Thursday, May 23, 2013

THE LAUNCH OF GEOFF PAGE'S "1953"


  • Partly Cloudy 16°C / 7°C


  • Collected Works Bookshop & University of Queensland Press cordially invite you to a 'collaborative reading' from the new "horizontal narrative", 1953, featuring the eminent poet, Geoff Page, & the well-known actor, Edwina Wren.

    Geoff has published 20 collections of poetry, 2 novels & 5 verse-novels. Recent books include A Sudden Sentence in the Air : Jazz Poems (Extempore Press, '11), Coda for Shirley (Interactive Pres, '11), & Cloudy Nouns (Picaro Press, '12). He's a recipient of the Grace Leven Prize & the Patrick White Award.

    Edwina works in theatre, film, tv & radio. She is a core member of the David Schlusser Ensemble, and most recently appeared in Menagerie as part of the MTC's Neon Season.

    Wine & nibbles will be served.

    All welcome.
    RSVP to Kris, 9654 8873

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

Helen Vendler quote on middle-age poets



There's more at the New York Review of Books HERE , but here is a healthy quote from the critic herself:

Helen Vendler reviewed Seamus Heaney’s The Haw Lantern in 1988. It is an essay of great subtlety and complexity that turned on her insight into the challenges poets often face in middle age, when the values that informed their earlier style (“abundance” and “mass and gravity” in Heaney’s case) are falling away: “In their new style they cannot abandon their former selves. The struggle to be one’s old self and one’s new self together is the struggle of poetry itself, which must accumulate new layers rather than discard old ones.”

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Poem by Andrew Taylor

I am acting editor of The Wonder Book of Poetry while Kit Kelen is away and I have been rounding up outstanding poems from friends. This is one I received from Andrew Taylor which I think is so unusual and delightful I wanted to share it here too. Hope you like it, and cruise on over to thewonderbookofpoetry.org
to read some more.


How we survived adolescence

Andrew Taylor


Wherever she tumbled I fell
up hill and down dell dale
and wherever we fell I lay I she lay
panting pantless that day

she me on top of me her
on the ridge of shifting sand
the sea pounding below our
frantic & ampersand

later we packed our gear
our thoughts regrets delight over bright as the moon
[later we left the beach
back to our lonely rooms]
a hug a kiss a quick look round
‘I’ll call you soon!’

Saturday, May 18, 2013

While Kit's away, the mice will play ...


Postcard from Kit Kelen - he's away in a distant land. 

Issa Haiku

world of man-- 
in a little stone field 
catching fleas 


Issa 1827 

.人の世や小石原より蚤うつる 
hito no yo ya ko ishiwara yori nomi utsuru 

David Gerard: A field of stones seems an unlikely place to catch fleas, yet in this “world of man,” this happens. According to the Pure Land Buddhism to which Issa subscribed, we are living in a corrupt age. Issa implies, with a sly smile perhaps, that our time is even corrupt in the smallest of ways

Friday, May 17, 2013

Bob Dylan made honorary member of US Arts Academy



US singer-songwriter Bob Dylan has been made an honorary member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Dylan, who was unable to attend the New York ceremony, said he felt "extremely honoured" and "lucky" to be admitted.

The 71-year-old said he looked forward to meeting the other members of the "pantheon of great individual artists".

more to read HERE

Words of Virginia Woolf


“We live our lives, do whatever we do, and then we sleep. It’s as simple and ordinary as that. A few jump out windows, or drown themselves, or take pills; more die by accident; and most of us are slowly devoured by some disease, or, if we’re very fortunate, by time itself. There’s just this for consolation: an hour here or there when our lives seem, against all odds & expectations, to burst open & give us everything we’ve ever imagined, though everyone but children (and perhaps even they) know these hours will inevitably be followed by others, far darker and more difficult. Still, we cherish the city, the morning, we hope, more than anything for more. Heaven only knows why we love it so.”

Virginia Woolf


Thank you to Moniques Passions for this and other lively quotes and art. See more at http://moniquespassions.com/

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Artscape: Trailer: The A to Z of Contemporary Art, 10pm Tuesday 11 June, ABC1


 
Coming up next on Artscape, Artscape: The A to Z of Contemporary Art screens 10pm Tuesday, 11 June on ABC1. Don’t know your biennale from a triennial? The A-Z of Contemporary Art is a guide to the often-impenetrable contemporary art world.

The A to Z of Contemporary Art screens 10pm Tuesday, 11 June on ABC1.

Link:The A to Z of contemporary art ANDREW FROST offers a crash course in bluffing your way through art.