Previews - Poetry
Poetry in Motion
Author: Rob Crow
ISBN: 0 646 28672 2
Publisher: Rob Crow
Address: 2/29 Cliff Street, Manly, NSW, 2095
Ph: (02) 9977 2623 Fax: (02) 9977 2869
An adventurer, the author, has been leading guided mountaineering and
trekking expeditions to Ladakh, India and Nepal for the past seven years
and this collection of poems hints at the philosophy underpinning his company
- Poetry in Motion.
Fervently believing in the need for introspection and independent thought,
Crow argues that the often forgotten form of expression - the poem - by
its very nature hints at what is between the lines - the reader's unique
perspective
From the pithy "Western Civilisation":
"A great deal of intelligence . . .
Very little wisdom."
To "Grandmother's Trinket"
"Tattered thing
Worn through with remembering,
Like a shiney new key
to unlock from the store
of a Grandmothers love -
for her children
a moment of peace."
To "Being with":
"The only truth
is that you listened.
The gift is that you wanted to.
The result -
is that you met me
and I you."
Crow offers his poems in the hope that the reader can ponder them and make
them their own and, in so doing, discover a little of themselves.
Sunset Sunrise
Author: Valerie Mai
ISBN: 0 646 27881 9
Publisher: Lampito Press
Address: PO Box 2, 9 Roslyn Street, New Lambton, NSW, 2305
A collection of poems that spans a dozen years of the author's marriage
to an abusive man. "At the oddest moments I would pick up pen and paper,
and the words poured out . . . my feelings let vent to all the frustration
. . . Finally, the beginnings of acceptance emerged from that abysmal quagmire,
and from this sprang new hope and a new life".
The product of an abusive marriage herself, the author's expectations of
marriage were not high. It was not from feeling wrongly done by but from
fear for the safety of her children that she was to leave.
The poems are the author's journey into her new and happy future - the sun
setting on one part of her life and rising on the new.
The survival strategies needed to cope with an abusive marriage emerge in
poems like
"Violation":
"Rape in marriage?
I never said no
'Cause I was too scared
To believe it was so.
"But often at times,
Accosted in my sleep,
I removed my mind,
Never letting it weep. . . "
The introspection that leads to self-understanding and eventually to healing
is embedded in many of the poems.
From "Hatred":
"Hatred - the disease that comes
To wreck the mind and soul.
It grabs a hold and squeezes tight
Till you have lost control.
"It creeps on in before you feel
Its devastating grip . . . "
And from "Free To Be Me":
"I knew him well, but he's never known me.
He only saw what he wanted to see.
"The woman he saw was someone I don't know,
But she's left here now because I told her to go.
. . . . .
I've a life of my own and I love being free
What a wonderful thing it is just to be me."
The author hopes that her work may bring some light to others among the
many women who have suffered similarly.
Progress
"It doesn't realy hurt any more,
But sometimes I just cry.
I think I'm one hundred percent over it,
So why?
"It finished years and years ago
But the memories remain.
They'll stay with me for the rest of my life.
Some gain!
"I'd still rather be as I am now
Even though I remember.
It's better to keep the results in my head
Than to duplicate the mistakes that I made
When wed."
"Sunset Sunrise" is written to share with all those other women
who should never have had to live a life in misery, a prisoner in an abusive
relationship.
Tragic Love Poems
Author: Thyra Elizabeth Littlemore Cordeaux
ISBN: 0 646 28779 6
Publisher: Elizabeth Cordeaux
Address: 27 Myee Avenue, Strathfield, NSW, 2135
A collection of tragic love poems that touch on the poet's life - as
a mother, as a daughter, as a lover, as a young girl, as a woman.
"I look at you thru silver tears,
And all the lonely wasted years,
I hope that you will understand,
Our house of dreams was built on sand,
I was young, and wild, and sweet and gay,
And I never promised that I'd stay."
The author was born in Bundaberg from an English family and a Scottish mother.
She married and lived on Bulleo Station, Bowral, where she raised six children.
The poems tell of her personal pain - the anguish of sons at war:
"The guns that roar,
The planes that soar,
The boys that cry,
The boys that die
It is up to us to stop the war,
So that there will be no more,
What is this for, this bloody war? . . ."
the anguish of growing old:
"I feel young and gay and bold,
and my world is bathed in god,
and then I pass a mirror
and my Soul is crushed,
. . . for I am old."
and the loss of parents and the longing for reunion:
"Oh mother, mother wait for me
I'll come to you when I'm free
but if I cannot come to you
look for a tree that is covered in dew
which will be my tears from over the years."
Thoughts of Bourke
Author: Gus Helm
ISBN: 0 646 28876 8
Publisher: GJ & KC Helm
Address: 22 Algona Crescent, Orange, NSW, 2800
"It's the thought of a time when the streets were not paved,
when isolation and hardships were freely braved,
And the laughter of us kids each time it rained.
when cars spun off into the table drains,
Because they couldn't drive too well on dirt
when occasionally it rained, out here at Bourke"
In the 1950s, the far western Darling River town of Bourke was even
more remote than it is today but it was a lively place populated with colourful
characters. The author's reflections and recollections of Bourke have been
compiled in this collection of verse and short stories.
They tell of an archetypal outback Australian country town and they tell
of attitudes that put to rest assumptions about the archetypal "country
redneck":
Graveyard Prejudice
He loved her in this life, but in death they are apart.
For the ways of a church's ruling, are not the ways of the heart.
For she was a practicing Catholic, and he a Protestant.
And where they lie in the graveyard is on different sides of a fence.
It was a cruel and heartless thing, in death, of each other were robbed.
The preacher's monotonous voice droned on in the name of a blameless god.
They couldn't be buried together, this righteous Preacher said.
For he refused to take her faith when years ago they wed.
But he had a faith of his own, I thought, as I listened on.
With one god and a thousand religions, who's to say who is right or wrong.
And I felt like standing up and begging that preacher's pard.
But the god he knows must be different to mine, to show prejudice in a graveyard
. . .
Variously poignant, hilarious, reflective, these verses and short stories
reflect a set of values drawn from a way of living that few know today.
The tall stories and the not so tall, they are part of a literary tradition
that found its truest voice in the likes of Lawson.
The inscription on a headstone (from the short story "Burying the Past")
that reads:
"RIP
Here lies the past.
Buried and forgotten.
It's name was Henry"
could equally be the author's summation of life in Bourke as he knew it.
But this collection is nonetheless a celebration - and a reflection on things
passing.
A Fellowship of Words
Editor: Peter Hanbury
ISBN: 0 646 27527 5
Publisher: Peter Hanbury
Address: PO Box 121, Alstonville, NSW, 2477
An anthology of the winning entries in the FAW Far North Coast Regional
Literary Competition for poetry, short stories, articles and essays, a competition
which over the past decade has grown into one of the largest in Australia.
All 56 winning entries have been included, making it truly a smorgasbord
of words from all over the country.
Part of the fun of the reading where first, second, third, highly commended
and commended placegetters are included is deciding whether you agree with
the judges. There could be little disagreement that A Simple Game of Bingo
by Gloria B. Yates deserved first place in the Articles and Essays category
and overall winner of the Norco Cedar Award.
It records with meticulous detail the activities of Wednesday morning, bingo
morning. Written in the voice of a Hospital Auxiliary, otherwise known as
a volunteer, it is a poignant, funny and thoughtful insight into geriatric
care. By concentrating on the minutia, the writer compelling tells a much
wider story, that of a society prepared to abandon the elderly and the infirm
to the care of others, in a system that cannot function without the goodwill
of volunteers. Once the volunteers were family and a community known to
the patients, now they are strangers.
Ronald Rowlands' Foreward appeals straight to a sense of the ridiculous.
In this Foreward to an anthology of essays and short stories, he sets out
possible approaches to the order in which they should appear. The most delicious
is the one that would follow his grandmother's approach to reading fiction.
If a book held her attention all the way, having read the first chapter,
the last chapter and then on through a predetermined route, she would, if
the book were wonderful, finish at chapter two. Thus the obvious place for
the worst short story in an anthology would be second and the second best
would of course be last. Not the option chosen with this particularly anthology
however.
I've mentioned two, but there's much more - fifty four more in fact. Within
this smorgasbord there will be something or much more than something for
everyone.
Sleep to me
Author: Patrick O'Tarpaig
ISBN: 0 646 27561 5
Published by: Tahlia Rose Press
Address: C/- Bondi Road Post Office, Bondi, NSW, 2026
"Three hearts more entwined with mine than ever
I guessed or knew"
A tragic love poem - a chance meeting, a brief affiar, a consuming passionate
love brought short by a note:
" . . . You, my love, my friend, are the first to make
love to me
I have stolen from you
words and trust
you fed me your heart thro your mouth and cock
I washed over you, you drank from me
my love, my friend I have betrayed you"
Disturbing in its power to give words to despair and desolation:
"I remember back and cannot find one moment of ease, of
comfort, of warmth
I moan and tremble a stretch from sleep
ill at ease
darkness stalking me
death's breath on my neck, on the small of my back
behind my knees."
Eloquently and succinctly, it tracks the surprise of happenchance, the
simultaneous experience of the joy, unease and tumultuousness that accompanies
contentment and love, and the devastation that follows abandonment and betrayal.
A Mother's Love
Author: Carmelita Naomi Roamer
ISBN: 0 646 28447 9
Publisher: Duncan Saville
Address: PO Box 127, Vaucluse, NSW, 2030
The tugging impulses pulling a mother in two directions simultaneously
are eloquently explored in this book's poem "Christmas approaches .
. . (a nostalgic time)":
Now another year, another world
I still watch from afar
as you seize the controls
continuing your solo flight
to new heights, new discoveries
the changing order
kept the old intact
the windows of my world are wider
keeping you in sight
And this as she struggles to deal with growth and separation:
The moment has arrived
don't hesitate
my tears have dried
in a final blaze of pride
my blessing follows you
as you journey into freedom
travelling first-class
could be talking equally of the first big separation when a child starts
school as of the step into adulthood.
And even as allowing the freedom of separation it remains followed by a
mother's love of concern:
Remember the angels
who dogged the footsteps of your childhood
clear a path for you
through the future undergrowth
but beware of that small angel, Luck
sometimes he is a fraud
who wears your clothes.
The resonant chords are to be found in every line for everyone who has known
the joy and the pain of raising a child.
"I Love You Granny" Bronchitis
Author: Norte Naura
ISBN: 0 646 27350 7
Publisher: Naureen Farrel
Address: 20A Rennie Street, Thornbury, NSW, 2071
A collection of poetry, its primary audience is not, as the title might
suggest, young children!
The first poem is a whimsical affectionate one:
"I love you Granny"
Said the little miss three
When she last came
To stay with me
"Have you got fairies Granny?"
Piped darling little miss three
So out into the garden we went
To look under my old Broom tree
. . . . .
in which the poet recalls her granddaughter's last visit leaving behind
her "I Love You Granny" Bronchitis and a temperature of a hundred
and three.
The tone changes sharply in the next, the cry of a small boy not understanding
why his father has left, and yearning for mum to be at home:
I want you home Mum
To be with me
so if I need you
I'll know where you'll be
Not at work all day
And tired at night
Then busy all weekend
So our home will be right
. . . . .
Others review the poet's life from her joy of living to her despair.
From one extreme to another:
It's 4.24
On a Tuesday morn
Yet we are awake
To greet glorious dawn
Whilch heralds beginning of every day
And constrasting so sharply with this optimism:
From the peak of the mountain
I solemnly gazed
At that sickening aspect of the
Human phase called life
It is the poems that declare the poet's experience of motherhood that are
the most personal:
My future is yours
Unequivocally, unrestricted,
And completely unimpeded
By past or present
Love willingly given and hopefully returned
And from another:
Life's ambition finally attained
My life my love my being
You my precious
My only one I love
My son
Recollections Collected
Author: Eileen Doris Dawes
ISBN: 0 646 27214 4
Publisher: Erigolia Press
Address: 194 Ocean Street, Narrabeen Beach, NSW, 2101
Recollections collected is indeed an appropriate summation of this volume
of poetry, spanning as it does a lifetime lived to the full, a life consumed
with community involvement, the theatre and its signature note - travelogues
in verse.
Some of the recollections included will be shared by many as in:
First Moon Landing
Shone the bright moon
Shone in the middle of the day
Shone up in July's winter sky
Shone above in blue up so high
Shone basking in sunlight
Shone over the sand
Shone reflected in the lake
Shone mirrored in the ocean
Shone over the school
Shone into the pool
Shone over the sea
Shone over the people
Shone over me
We walked inside to watch TV
Where man walked on the moon
For all to see
Neil Armstrong: Apollo II Mission
"That's one small step for Man
One giant leap for Mankind"
And another that will strike a chord with more than a few readers:
Environmental Pollution on Planet Earth
Newcastle suffers steam and smoke
Port Kembla's smothered by fumes of hot coke
Sydney creates its private smog
London's under swirling fog
Rotorua's clad in suplhurous stream
Glasgow's stacks blow eye-stinging steam
New Zealand hides under long, white cloud
Mt Fuji's wrapped in snow-coned shroud
Paris bathes in morning mist
Vesuvius's vapours 'round Napoli twist
Hobart's under Mt Wellington's haze
Los Angeles floats in glug all its days
The Grand Canyon's often filled with vapours
Seoul's pollution fills all the papers
Moscow's icy, with mouth-blown breath
Why do smokers die such a dreadful death?
As is obvious, the writer has spent much of her life away from home with
her verse recalling a time at the Zuyder Zee; cheese, red and round, eaten
with wine at Edam; sailing in the Aegean; snow in Norway and churches and
palaces in England. And many more besides - delighting in all she sees and
experiences.
Her love of Australia, its bush and its waters is evident in her many celebrations
of the joy it brings, a love that was obviously not diminished by her experiences
on the 17th April 1938. Following that day, Constable William Ernest Addison
was awarded the Silver Medal of the Royal Humane Society for rescuing the
writer, then seventeen, from drowning at Cronulla Beach.
The poet's passion for theatre, ballet, opera, music and film give rise
to many tributes - to Dame Margot Fonteyn, to Neil Jensen, David Devenport,
to Liberace, to Dame Joan Sutherland - personal appreciation for the exhilaration
and rapture they have brought.
With many poems published in newspapers and newsletters over the years,
residents of Sydney's northern beaches may well be familiar with her work
as many of her travelogues in verse have been read on Community Radio.
Eve's Incantation
Author: Jagjit Bajaj
ISBN: 0 646 27228 4
Publisher: Jagjit
Address: PO Box 1148, Booragoon, WA, 6154
'"Eve's Incantation" by Jagjit is both a prayer and a promise.
It is poetry as beautiful as it is meaningful . . . deeply spiritual . .
. and delightful" says Richard Fuller, Senior Editor of Metaphysic
Reviews, Grand Rapid, USA.
The story of Eve, it retraces the past and offers the future.
It argues that love is the great gift of Eve and explores the primary paradox:
"In believing, I was deceived."
And so to the bringer and giver and fountain of love, comes shame and despair
and bitterness.
But the Eve of this incantation offers a vow, a pledge that promises recreation
and renewal.
My Reflections
Author: Hilda Daniel
ISBN: 0 646 25933 4
Publisher: Hilda Daniel
Address: C/- 108 Sydney St, Mackay, Qld, 4740
The reflections, in poetry, of a life lived since 1917, surrounded by sugar
cane, children and the Church and washed with Queensland heat and sunlight.
From the whimsical to the reflective, Hilda Daniel takes pen to paper on
all that has formed and surrounded her life. Everything from contemplating
the true meaning of Christmas to complaints about how pantihose always ladder
and never fit properly is explored in rhyming verse. Indeed, even Hilda
Daniel's views on rhyming verse and blank verse are dealt with - naturally
in rhyming verse.
From saluting Rolf Harris for the pleasure he has given her family, or describing
the life story of a teaspoon of sugar (cane to cuppa), to revelling in the
beauty of Queensland or lamenting the incompetence displayed by the average
man mowing the garden lawn, her work reflects an uncomplicated approach
to life. She is, however, the one best placed to tell us who she is and
in a poem aptly titled "Me", she does just that.
Me
Often, when I sit alone,
I think of how the years have flown,
And wonder just what I have done -
Have I achieved a "victory won"?
Only a housewife, that is true,
Still I've had plenty of work to do;
With nine hungry mouths to feed,
And seven little children's needs;
"Variety is the spice of life"!
With seven children, I found that right!
Never a big deed have I done -
There's no award that I have won;
The tune of my life, like a song has been sung,
And now I am no longer young;
But I'll still try, whenever I can,
To help another fellowman.
I'll not be remembered for some great event,
But my days, I know, have been fully spent.
So maybe when I'm gone, you'll see,
I'll just be remembered for being - ME!
Her love of Queensland and of life on the land is evident over and over
again through the pages of this collection.
The Crushing Season
The Crushing Season's here again,
And fires are burning in the cane;
They're so fierce, they go with a rush,
Ensuring of a cleaner crush.
Basne, Jak Zivot Sel.
Author: Bozena Samankova
ISBN: 0 646 26586 5
Publisher: Bozena Samanlova
Address: PO Box 380, Petersham, NSW, 2049
A collection of poetry.
Bozena Samankova first published a collection of poems in Prague, Czechoslovakia,
in the 1930s. This is her most recent volume.
Split Images
Author: Andrew Alexander & Regina Young
ISBN: 0 66 26611 X
Publisher: Andrew Alexander & Regina Young
Address: 200 Macquariedale Road, Appin, NSW, 2460
A collection of poetry from Andrew Alexander and Regina Young that reflects
their love of the outdoors and their spiritual inspiration. The volume is
illustrated with by the versatile artist, Marjet Bedi.
That Andrew Alexander draws much of his strength from his religion is manifest
in all his work. His questioning of the reason for existence is constantly
answered by his faith.
"The Sea of His Love"
I drowned in the mercy of God;
i sank in the sea of His love;
I died to myself in the cross,
And live by His breath from above.
I searched but found nothing at all;
I looked for a someone to love;
I tried to give all that I have,
Took my eyes off the Lord high above.
Now I must seek first His Kingdom;
I now need to live in His love,
Keep my heart in the light of His Word,
And be sure of my home high above.
It's only in Christ that I'll live;
It's only in Him that I'll love;
It's only in Jesus my Lord
That I'll live by his breath from above.
Pray Lord, hold me close to Your heart;
Hold me firm in the grasp of Your love;
Keep me safe in the light of Your Word
And filled with Your breath from above.
May I love in Your powerful way;
May I love with depth of Your love;
May I love without cause and condition,
With the love of the Lord high above.
Postscript:
Unlimited patience flowed from his throne;
It breached the wall of my heart,
And renewed my spirit
With power to love.
I may yet press on . . .
to eternity.
Equally sustained by her faith, Young's work also shows that she is young
by nature as well as by name. Energy and passion underscore her work.
"The Children"
They lurk around at midnight,
They make their mark in pen
On the walls that can't confine them,
On the walls they've broken in.
The monsters of society,
The keepers of their cause;
Their only means of notice,
They will break down every law.
Their own adopted family,
A law unto themselves,
Surviving on their cunningness,
Dying there unhelped.
Oh won't you hear the children?
Won't you hear their cries?
It might look like rebellion,
But there's hurt there in their eyes.
Stamping Back the Dance Sand
Author: Murray Dean Smith
ISBN: 0 646 26785 X
Publisher: Murray Dean Smith
Address: 20/19 Ramsay Street, Collaroy, NSW, 2097
Colour Maps
Not like history books
but like kids who
when they meet that first time
go off together to explore
a tree, a creek, a bin
or a yard
or any idea at all
and make known
without abstraction
the intrinsic obvious mystery
of everything
that's how Australia will be discovered
right in the street
with open eyes
And so starts this collection of poetry. It is as this introduction promises,
an anthology of experiences discovered with open eyes.
It is a journey of discovery in and through and of Australia.
From Part (xiv) of "Decibels from the Desert"
Words describe
the usual clutter and noise
shape a way of thinking
in the desert
a different language emerges
silent and huge
beyond the geography of the senses
via instinct / intuition
or is it the journey itself
- the facts of travel?
I don't know. Yet it seems
the greater the distance covered
is the landscape within . . .
stamping back the dance sand
shaping from this place
the colour maps & songs
that signpost the linking
of myself
to the nation
To acute astringent observations such as in "Christmas Specials"
Pine tops or just young trees
tied to a parking sign
outside a grocer's
closed
at lunchtime
on Christmas
*
In the frontyard of that house
scattered toys
ignored by three children
filling in the fencepost hole
with footpath rocks
Edicius
Author: Danny Bazzi
ISBN: 0 646 26857 0
Publisher: Danny Bazzi
Address: 60 Dowling Street, Arncliffe, NSW, 2205
A collection of poetry from a poet who declares that nothing is trivial,
and that as creatures of circumstance, we are not intended to understand
all that happens around us. He posits that from the unique point of view
of each individual, everyone paints their own picture. This publication
is the poet's painting offered to you, the reader.
And from the array presented in this poet's painting, this is indicative.
Ashes to Ashes
I bow to your existence,
I need your persistence.
Hold me own as I drown in an ocean,
That was never intended to hold me,
Believe me when I say,
I was just lonely,
I was never a rainy day.
I am not the victim,
I am not the surrogacy,
I am not the humiliation,
But I am the dignity.
I will be by your side forever and a day,
You may always remember the picture,
Painted with the words you always wanted to say,
We both believe in all we see and need,
I just wait for the blackbird,
To come and rescue me.
Ashes to Ashes,
Dust to Dust,
Evolution holds the promise,
Devotion the solution,
We hold our own,
I will lead you home,
On this day,
who will guard your soul?
I am the destiny of what you have never known,
The Edicius of a story told,
Now I put to rest the soul of old.
Light
Author: Christopher Latham
ISBN: 0 646 26858 9
Publisher: Chris Latham
Address: 21/158 Homer Street, Earlwood, NSW, 2206
This collection of poems is a record of years of travel and study in
Australia and overseas during the poet's ten years of studying music in
the USA and playing and touring with the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
touring/antwerp
sometimes i feel
like a celestial tourist,
walking like an angel
among crowded streets,
yet seen, or touched
by no one,
in towns such as these
they see me only on stage,
and later as i leave
and pass through the crowd,
no one glances, surprised,
or moves to let me pass,
and it seems to me,
walking back through the streets,
my footsteps softened
by the damp, golden leaves
that the wind alone knows me,
as it grudgingly bends
and wraps around
my invisible arms.
Latham's affection for Australia is evident. Much of his work is redolent
of Sydney humidity, and the languid heat of Brisbane, concerned with hard
winters, dry winters, wet winters, long hot summers. Sydney has seemingly
seeped into his bones and emerges in his poems.
From "earlwood, ironside, marshall st."
time is vast,
and australian is
childhood friendly,
like a warm, thick raincoat
heated with belonging,
and every rainy day joins
with the others,
so the childhood smell
of a wet timber hallway
can lie softly
on a half-lit
petersham table,
touching gently across time
like rain soaked lovers,
waiting at the same station,
separated only
by years.
Purges:
Scenes From Balconies and Below
Author: D R Berry
ISBN: 0 646 22401 8
Publisher: Daniel Berry
Address: 1/1003 Botany Road, Mascot, NSW, 2020
This collection of poetry from D R Berry opens as follows:
"In the end or the beginning, it is of no consequence that a people
or person breaks that unfingerabe silence: that which must be imparted.
It is the attempt, bad or good, at laying bare-ish for all to feed upon
or reject. If one must purge - for that's it in a nutshell - what as weight
or wing, mobilizes an inky excursion, then so be it. It's good enough to
have bravely take it on. My simple single caprice, is that one word or word
get-together strikes a resonant chord. If this occur, I have succeeded."
The resonant chord will be different for each and every reader. For me,
(although I would cite one or two exceptions and a few reservations!) it
came with:
We miss you J.C.
If i'd the energy of Cagney,
vim and vigour were as cheap as charms,
the art of natural consequence
i'd fathom, from urgent chase and charge;
if these feet could match his mete,
such weightlessness, yet conspicuous beat and style,
his Yanky Dandy, Footlight Parading,
a tale of West Point, i'd soft-shoe for my valentine;
the masterly depiction of fancy fact and fiction,
if glowering gangster, no cheap charading,
how Blondell copped the grapefruit in that scene
in Enemy, how he flew his fists with keen direction;
when Cags delivers the loaded line,
dense with severe importance,
the timbre of his singular tone
enthrals, slyly exports us;
yes, that mould of gold is broke,
the contemporary thespian cannot carve the lard,
their egos betray them and their nation,
that award these plastic hamsters a monarch's mark.
Courage Straddles Tramstraps and Rainy Day Time
Author: Norte Naura
ISBN: 0 646 26145 2
Publisher: Naureen Farrell
Address: 20A Rennie Street, Thorbury, Vic, 3071
"Courage Straddles Tramstraps" is a collection of poems and
short stories that range across the author's life from childhood, puberty,
relationships and back again.
In "Rainy Day", the author reviews her life while contemplating
the future knowing "My Rainy day time is drawing near.".
Sometimes calmly accepting:
"Don't panic darling you knew it was coming.
Just keep you head and hold me tight.
Grit your teeth - hold back the fright."
at other times resisting:
"My celtic heart
Yells out in vain
Please may I stay
Reverse my heart
Be still.
My rainy day
Is drawing near.
Why can't I stay
To play one moment more."
"Rainy Day" swings from one emotion to another and back again
as the graceful acceptance of death struggles with the desire to live.
The Wanderer of the Subconscious Realm -
A Collection of Poems from the Left Zone
Author: Sebastian Wood
ISBN: 0 646 26173 8
Publisher: Sebastian Wood
Address: 4/47 Hampton Circuit, Yarralumla, ACT, 2600
A collection of 270 poems by Sebastian Wood embracing a wide variety
of subjects. The author describes himself as young and self-educated, scarred
by the eighties and torn apart by the turbulent nineties. That this might
be an apt description is evident by the anguish and despair in many of the
poems.
Oblivion
Since becoming a slave to the bottle, into this place I feel
Where I exist in the infinite void, my own private hell
My own dark world where the only constant is oblivion
Trapped here forever, I am the only subject of my dominion
I lost my battle with the demons I fought for years
Now I am alone and cry a thousand silent tears
Tears that never dry or ever ease in their flowing
Lost amidst confusion in my world of never knowing
Where could I be? For I am neither here nor there
I've been banished from the Earth and nobody seems to care
Because nobody has come to rescue me from this place
It is like I just dissolved into this empty space
This world of utter madness in my kingdom, my domain
I am the sole inhabitant of my lost universe that's insane
My body walks the Earth, but my mind and soul are not there
They are lost in oblivion, deep down in the abyss of despair
Alcoholism is the fire that I unceasingly flame
Consumed by my addiction into the oblivion with no name
I didn't realise my problem until I had lost all control
Which is why I was annihilated and could not save my soul
Now I forever wander the subconscious wastelands of my mind
Searching for an escape that I am destined never to find
Drifting on the endless seas of madness without a sail
Incarcerated in this dimension which is my soul's unique jail.
From Prophesy for the New Millenium - Part 2
The raindrops that fall from the sky
Are tears the downtrodden people cry
So many they form a sea of sorrow
Of no hope for today or tomorrow
Everywhere people breathe their last
As a nightmare returns from the past
The young just cannot understand
Why we are dying by our own hand
And from The Great Beyond
Would you recognise me in the great beyond?
If I called your name would you respond?
Because you only knew me from the face of my human form
My embraces on cold nights that kept you warm
So up in the heavens how will you know its me
When from our physical appearance we have been set free?
Sweet Expectations, Bitter Realisations
Author: Juhasz Lajos
ISBN: 0 646 25909 1
Publisher: Juhasz Lajos
Address: 5A Francis Street, Randwick, NSW, 2031
A collection of poems from Hungarian born Australian, Juhasz Lajos.
Imi Badonsky describes him as a "unique wandering soul" with "deep
philosophical insight into this world of ours."
Money or Time
by Juhasz Lajos
Too many hopes
were destroyed,
by accepting
the price of lust.
So many dreams,
could have been fulfilled,
if they had
a little more time.
If you take my money,
I've still got some time.
If you take my time,
that will be,
my last fine.
Inspirational Thoughts from My Life
Author: Robert John Findley
ISBN: 0 646 24979 7
Publisher: Robert Findley
Address: 1/8 Kirk Street, Ringwood, Vic, 3134
Suffering since 1974 from schizophrenia, the author has used poetry
as a means of self expression and self discovery.
His faith in God is evident in his poetry and it is his earnest wish that
these poems might give hope to fellow sufferers. That Findley believes that
it is not what happens to you that is so important, rather the manner of
handling what happens, emerges clearly through his work.
A Thought on Christmas, 24/12/1980
. . . it is the way we progress
even though the path seems long
That brings us ever closer
to the joy for which we long."
At "Arden" 8/6/1988
As I sit here and ponder
The days they go by.
It is but a moment, a twinkling of eye,
The vastness of time seems a long way away.
Yet to sit in the stillness and see the birds fly
Or gaze at the trees that go whistling by
As your gaze starts to wander around you, you find
That tranquillity come, as does peace of mind.
For to let your mind see what lies around the next bend
Of your life, which seems to have no beginning or end,
Is fulfillment indeed if you take time to see
The beauty around you that God made for thee.
Mungabareena Poets
Editor: R Winch & F McMahon
ISBN: 0 646 25757 9
Address: C/- 30 Woronora Street, Kaleen, ACT, 2617
Every new collection of poems that comes from a group of regional poets
brings with it a delightful sense of enthusiasm, commitment and determination
and this collection of work from the Albury-Wodonga area is no exception.
The collection conjures an illuminating insight into life in this community
and is compelling evidence to the depth of talent that can be found in regional
communities.
The majority of the twenty three poets represented in this collection are
female and many of the poets have already achieved recognition both in Australia
and abroad.
The work ranges from young writers such as eighteen year old Silvia Boscutti
to Wilson Mayne O.B.E. who has been writing for pleasure and for professional
purposes for more than sixty years.
Wilson Mayne's work is represented in this volume by three poems, one a
memory of "Armistice Day, 1946" that concludes disturbingly:
The public tribute died and life began again
Drowning a private protest against never ending pain.
Silence
by Wilson Mayne
I woke beneath the stars to stillness,
Absolute, complete.
The world is dead,
I said,
Save for my heart's persistent beat.
Silent beyond the silence
Of unregarded sound
All nature slept.
I shrank alone, afraid
Beneath the empty canopy of space.
A leaf dropped twisting to the ground
And life began again. -
Personal alienation and disorientation is eloquently and chillingly drawn
by Silvia Boscutti in "Leave Me Be".
Leave Me Be
by Silvia Boscutti
I am
I don't know
When I stopped feeling:
Only being.
I can touch
But nothing touches me,
There is nothing to touch,
Just a person.
An empty, empty person
Who doesn't want
To be touched.
Leave me
Be.
Many of the poets here collected rejoice in the land, the trees, the skies
and the seasons.
Tourneys Are Not Just for Jousting
Author: Joan Macneil
ISBN: 0 646 247581
Publisher: Joan Macneil
Address: 16/7 Eildon Road, St Kilda, Vic, 3182
A collection of poetry by Melbourne poet Joan Macneil, who, as she wryly
comments, has not been published in "Quadrant", "Meanjin"
or "The Age". However, some of her work has been published in
anthologies and in "The Canberra Times".
"Tourney Are Not Just for Jousting" is a collection of work spanning
a number of years and much of a life's journey, the poet's relationships
with her children, her lovers, herself and her cats.
A quiet wryness and deep affection runs through the work. A long piece,
"Marriage Suite", in nine acts records much of Macneil's adult
life.
"I had wed a man who was unaware
trees and shrubs have each a front
and a rear. Who set hollyhocks
a-nodding at a dreary fence,
turned red dahlias brightly bobbing
at uncaring wall. Had the flowering
eucalypt hook forward-leaning branches
at the pisa-banksia, and I aghast at each
ungainly consummation brought about
by surging easterlies.
"I had flowered late and been in turn a
hopeful evergreen and hardy annual.
Now seasons lack leguminious grace. After
brazening away the years I nod my head
once more at unfamiliar walls."
Her concern to reach a self-understanding lies at the centre of the work
as does her awareness of where she is in her journey through life towards
its inevitable end.
"(i)
Paradoxically a lovely mourning this Good Friday
I thrust a veterinarian wafer down the throat of
the cat (Reasonably acquiescent, he seems unaware
that the quality of his life has been improved)
His age is similar to mine in animal years and this
pink hormone supplement restores his dubious equanimity.
Would this poor equilibrium be so easily restored!
(I have old battle-scars, am hard-denied the consolation
of the perfect balance) I squeeze the cat his laxative
brown-coiling from the tube. He lies in my arms
Suckles the stuff A catnip baby in the final throes
of an almost unbearable state of satiety.
"(ii)
Inexorably, Eritrean fields still bloom this morning
with their gaunt-bodied blackeyed poppies of death.
Skeletal hulks of grim remonstrance that dance at
mirage of Edengarten. Morality favours the survivors
It is mortality that stalks the unpoetic lands of waste
Directing soundlessly the way to dubious sweetness
of afterlife. Resistance is desert-sifted. Abundance
of culling accepts immaturity as desert windfall And
passive agonies pack camera-eyes that will immortalize,
record for TV diners and posterity The terrible
simplicity of dying."
"Good Friday 1985"
And neither does Macneil ignore the very practical aspects of dying. This,
again from "Marriage Suite":
"Each day I ready myself to die. I do not want to
go with uncut toenails, hair in places not yet
evolved bare, unwashed crowning glory."
The Ghost of Future Past
Author: Sean Keogh
ISBN: 0 646 25537 1
Publisher: Amanda Peacock
Address: 11/61 Fletcher Street, Tamarama, NSW, 2026
To Be Read at the Wake
If your love should prove to be fatal
Then bury me in your back yard
I'll grow in your flowers and haunt you
Should our loving be too hard
For my life is a flickering flame
A tentative grip at best
And though my pulse is a roaring train
I fear you will lay me to rest
Still, this is a death to be hoped for
So I haven't got cause to complain
Now witness my last will and testament
Written while completely insane.
Published posthumously, this collection of poetry and short stories
has been compiled and edited by those Sean Keogh so rightly anticipated
would lay him to rest.
"He taught me that everybody is important, no one's dreams are any
better than anybody else's, and to use your mouth to kiss, to speak of love
and to speak some truth at least some of the time." The book has been
published to give something to Keogh - to realise some of his literary ambitions
- and to give something to those who remain behind - something tangible
of Keogh to remember him by.
Laughing, loving, drinking, using, consuming life in its every moment, in
every poem Keogh is aware how short his time will be. His very act of living
makes the more certain his imminent act of dying. The energy with which
he lived rings off the page, from the poems to the short stories, a self-destructive
energy, but an exhuberance nonetheless. The dying, the living and the loving
- all consuming.
Untitled
In the cemetery
We kissed
I layed you down
On a grave
Under the green tree
My need for you
Grew until it
Was almost unbearable
My hand slipped
From your skin
Felt the marble
Tomb below us
We made love
And only the dead could see
Us making love
In the cemetary
When we stood up
We laughed to see
The mark left behind
From our sweat
In loving memory of you
I visit that place today
Sacred is that place
to me . . .
Deaf
Think of my death
As your release
Think of my death
As your peace
From here you move on
To something else
You cry
And fall
You call for me
But the deaf
Cannot hear
Gaps in the Silence
Author: Andrew Mason
ISBN: 0 646 25158 9
Address: 3/22 Bruce Street, Stanmore, NSW, 2048
The influences on this poet's thinking emerge through each of the poems
- Neitzche, Rilke, Derrida. Quietly reflective, they are consumed with a
concern to seek and to explore everything but the gaps in the silence. Fascinated
with spatial relationships, they explore space and distance, both physically
and metaphysically, the contradictions between the will to connect, join,
communicate and an only too human inability to do so successfully.
An island of silence emerges -
miracle, from the middle
of the crowd. Impatiently
he paddles . . . and the mirage
does not disappear, but grows,
becomes the girting, not the girt,
the sea itself, interspersed
with speech . . .
. . . tired now, he waits for a wave
to break, and bring him back
towards the brink of saying
and listening, again,
with his old ears, the ones
which still heard voices,
not mere gaps
in the silence . . .
Untapped Rhymes
Author: Paul Byron Thomas Hardwick
ISBN: 0 646 24683 6
Address: 5 The Outpost, Northbridge, NSW, 2063
This slender collection of whimsical poems is enjoyable as much for
the picture that emerges of the author as for the poems themselves.
From contemplations on what makes people happy to pleas to help drought
striken farmers to ruminations on the reasons for and effects of Christmas
dinner, emerges the impression of an average Australian male. Neither particularly
sexist nor particularly reconstructed, he is not above lusting after a set
of legs and ungrudingly accepts a share of domestic duties along with responsibility
for his own lapses. Forgetting garbage detail will ultimately mean hurtling
from a warm bed to chase the garbage truck for blocks in the frosty hour
before sunrise.
A self confessed couch potato he meditates on issues as significant and
wide ranging as the reasons for war and why his genes dictated baldness.
Self depracating, and with understatement typical of the iconic Australian
male, his concerns for humanity, his desire for peace emerge as deeply and
truly felt. It might be for peace in Bosnia, for peace at the breakfast
table or just for a peaceful life with a dog that doesn't jump into in inaccessible
part of Sydney Harbour requiring a major rescue operation relying on the
goodwill of many strangers.
An obsession with the world under the water, Hardwick is an enthusiastic
scuba diver. For me, I am happy to read his reports.
Many others will be able to appreciate more keenly and share his rapt reportage
of the sport - from descriptions of the girl who rents the air tanks to
the beauty of the silent world below the surface.
The open honesty of the author continually impresses. In this volume of
poems scrawled over fifteen years or more, Hardwick shares with the reader
just who he is.
Walkabout Gardens
Author: Kathleen Fekete
ISBN: 0 646 24681 X
Address: 52 Manning Road, Hunters Hill, NSW, 2110
A pleasant collection of poems which should delight younger children.
As the title suggests, the book revolves around the garden and its occupants
- the animals and the flowers. Stories of an orphaned wombat are followed
by the lives of the pet mice, the family dog and the resident cockroaches.
The cockroach held a party
When we went home to dine
He invited friends and relatives
And said, "This place is mine."
The tales from the garden have a distinctly Australian backyard feel with
rhymes about jonquils and roses scattered amongst the stories of bottle
brush and burrs and the lorikeets in the jacaranda blooms.
- If you'd like to purchase a copy of one of the books listed above please
contact the publisher directly. Their address is just under the title's
listing.
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