On Friday night I received news that two of my haiku will be published in the new World Haiku Anthology: A Vast Sky. This follows acceptances in nothing in the window (Red Moon Anthology of English Language Haiku 2012) and Haiku in English: The First Hundred Years, making the past 6-months very successful.
Now, the only way to celebrate is with a new haiku (part vii in the Toddle series)…
*
my son’s voice
breaking the spine
of his book
Filed under poetry, poetry & publishing
the afternoon like a fragment
pollen colours the air
in every nose
you grab at mum’s skirt
bare your teeth and beg
for milk
the wind is sweet and rank
always is
the sky a hoarse throat reciting
there is silence after
the hunger in both
your bodies fold
Filed under poetry
You wake in the hour
before dawn, singing a route
through to our autumn room
where we swim
in a humid lake of sleep
each note, more famished
than the last, quickens
my pulse as I kick
from sleep’s shore to reach
you in the tidal dark.
Filed under Uncategorized, poetry
The poetry calendar is beginning to burst as we enter the second half of the year and one of the events I am really excited about is Seasonings. This event brings together the best of food and poetry… two of my absolute passions in life.
Queensland Poetry Festival has teamed up with one of Brisbane’s food innovators, Mondo Organics to curate an evening of fine dining and intimate poetry readings by Eleanor Jackson, Tiggy Johnson and this Lost Shark on Thursday June 20. Tickets for this event are priced at $110 and include a 3-course meal, wine and drinks, a special gift for every guest and of course an evening of words.
Seating is limited for this special, one-off evening, so don’t hesitate… it’s the perfect opportunity to treat yourself and a friend/loved one/lover, or if you are in the mood for a larger celebration, a table of 10 can be booked for the discounted price of $990.
So if you are a lover of food and poetry, this one is for you. Tickets are now available from the QPF bookstore.
Date: Thursday 20th June
Time: 6:45pm for a 7pm start
Where: Mondo Organics, 166 Hardgrave Rd, West End
I am personally looking forward to the challenge of composing some new work for the night that in some way interacts with the menu… am salivating already.
Filed under events & opportunities
He toddles slowly up the back path
eyeing off the shade of the mulberry tree
where leaves have been raked
into boy-sized mounds:
ageless and dreaming he throws
himself into the litter
whoops and kicks his legs
lusty and loud as any turkey.
Filed under poetry
Once I could tell you what lasts:
stone, the pull and suck of tides
the countless acres of sky.
Now I am less certain.
Things do not stay
where they are put. The days spin
and burn out like stars.
What lasts?
I turn as the sun goes down
toward eyes that shine like small moons
and to all love’s senses I am woken.
There is nothing simpler, nothing more lasting than this.
Filed under poetry
We bathe our son
a prayer for every part
as if washing him with song:
hair the colour of oats
slicked back from his face
and the eyes
knowing my mother calls them
bright as finches:
in them is the completeness
of life and love
words that survive silence.
Filed under poetry
