Poet’s Breakfast #5 – Beverley George

This time for Poet’s Breakfast, we enter the intertidal world of Beverley George, so grab a cup of tea, and let your mind unwind… this is a breakfast landscape to lose yourself in.
 
 
lagoon sunrise –
the pelican’s bill keeps time
with my teabag
We live between an ocean and a freshwater lagoon.
The ocean is beyond tall houses on [...]

Words from the Cosmopolitan Cafe

Things are only just getting underway with my residency at Cosmopolitan Cafe, but I have a range of ideas slowly stewing… I had my first meeting with Lyn, the owner of Cosmopolitan Cafe last week and spent an hour or so kicking back in a booth with a coffee, pen and paper. And I must [...]

Desert(ed) Island Poems #7 – Darkwing Dubs

SpeedPoets hits The Alibi Room this Sunday, April 5 from 2pm with a three-prong feature attack including sets from Skye Staniford, Pru Gell and Brisbane spoken word/hip-hop artist Darkwing Dubs. Darkwing shared his Desert(ed) Island Poems with me recently, so now I am sharing them with you!
 

 
1. Freedom – J5
To me Jurassic Five are what [...]

The Book Is Dead, Long Live The Book: An Evening with Bob Stein

On Friday night I went along to hear Bob Stein speak at Wordpool, an event presented by QLD Writers Centre as part of the 2009 Ideas Festival. Stein challenged the conventional idea of the book, its cultural role and the role of author and reader by focussing his presentation on the central question: What is a book?
In [...]

16 haiku from today’s reading

I had a blast reading at Under A Daylight Moon this afternoon… for all those who weren’t able to be there, here are the 16 haiku I read (those without an author attributed to them are my own):
 
how fine to see
the pure white fan
of my beloved
           (Buson)
 
girl cat, so
thin on love
and barley
           (Basho)
 
swat those flies
softly [...]

Strange Equation

At any moment the sun might come out
so be ready for it, brother. In this strange equation
of awakening, readiness is everything you have ever wanted
divided by everything you have ever lost.
So don’t just sit there admiring the simplicity
of windows, like a Brunswick Street hooker being cruised by a limo.
Go find the sun, let it acknowledge [...]

Who Listens to the Radio: The Go-Bewteens

Here’s another of the articles I wrote for the Taking it to the Streets Exhibition that was held at the Museum of Brisbane. First up I posted my homage to The Saints – I’m Stranded and now…
 

 
 Before Hollywood - The Go-Betweens
Bursting onto the scene in 1977 as a Dylan infected, neo-pop band, The Go-Betweens were immediately at odds with Brisbane’s [...]

Artist Profile: Pru Gell

The April SpeedPoets gig is shaping up to be something special. Pru Gell is a spoken word artist living and working in the Northern Territory and a member of the gathering sister’s stories collaborative project. Luckily for us Brisbane folk, Pru is heading our way and will be performing a feature set at SpeedPoets on [...]

Written in Light

 her face glowed in the room and he wrote by her light
words terrible in their insistence
like a meteor shower burning
at the end of a hot night
shivering on her skin
simple and quiet
as porcelain

Brisbane Poetry Gig Guide – March 25

Saturday March 28
Under a Daylight Moon returns to Novel Lines Book Shop, 153 LaTrobe Tce, Paddington from 3pm with feature readings from Ron Heard (tales of Homer creating himself) and Pam Schindler who will be previewing her debut collection. There will also be live music from Mark Shorts and a haiku reading by this Lost [...]