Winter Poetry Feature Part 1: Hawthorne, Cottier, Takolander, MacKenzie and Jenkins [27.06.2011]

Of all our member presses that publish poetry, a fair few of them – if not all – are of the we-publish-poetry-because-we-love-poetry ilk. This seems like an obvious thing to claim. And it is. But it needs to be acknowledged, here and now, because it speaks to a vibrant enthusiasm for poetry that small presses in Australia have in spades – even when a profit may not be reached. But then, well, the most common usage of ‘profit’ is one fettered to cash. Which, in poetry’s case, is not entirely fair.

Of course presses would love to see sales roll in from everything they publish. But Australia profits handsomely, culturally – lyrically, literately, linguistically – from the small presses putting out new collections each year, not to mention the print and online magazines and newspapers which continue to feature poems. And this dedication sustains no matter how many oranges and pineapples return to keep scurvy at bay from presses' coffers. And we applaud that. So welcome to a new occasional instalment on the SPLOG that features a diverse line-up of poets from around Australia who have publications from an equally diverse assortment of SPUNC member presses.

By no means is this an exhaustive list of poets and small presses. Not anywhere close. Simply, a posh hors d'œuvr course of what’s out there. If one, two or all pique your inner poeticity, we encourage you to pick up a copy of the book(s) noted after each of the authors' pieces.

Now then, in no particular order or theme …

 

what she says about Ereshkigal ~ Susan Hawthorne

 

a coracle of cattle sailed the black waters

to find the point where the worlds were

from that point a thread was thrown

thunderclouds fell across the void

the known worlds quenching drought-

wrought years drenching dust

in the corner was squeezing flesh

removing a splinter from her thumb

changed the world when she picked dirt

from under her fingernail like a

plucking feathers to balance the arrow

shot in memory of the suicidal girl

by an uncle on a horse her mother

in endless search for her bringing

her voice hoarse with wailing her tears

drowning the world in oceanic darkness

This poem appears in Susan Hawthorne’s new collection, Cow, published by Spinifex Press.

 

Displeased ~ P.S. Cottier

 

The canned laughter was well past its best-by date.

When I ripped off its harlequin lid, complete with silver tinkles,

it produced only a feeble giggle, more an aural smirk, apologestic,

than a side-bursting but low cholesterol screech

or an avuncular Pickwickian belly chuckleback.

(Chuckleback being a laugh thrown back into time,

a fat carp of humour, gaping mouth and heaving breath,

refracted from the crackling fire, the roasted chestnuts

and the sweet pink marshmallow gut of good cheer,

and bouncing into the present, as eager to be served

as a tennis ball, or an American at table, God bless them all.)

Disgusted, I threw the can away, dunked it, a real three pointer.

Now whimpering is leaking from the white bin named Recycle.

Sniffling at first, decorous, suffocated in paper, probably that puff

for pizza, topping the news of unheeded Heralds with broken horns.

But the lament is getting louder. Gusting grief is getting me down,

ill cyclonic wind following me round and round, a rotating world

of spinning sadness, keening, epicentred on the solemn silence

of the disappointed discarder of Liten-up Laff-a-Lot,

the growing depression of a blank sound-eye called Me.

This poem appears in P.S. Cottier’s upcoming collection, The Cancellation of Clouds, published by Ginninderra Press.

 

Sleep ~ Maria Takolander

 

Sleep lives in me like a dream

I rid myself of in the morning;

I am left to the day.

I cannot deny it:

The womb I came to life in.

Yet how I loathe its history.

Succumbing in the dark,

I scratch at your back like an epileptic,

Like something from beyond the grave.

This poem appears in Maria Takolander’s collection, Narcissism, published by Whitmore Press.

 

excerpt from Borobudor ~ Jennifer MacKenzie

 

walking the track

to the sculptors' huts

afternoon sun twisted like a kite

a group of fretful horses at the baffle post

carts laden, blocks of freshly-hewn stone

to the huts a large Ganesha sits on the path

six of them there, desultorily chipping

at a shoulder

the flick of a trunk

cacophony drops

as if the god himself

is the silent encasement of their gossip

thanks again for the invitation

see you soon

This passage appears in Jennifer MacKenzie’s collection, Borobudor, published by Transit Lounge Publishing.

 

For the Road ~ Carol Jenkins

 

First as a dare and then for the warm languor

of the tar, at midnight walking to my house,

we lay down our bodies on the middle

of Moana Road and kissed, those long dreamy

kisses of abandonment, to each other, to the road,

to the dark pines looking on, to the locked light

of houses with blinds drawn tight on quarter acre

blocks, the stars’ bright and dizzy mass

arcing over us, and we’d get to our feet, like angels

coming to in a strange world, to walk

down the road, arms and hands tangling,

laughing, like we’d swallowed a universe

and it was exploding out of our fingertips.

This poem appears in Carol Jenkins' collection, Fishing in the Devonian, on Puncher & Wattmann.

 

See part 2.

 

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