Blog
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(xv) Johnny Cash
Midnight fear choirs for blond fatherless boys…mid-western cuckoos? Unkind this oeuvre but sorrow’s a bass voice, horned beast too, black vinyl records & scratched out 70’s country sounds, pop, – rootless & ungrounded? Old timers slumped over Fordson tractors, transistor radios mudguard strapped & melodies cutting off a piece of their ears. Were (you) a…
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(xiv) Leni Reifenstahl
Susan Sontag dissed her. Took stock footage of the twentieth century’s sculptured, athletic, Nazi iconography & documented eugenics think tank – not a big fish as nutters go but someone had too break UFA’s glass ceiling: detect professional jealousy? Leni, more googled? Bra ads, new totalitarianism these days: vis a vis fascism from girls…
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(xiii) Pyrrhus
A womaniser of kingdoms, flitted from one engagement to another, draining dowries like uncut wine in the post-Alexandrian classical age carve up. Frenetic, pinball wizard with sword for hire, undiagnosed ADD child opened negotiations for Greece Pty. Ltd. to become a Roman subsidiary. Tactical dervish bewildered legions, phalanxes, wives, rules. Have (you) had a pyrrhic…
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(xii) Vivian Bullwinkle
They who save lives can never understand how they are taken. Tide pull of khaki men & rigid ammo belts so anti-cummerbund. Quick as dance steps, counter-sprung floors of golden sand, death’s a stage trapdoor for most, nurses, soldiers & salt coffins soak up jungle’s exhausted heat. Stay dead by your sisters till the sun’s…
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(xi) Andre the Giant
Hulk proportioned, minus the green tinge, how does a mother feed ten children in one? More than “stinking meat” to his fans – big boned teenage boys parking car noses with milk can muscles, tuned into Sat arvos & WWF match ups against Big John Stud; the pallid collapse of dead flesh. Smoothed over…
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(x) Marc Bolan
Iconography of the glam-rock gods was scabble-mad. Economies of satin, velvet, eyeliner increased in the High St, shop assistants copied corkscrew hair. His Apollo mission for pop music, moon-shot aborted after three years. Bowie’s Japanese elegance, elf fey adaptations kept changeling popular & tyrannosaurus rex melody unevolved. Have (you) read the “Warlock of Love” (1969)?…
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(ix) Ned Kelly
Nolan got it right, his mind/armour split. His “My God it’s full of stars” visor twinkled. Historical mischief, stringy barks’ cat o nine tails skin, bad sunburn peel, bright red police redder. MAD MAX counterweight our Ned the bush warrior, pre-bitumen, disc brakes ignorant letter writer, 44 kilos of cultural burden. What if Bryant wore…
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(viii) Bruce Lee
Numero uno modern poet used his body; so pre Acker, pre body piercer, pre body builder, pre video artist. Rumour flexes on tape covers; Enter the Dragon of sprung history. Swivel on the balls of your feet; block, punch & counter punch, the underground will always champion the underground. Keep your secrets Eastern, your thoughts…
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(vii) Sharon Phillips
Neo-Ophelia slunk into collective memories’ dry catchment. Diverted by blue (anti) signs, Ipswich Road rusts shut boom gates to national service Hades. The sharp- shooter’s trajectory veers in his mind’s eye, plastic endures, shell casings slap recollection on the shoulder. Brass manikins inherit our space after we’re gone for sixteen months. How much memory do…
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(v) Welsh Fusiliers
Earth’s bed cover stripped away near Flanders. The industry of grandchildren broke the father memory, a burial mound for absenteeism. Poetry wrote them up. Fusiliers corroded with bracelet dog tags beyond time; nobodies’ killed them. A gas mask face, phosgene signatures imprinted in wine-mud. Timed detonators that didn’t go off. (You) watch this…
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(vi) Bin Laden’s son
Wrote first poem at age ten, popular in literary circles convened in dawn sand. Debated new epic (poeme), the super cobras’ Gatling gun criticism shredded his father’s minor oeuvre. Argued with depleted plutonium self. Hijacked poet laureate of the free world & crashed a new syntax into the world’s tallest language. Did (you)…
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Liam Ferney: ‘Content’ Hunter Publications
Are we ever content? Are we ever content to leave things alone? Are we just content to put up with things the way they are? These questions could pluck out the very mystery of Liam Ferney’s fourth poetry collection Content, which follows on from his other successful volumes, Popular Mechanics (2004), Career (2011), and the…
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Liam Ferney: ‘Boom’ Grand Parade Poets
First a rant. Where do we place a poet such as Liam Ferney within the Australian poetry canon? To use a cricketing allusion of which Liam is fond of in Boom, he is the Steve Waugh of the younger generation of Australian poets. He is a patient scrapper, a fighter who has proved himself in…
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Vanessa Page: ‘Confessional Box’ Walleah Press
Thank you Sarah. There are perhaps two pathways to becoming a contemporary poet, though probably there are more nefarious methods which I won’t go into here. One way is to start writing poetry in high school, perhaps unleashed by your favourite English teacher who lets you write a free verse poem instead of that essay,…