Just a few more days until SpeedPoets rolls into Inspire Gallery Bar for our April event… so to get your poetry taste buds salivating here’s a couple of poems from one of our features, Perth based poet, Amanda Joy.
Amanda is a poet, sculptor, installation artist and songwriter born in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. She currently lives, works and gardens in Fremantle and travels as often as she can. Her poetry has been published in various journals online and in print such as Cottonmouth, Up The Staircase Literary Review, Killpoet, Fragile Arts Quarterly, Black Rider Press, Another Lost Shark, Heroin Love Songs, The Toronto Quarterly, Black Listed Magazine, Speedpoets and The Best Australian Poems 2009. She has a fascination with portals and conduits and every now and then she pops out a little limited edition illustrated chapbook for those who ask nicely. A tiny, yet sincere chapbook of her poetry, Not Enough To Fold was lovingly published through Verve Bath Press early this year. A more sizeable binding of her wordage, In Hand will be released in the U.S. in April. She blogs her poetry semi regularly at her website www.littleglasspen.com and www.myspace.com/amanda_joy1970.
SpeedPoets, Sunday April 11, 2:00pm – 5:00pm, InSpire Gallery Bar – 71 Vulture St. West End. Entry is a gold coin donation.
Sliding Scale
There is an age where
a child will test everything
by putting it in their mouth
as if its taste held a secret
Before the shape of words
weighs down that
infinite tongue
I hold you in my mouth
read you like braille
No One (In English)
A cat
with a live rat
screaming
in its mouth, in
the bedroom
at 3am
and you snatch it
in your hands
and throw it
from the balcony
suddenly, like
a magic trick
Looking behind
people’s eyes
I don’t meet
Surplus words,
because
for the most
important we have
only one
