Tag: australian poetry

Three Days in Late August: some thoughts about bluewrens and everyday immanence

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by Mark Tredinnick Sunday. The bluewren is back. 6:27 this morning, she woke me, her knocking as deft as needlepoint. Wake, she spelled. And I did (if not for long). The birds have this way with me of telling me they’re here and who they are, before they’re here, before they are. She woke me (the pocket beloved) from a dream of Montreal (hello, Asa); she woke Lucy (my young girl) from a dream—a dream as intricate and endless as a life—of Peter Rabbit, Timmy Tiptoes, the whole Potter crew, bouncing on the bed. The rabbits Mrs. McGregor had put…

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Speaking of love

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by Mark Tredinnick It’s true I don’t wake in my own bed as often as I might; I have been elsewhere, this past fortnight, as much as I’ve been here. But every morning at seven, since August began, a bluewren has come to the window and rapped it like a stenographer on a contraband Remington. A couple of deft swoops each visit, bill drilling the pane, a memo about some urgent thing or another, tapped out in rapid arpeggio. There’s no explaining this. All one can do is witness—which may be most of the work we’re here for. But it…

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Driving yourself out of your mind; walking yourself out of your head

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By Mark Tredinnick When Tessa rang me to ask me to blog this month, I was wrangling my dog into the back of a (two-door) car. And then I was starting the car and backing it and turning it onto a public road in the State of New South Wales. We talked, Tessa and I, fairly fast, and hands free (earpiece in, I promise), as I drove to school to pick up the children, running, as ever, just a little bit late. And now I’m writing this—my first blog—in a cab. Last night we launched Australian Love Poems 2013 at…

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Poetry Prize – Helen Bell Poetry Bequest Award 2013

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The Department of English at the University of Sydney is pleased to announce that the first biennial award under the Helen Anne Bell Poetry Bequest  will be made in 2013.  Under the terms of Helen Anne Bell’s will, a cash prize of $5,000 will be offered for the best collection of 30 poems by a female poet over the age of 18.  Applicants must be Australian, and the poems submitted must be “about Australian culture,” broadly defined. The submitted poems should not previously have been published in collected book form, whether in print or on the virtual domain.  The successful…

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Monkeys and Leopards

SoutherlyBlog

Toby Fitch I’m chuffed that Southerly has asked me to take on the role of poetry reviews editor. There are a couple of reasons for appointing a reviews editor dedicated to poetry: 1) to relieve some of the editing and commissioning burdens that fall on David Brooks, Elizabeth McMahon and Kate Lilley, and 2) to invigorate the poetry reviews section of the journal by commissioning more reviews. The aim now is to have as many new Australian poetry releases reviewed as possible. The most anticipated books will receive our attention, of course, but I also plan to expose readers of…

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