Cuplet #12: Martin Dolan, Kelly Norah Drukker, Mark Roberts & Anne Walsh

A MONTHLY POETRY EVENT

Looking forward to jumping in the car on Thursday and heading down the Mountains and then up to Newcastle to read at the monthly Cuplet Readings in Newcastle organised by Claire Albrecht.  It promises to be a great night of poetry and I am excited to be sharing the program with the following amazing poets:

• MARTIN DOLAN is a Canberra-based poet. His second collection, Peripheral Vision, was published in 2018. His new collection is due for release in 2020. Martin is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Canberra. He is a co-convener of That Poetry Thing, a weekly poetry night in Canberra.
• KELLY NORAH DRUKKER (CANADA) was born in Montreal, and grew up in the Laurentian region of Quebec. Her first collection of poems, Small Fires, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2016, won the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry, the Concordia University First Book Prize, and was a finalist for the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal. Kelly’s work has received a CBC Literary Award for Poetry (2006), and has appeared in journals in Canada, New Zealand, and Ireland. Petits feux, the French-language translation of Small Fires by Lori Saint-Martin and Paul Gagné, was published by Le lézard amoureux in 2018.
• ANNE WALSH is a poet and a story writer whose work falls somewhere on the border of those two countries. Born in Philadelphia, she lives in Australia. Her poems have been shortlisted for the ACU Prize in Literature and twice for the Newcastle Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Cordite, Mascara, Canberra Times, Verity La, Poem and Dish, FemAsia, Not So Quiet, and her short story, The Rickman Digression, in Glimmer Train Press (U.S.). Her first collection of poems, I Love Like a Drunk Does, was published by Ginninderra Press (Australia, 2009). Her second book of poems, Intact, was published by Flying Islands Books (Australia, 2017).

Meanwhile I am dusting off a number of my Newcastle poems to read and might even throw in a few new ones.

Cuplet #12 will take place on Thursday, July 11, 2019 from 7:00 PM  at The Beaumont Hamilton 70 Beaumont Street Hamilton. If you are in the area it would be great to see you!

 

For further details go to https://www.cupletpoetry.com/events/2019/7/11/cuplet-12

 – Mark Roberts

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Reading in Canberra tonight with Marianne Boruch at That Poetry Thing That Is On At Smith’s Every Monday

After travelling down from the Blue Mountains last night through the Oberon Plateau, I woke in Canberra this morning looking forward to reading with Marianne Boruch at That Poetry Thing That Is On At Smith’s Every Monday  (7pm at Smith’s Alternative, 76 Alinga Street, Canberra). I will be reading poems from Concrete Flamingos as well as work from my new manuscripts. If you are in Canberra I would love to see you tonight!

For more details check out the Facebook event post: https://www.facebook.com/events/344106582956715/

‘Place Burial’ appears in ‘Pink Cover Zine’ Issue 3.

Last year I had the great pleasure of having my short prose piece ‘Place Burial’ appear in Issue 3 of Pink Cover Zine.  ‘Place Burial’ is from my manuscript Lacuna,  which is a collection based around the Central West of NSW. One of the bittersweet aspects of having this piece included in this issue was the interesting editorial discussion I had with the guest editor Ramon Loyola which resulted in an improved piece of writing appearing in the zine. Shortly after this discussion Ramon tragically died suddenly and, in many respects, my piece, and the issue as a whole, is a tribute to Ramon.

Pink Cover Zine Issue 3 is available as a free download at https://pinkcoverzine.files.wordpress.com/2018/10/pink-cover-zine-issue-3-digital.pdf.

Memories of ‘The Friend in Hand’ and Rae Desmond Jones

Last weekend Linda Adair and I attended a double book launch at the Friend in Hand pub in Glebe. Nothing too remarkable there, I have been to many book launches at the Friend in Hand, indeed my own book launch took place there (https://rochfordstreetreview.com/2016/03/16/decades-of-percolation-anna-couani-launches-concrete-flamingos-by-mark-roberts/). But, as I listened to Margaret Bradstock launch Les Wick’s Belief and Anna Couani launch Kit Kelen’s  Poor Man’s Coat: Hardanger Poems, I had what is commonly referred to a flashback to the first launch Linda and I had organised at the Friend in Hand.

Back in late 2012 the launch of two Rochford Press books took place at the Friend in Hand, P76 Issue 6 (The Lost Issue) and The Selected Your Friendly Fascist edited by Rae Desmond Jones. Both these titles were nostalgic in their own right. Issue 6 of P76 had  been over 15 years in the making. Linda and I had created the original layout for the issue in the 1990s on an old Mac and then lost the disk in the confusion of babies and house moves, only to discover it years later in a box under the house. The Selected Your Friendly Fascist grew out of an article Rae Desmond Jones had written for Rochford Street Review on the magazine that he and John Edwards had edited and produced for many years “Lots of energy here, not much control”: Your Friendly Fascist – 1970 – 1984. Rae Desmond Jones remembers…... The article attracted much attention and reminiscing and a few months later I suggested to Rae that he might like to consider pulling together a “best of” YFF . At the time Rae was in hospital and I remember his initial response was “it would have to be called the Worst of”. Shortly after he returned home, however, I received a phone call “is 120 pages enough”.

As a result in October 2012 there was a large gathering of those of us who had survived being published in Your Friendly Fascist and/or P76. In my memory of that day the figure of Rae looms large against the red curtains of the upstairs bar of the Friend in Hand and, as I watched Les and Kit read from their new books last Saturday, I looked across at the corner near the stage where Rae had sat just over 6 years ago.

Of course the fact that I have spent the last 8 months or so working with Linda Adair, Narelle Adair, John Edwards and Ruth Saunders to bring Rae’s final collection of poetry into the world probably had a lot to do with that feeling. So I searched through some old photos and found Rae at the Friend in Hand, launching The Selected Your Friendly Fascist, back in October 2012. I suspect I will have the same feeling when we launch The End of the Line (Rae’s final collection) on Sunday 24 February at 1.30pm at the Exodus Foundation (The Burns Philip Hall) 180 Liverpool Road Ashfield.

Rae Desmond Jones carefully considers Alan Wearne’s launch speech for The Selected Your Friendly Fascist at The Friend in Hand Hotel, October 2012

 

Rae Desmond Jones in full flight at the launch of The Selected Your Friendly Fascist

Joanne Burns, Rae Desmond Jones and Joseph Chetcuti at the launch of The Selected Your Friendly Fascist, Friend in Hand Hotel, October 2012

The End of the Line by Rae Desmond Jones will be launched on Sunday 24 February at 1.30pm at the Exodus Foundation (The Burns Philip Hall) 180 Liverpool Road Ashfield. Facebook link https://www.facebook.com/events/242278270027993/

Copies of The End of Line can be purchased at https://rochfordpress.com/rochford-press-book-shop/

‘limestone’ published in ‘Communion Arts Journal’ Issue 8 December 2017

Windjana Gorge, WA

I haven’t sent much work out over the last 18 months or so but I was particularly pleased that one poem made it into print. Communion Arts Journal, edited and published by Ralph Wessman and Jane Williams out of Tasmania, has a long and proud history. As part of the Walleah Press stable it can trace it’s ancestry back to the wonderful Famous Reporter journal which was one of the important and long lived small press journals of the last 30 years (back in 2013 I reviewed the last issue of the Famous Reporter edited by Ralph Wessman for Rochford Street Review  https://rochfordstreetreview.com/2012/08/10/an-eclectic-tour-de-force-mark-roberts-reviews-famous-reporter-43/). Unlike The Famous Reporter Communion is an online journal but it shares with its forebear a commitment to powerful writing and a keen critical ear – something that makes being published by the journal doubly satisfying.

‘limestone’ is a very short poem but it took a long time to write. Over 25 years ago Linda Adair and I spent a few days in the Kimberley east of Broome. There was an ancient beauty to the landscape which spoke deeply of the history of country and, particularly at night when the Milky Way was almost bright enough to throw shadows,  it was easy to feel a connection stretching back eons. It was a feeling that demanded a poem, but it was one of those situations where the poetic strength of the moment swamped the ability of any words to record it. Gradually over two decades words came, Auden helped a little as did the threat posed to this ancient environment by the rise of the ugly right in Australia and around the world which would deny the value of such a link to country. Once you’ve read ‘limestone’ make sure you hang around and enjoy Communion – it is a valuable journal whihc deserves your support.

https://walleahpress.com.au/communion8-Mark-Roberts.html

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Poetic Journal: 20 December 2017: ‘Ha’penny Bridge.’

Day 4 of the journal – I observe the Christmas lights from one of the famous bridges across the Liffy.

 

 

The Liffy reflects back the Christmas lights
on Ha’penny Bridge forming an imperfect

oval. The river is as still as a mirror
yet the image is distorted slightly

on the southern side – a grimace
more than a smile. So perhaps

the opposite of a Dublin frown
is not complete happiness.

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• Poetic Journal: 17 December 2017 ‘hidden’
• Poetic Journal: 18 December 2017 ‘Yellow Sea Chest’ 
• Poetic Journal 19 December ‘Easter 1916 – Dublin GPO’

Poetic Journal: 19 December 2017: ‘‘Easter 1916 – Dublin GPO’’

Day three of my December/January poetic journal.  On our first full day in Dublin we visited the Dublin GPO.

 

19 December 2017 ‘Easter 1916 – Dublin GPO’

Along with the saints
my grandfather taught me
the name of the martyrs:

……….Patrick Pearse,
……….Thomas MacDonagh,
……….Thomas Clarke,
……….Joseph Plunkett,
……….William Pearse,
……….Edward Daly,
……….Michael O’Hanrahan,
……….John MacBride,
……….Éamonn Ceannt,
……….Michael Mallin,
……….Seán Heuston,
……….Con Colbert,
……….James Connolly
……….Sean MacDiarmada.

He was just about to turn sixteen
when the uprising took place
on the other side of the world
fifty years later he still held that anger.
He told me that they had to rope Connolly
to a chair in front of the firing squad
because his ankle had been shattered
by a bullet in the GPO.

My grandfather never saw Ireland
but today I silently tell him
there is no union jack
flying on Dublin GPO.

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Over the coming few weeks I will be doing a bit of travelling on the other side of the world. I have decided to try and keep a small poetic journal to capture some of my observations and thoughts during this period. The poems aren’t complete or polished, please treat them more as observations or first drafts.

• Poetic Journal: 17 December 2017 ‘hidden’

• Poetic Journal: 18 December 2017 ‘Yellow Sea Chest’

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