown when you’re serious
this intolerable heat
cinnamon ice cream hits the incinerated
like snow in the tropics
or sin in a tight spot:
regenerated
they’re all thieves
we’re all hosts
metho cocktails sipped inconspicuously
insidiously
McLennan’s lyrics score the way for intineraries
tattooed men drag their feet on the pavement
and women hold children on hips well rotated
hosts:
the trick’s not to get roasted
live ‘til tomorrow and
you’ll get promoted,
you just know it
just need a contract to show it
we’re all thieves
they’re all hosts
and the past keeps stealing into my sleep
You can read and listen to more of Pascalle’s work at:
www.myspace.com/pascallemaiden www.thestressofleisure.com www.myspace.com/flighthq www.lavenderroom.etsy.com
Details for the event are:
Date: Tuesday 22 February
Location: Riverbend Books, 193 Oxford St. Bulimba
Time: Doors open for the event at 6pm for a 6:30pm start
Tickets: $10 available through Riverbend Books and include sushi and complimentary wine. To purchase tickets, call Riverbend Books on (07) 3899 8555 or book online at http://www.riverbendbooks.com.au/Events/EventDetails.aspx?ID=2481
These events are always hugely popular, so book early to avoid disappointment!
And don’t forget to get yourself a ticket in the Hold Back the Water: Disaster Relief Raffle. The prizes are well worth the entry and the cause is more than worthy.
Hope to see you there,
Filed under events & opportunities, interviews/artist profiles
It is great to see a building as grand as The Old Museum being well used in this city… let’s face it, we have not done a bang up job of maintaining our architectural heritage here in QLD.
Since the loss of The Troubadour as a live music venue, The Old Museum has stepped up to the plate and is providing a much needed and very beautiful space. And on Thursday evening, it played host to the sounds of The Lloyd Cole Small Ensemble.
I last saw Lloyd in solo mode toward the end of 2009 (here’s that review) and he was absolutely superb. Since that time he has been a busy man, recording a brilliant new album, Broken Record, as well as a new live album of sorts, the Slaughterhouse Studio Sessions, which the very generous Mr Cole was giving away for free – and take it from me, this is an absolute gem…
As was the show!
Opening with the triple punch of No Blue Skies , Why I Love Country Music and Perfect Skin, the crowd were transfixed. The timelessness of Cole’s songwriting is immediately apparent… while many of the songs played tonight are well into their 20′s, each sounds as vibrant as it did on release, some more so. Proof that Lloyd’s theory of ‘only making music when inspiration actually strikes’, has more than paid off.
And it is many of the new songs tonight that thrill the most… the title track from Broken Record and Writers Retreat have that classic Lloyd Cole sound with a sweet country twist; Why in the World? is scathingly autobiographical -
So when did I cease to see the light?/ and maybe you were right/ Maybe I’m all dried up inside/ Maybe I’m not built for these times/ Maybe I don’t know how to live -
and as melancholy as anything Cole has ever penned and If I Were A Song is a modern classic…
Would you still cry when I played?/ Would you still turn to me for the pain/ If I were just a song?
and maybe if it were penned by Leonard Cohen, it would sell millions of copies… but this is just another of life’s quandaries.
After delighting the crowd for just over two hours, Lloyd leaves us with another classic triple play, closing the show with Forest Fire before returning for an encore of Undressed and Lost Weekend. And even then, the crowd aren’t going anywhere fast, many hanging around the merch table to take Lloyd up on his offer of getting their CD’s signed.
But slowly we all drift out into the Brisbane night, talking passionately, singing loudly and smiling into the sultry darkness, taking with us the lasting power of a songwriter still at the height of his powers.
Filed under discussions, who listens to the radio?
The sky climbs into my grandmother’s apartment.
Lilies-of-the-Valley sing at the window; flames
of soprano voices leap in the new light.
Ten dollars, she paid for the Lilies. After the war,
she fed her family of five on ten dollars a week.
The hive of the sun releases its bees
and the morning whispers like champagne. Now their scent
mixes with the smell of cardigans, mothballed-woollen
cardigans and dinners of soup and bread.
Filed under poetry
After posting Chris Lynch’s poem, Bloodbuzz Brisbane, I had a hankering for The National, so checked out their recent live performance as part of the Austin City Limits broadcast.
If you want that Bloodbuzz, sit yourself down, adjust your speakers to loud and let the band do the rest… here’s the link: http://video.pbs.org/video/1743785334/
I was carried, to Ohio in a swarm of bees…
Filed under who listens to the radio?
One of the (many) things I am looking forward to about the first event in the Riverbend Poetry Series is the launch of Brisbane New Voices II. And as many of you would know, local adventurer, Chris Lynch, is one of the featured poets in this exciting new collection.
Chris was born with twelve fingers in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. To this day, he has also lived in Australia, the USA, China, and Japan. Prone to crazy ideas, he has run off and joined the army, survived Clarion South, walked the length of Japan, eloped, started Tangled Bank Press, and climbed volcanoes. His poetry has appeared in Blackmail Press and page seventeen and is forthcoming in Islet. He recently edited The Tangled Bank: Love, Wonder, and Evolution, an anthology of speculative fiction, poetry, and artwork about evolution.
Bashed Flat by Heaven is the title of his debut micro-collection and I recently posted his poem Homo Domesticus as a taster of the work to come. This time around I have been lucky enough to snare a new poem, Bloodbuzz Brisbane, inspired The National, floods and those Sunset Sounds.
Bloodbuzz Brisbane
Sunset Sounds, 5th January 2011
Did you hear the dams are full? It’s flooding out west
but this is Brisbane and in the Botanic Gardens among
fig trees and shaggy palms the crowd has mostly forgotten
raincoats. Everyone’s drinking—I’m sticking to water.
You’d think this was deep north, but above slick branches
silver towers light the storm clouds lining up to drench us.
A flying fox ghosts overhead as The National take the garden stage.
One of the brothers says we’re excited to be here and the crowd agrees—
people are in the trees.
And then: guitars, keyboard, drums, brass, vocals. One, two,
three songs, and with every cold raindrop life gets better.
You must be loving your life in the rain. People laugh and hoot, raise
plastic cups. This is Brisbane—the dams are never full.
Last song now, and the band sings Terrible Love. The sky opens:
It takes an ocean not to—it takes an ocean not to—
down, down, down it comes, bringing the singer with it,
our shoes sloshing in inches of water among the golden
fig trees and the silhouettes of people drowning in sound
and light and voices cracking with pleasure as the stage
crew mop and the whole crowd knows the words,
new suit soaked but so what and so wet and tipsy we spill
out onto Alice Street and all the streets
are rivers no really all the streets are rivers and the sky is open.
This is Brisbane, and the dams—the dams are full.
You can read more of Chris’ work at www.chrislynch.com.au.
Hope to see many of you at the gig. Full details are:
Queensland Poetry Festival, QLD Writers Centre & Riverbend Books are proud to present the first event in the Riverbend Poetry Series for 2011. The February event features the sonic experimentation of avant-garde poet/musician Pascalle Burton (A Vast Laugh, Small Change Press), the multi-award winning words of Alan Wearne (The Popular Australian Songbook, Giramondo Press) and the launch of Brisbane New Voices II, featuring the debut micro-collections of local poets John Koenig (Green Tea & Nicorette) and Chris Lynch (Bashed Flat by Heaven). And to help raise much needed funds for those who suffered great loss in the recent floods, the Hold Back the Water raffle will be held on the night with all proceeds donated to the QLD Govt’s Disaster Relief Appeal. There will also be a select reading of poems written in response to the floods by Graham Nunn & Sheish Money + other special guests.
Date: Tuesday 22 February
Location: Riverbend Books, 193 Oxford St. Bulimba
Time: Doors open for the event at 6pm for a 6:30pm start
Tickets: $10 available through Riverbend Books and include sushi and complimentary wine.
To purchase tickets, call Riverbend Books on (07) 3899 8555 or book online at http://www.riverbendbooks.com.au/Events/EventDetails.aspx?ID=2481
These events are always hugely popular, so book early to avoid disappointment!
Filed under events & opportunities, poetry & publishing
Seems like 2011 is a great year for big birthdays… SpeedPoets turns 10, this Lost Shark turns 40, Dylan turns 70 and the Penguin Modern Classic clocks up a neat half century. And they are doing it in style by releasing a box set of 50 literary hits from the likes of Saki, Chandler, Nabokov, Camus, Kafka, Woolf & Beckett. Looks like this is due to hit stores in April.
Rubbing my hands together already…
Filed under poetry & publishing
