and found poem

forgetful hands
long shadows
fold unfold


- as pointed out to me by Patrick McManus of Raynes Park. Thanks, Patrekur.

this is where I'll be today

Vagabond Press launch of three Rare Objects:

Elizabeth Allen Forgetful Hands
Jane Gibian long shadows: haiku
Jill Jones Fold Unfold

To be launched by Judith Beveridge
poetry - music - slideshow - wine

Sat 30th April 4pm
Berkelouw Books Leichhardt
70 Norton Street Leichhardt

contact and orders:
vagabond_press@yahoo.com.au

some skin stuff

skin memories
don't resist
aversions
among their oil
and flowers

touch causes pain
it can
in textbooks
and fusty discourse
be explained

this on that
the tightness
of the world

how stuck
are hands
this was nothing

about being held
they roll you
up to night

careless
winnowing
the season sighs
outside

don't explain
autumn slows
the dark
and gone

i felt much better after

... reading that poet Thom Gunn "taught at UC Berkeley for more than 30 years. A nondriver, he commuted by bus, often using the time in transit to write." This from
an article by Edward Guthmann in The San Francisco Chronicle.

I have tried to learn to drive a car. My attempts, I suspect, were the universe's way of telling me I should stick to walking.

I wonder if there are other non-driving, footpath hugging poets out there.

the book in my hand

1844710416
Originally uploaded by ruby street.

Not only is this the cover of my new book but I have now held it in my hands. It will soon be available in Australia (I'm told three weeks) and I will be launching it at the Sydney Writers Festival in late May.

And it is available through Salt's on-line shop as well amazon.com, amazon.co.uk and other on-line bookshops.


I've been re-reading it, partly to check for any boo-boos (none so far, cross paws, except for a small omission), and to reacquaint myself with the book as book.


The front cover photo was taken by Annette down at La Perouse. She was down at the same place again last week, this time with her medium format camera when she took a pic of the same place, but it's quite a different shot. I like this one still.


Here are some kind comments some people have made about the book:


"Jill Jones' poems are trusting, human and exact. They anticipate possibility, the invisible, sometimes abrupt edges of comprehension, while inviting alert contact with the material world. Her voice is propelled by a knowledge that through poetic artifice deep discoveries can be made in the seams between language, self and shared experience. This work is sharp, sassy and maturely anti-romantic, sorting the strengths of contemporary Australian poetry." - Peter Minter


"In the last few years, Australian poet Jill Jones has emerged as a writer of extraordinary fluency and richness. These new poems, often trance-like and fragmentary, grow from a deep sense of temporal process and the mobility of feeling. They capture the quick and the pulse of the world around them. If they are hard to define, that is because Jones gathers words and speech on the move. If they are hard to resist, that is because there is, unusual in contemporary poetry, a genuine tenderness and intimacy in her writing. What results is a poetry both subtle and very beautiful, both inward and intensely aware of the objective world." - Martin Harrison

building up in nz

The Fugacity anthology is swelling on-line, all the way from Wellington, New Zealand. Take a look, lots of cool poems from many places, and thanks to Mark Young for sending out the alert for this.

underway

the night doesn't crumble
even with the heavy load
you're not a guitar
you only have corridors
after a meal
and only one leaf is lost
in the telling

harbour harbour
you're no that story either

there are other pains
old ones
you thought excised
they still ride you
so that water dark
can keep to its story
each day something missing
speech falls through holes
there's iodine, salt but

no, no
not the harbour
that's a crossing on creaky wheels

sky spins ever so slowly
paths pick out all the between-ness
that sings too holding
the cracks it doesn't crumble
city stares itself forever
all its fuzzy little points
the water's deep forget
the sharks are tomorrow's gamble

you're not a drum
you're alive
edged alive, called alive

underground gets the circle
vinyl blue, silvered steel
the wolves and cats ignore you
he picks a nose on the night line
can get bored
flesh can be entertaining

somehow you emerge
with the rail song
not crumpled
not particularly safe
but underway



St Leonards to Central, 9-9.30pm, 20 April

i've been travelling

The hums of motels

So everything sounds like rain
or the palm wind off Timor or Arafura.
You stop the triune blades white
step into the air-con's tune.
Everything falls from the ceiling
even fluoro runs down the wall.
It's as far from heaven as you can get
amongst the humid hip-hop air
up hauling concrete steps.
There's smoke and gasp somewhere.

You've seen this movie
what infernos! you're on the run!
But there's nothing to chase you down
no bulldust, no crocs, leaping lizards
only the phones and the voices
you've made back home.
Like the fortune cookie said:
'you dial it up', now deal the circle
that rain washes away.
You can dust up again tomorrow.

Night's hums are mechanical, electric
while brother rain wets the seconds
and sister storm sings, not little tune
a bigger pattern, atmosphere deep
past beige blue curtains and the sweat.
It's animate, breath and thunder.
Let sleep decide!
At least the walls are white
and the wrapper says 'clean glass'.


Asti Motel, Darwin, 'round midnight, 13 April 2005

me hay(na)ku elsewhere-like

The Chatelaine herself, Eileen Tabios, recently asked after one of my ha(na)ku poems, many of which appear regular-like on this site. So this paticular one now has another life over at the April edition of Babaylan Speaks.

I'm sharing the poetry space with poets such as Ernesto Priego, Chad Parenteau, Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor, Glynda Tejada Velasco. Go and see if looks different to when it was hanging round Ruby Street.

a new translation

I've just posted a translation of one of Li Po's most famous poems at latitudes.

vagabondage

Vagabond Press invites you to the launch of three Rare Objects

Elizabeth Allen Forgetful Hands
Jane Gibian long shadows: haiku
Jill Jones Fold Unfold

To be launched by Judith Beveridge
poetry music slideshow wine

Sat 30th April 4pm
Berkelouw Books Leichhardt
70 Norton Street Leichhardt

contact and orders:
vagabond_press@yahoo.com.au