Tag: Mark Tredinnick

A Wrap: “as if we were just out of reach of ourselves”

31 August 201323 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog11 Comments

by Mark Tredinnick 1. Just as I was posting this, the news came through. And it changes everything. Just another death. But what a death! What a life ended. Half the words in the world seem suddenly to have gone. I can’t write a word on poetry without lighting a candle first and walking some kind of a vigil into the midnight. Seamus Heaney, who can never possibly die, has died. His leaving leaves us poorer, rich though his life was in beauty and wisdom, grace and humour, kindness and accomplishment. What will we do without him? Remember him. Read…

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

28 August 201323 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog3 Comments

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…

Speaking of love

23 August 201323 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog4 Comments

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…

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

16 August 201323 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog6 Comments

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…

August monthly blogger – Mark Tredinnick!

9 August 201323 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog

A huge thanks to Fiona Wright for her excellent and insightful posts. This month, our guest blogger is Mark Tredinnick. His bio is below: Mark Tredinnick is a celebrated poet, nature writer, essayist, and writing teacher. The winner in 2011 of the Montreal Poetry Prize and in 2012 of the Cardiff Poetry Prize, Mark is the author of Fire Diary, The Blue Plateau, The Little Red Writing Book, The Road South, and eight other works of poetry and prose. His other honours include two premier’s literary awards, the Blake and the Newcastle Poetry Prizes, and the Calibre Essay Prize. Mark…

Long Paddock for Southerly 73.1: The Political Imagination

3 February 201329 October 2022 SoutherlyLong Paddock

Southerly 73.1 is available to purchase here. This link will take you to our old GumRoad storefront (an external site). Remaining issues will be moved to our own site, here, soon. POETRY Peter Boyle, poems 7 and 8 from Towns in the Great Desert Danijela Kambaskovic, De Vita Sedentaria; Power πo, Hymie Adrienne Eberhard, The Hand Peter Sweet, Wall Flower jenni nixon, ships of dreams Barnaby Smith, Grazing, at Colo Heights Ross Donlon, Manly Boys STORIES Jane Downing, Chance Encounters Bronwyn Mehan, Down and Out in Alice Thomas Rye, An Ordinary Lunar Sea REVIEWS Ali Jane Smith on Corey Wakeling,…

Maximum Heat

15 January 201323 February 2015 SoutherlyBlog

Judith Beveridge I’m writing this on the day when catastrophic fire conditions are expected and a maximum of 43 degrees in Sydney. I also have a fever, so it seems heat is absolutely inescapable today as it ravages over the landscape and pushes well above the normal level on my oral thermometer. The fires in Tasmania and Victoria are still burning as well. I feel a strong sense of nervousness about the day. At the moment there’s a small amount of cloud cover and the wind is just starting up. I can hear some insects outside doing their high-pitched, electronic…

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