Meanwhile, beyond the land of the beigists

The Stinging Fly is hosting a showcase for Ireland's various literary magazines during Listowel Writers Week, which kicks off tonight.

We'll have copies of the various journals for sale, as well as providing subscription information and submission guidelines.

Please come and visit the table in the Listowel Arms Hotel on Thursday, Friday or Saturday (May 31 - June 2).

Other magazines featured include Crannóg, Cyphers, The Dublin Review, Poetry Ireland Review, The Shop, Southword, Succour and The Yellow Nib.


Bluepepper addendum

Pubs and books, Sydney readers!! Remember when that was more than an idea to be sneered at by the seemingly relentless tide of makeover people, those inextricably smug, painfully inarticulate and dangerously thin-skinned creatures who poison our favourite drinking holes and then raise our rent as a thank you?

PS Yes, I am speaking from bountiful experience here. Shutup or I'll write a poem about it.

Black Mark

Quarterly Essay 26: His Master’s Voice By David Marr PB $14.95

John Howard has the loudest voice in Australia. He has cowed his critics, muffled the press, intimidated the ABC, gagged scientists, silenced NGOs, censored the arts, prosecuted leakers, criminalised protest and curtailed parliamentary scrutiny. Though touted as a contest of values, this has been a party-political assault on Australia’s liberal culture. In the name of “balance” the Liberal Party has muscled its way into the intellectual life of the country.And this has happened because we let it happen. Once again, Howard has shown his superb grasp of Australia as it really is. In His Master’s Voice, David Marr investigates both a decade of suppression and the strange willingness of Australians to watch, with such little angst, their liberties drift away.

“More than any law, any failure of the Opposition or individual act of bastardry over the last decade, what’s done most to gag democracy in this country is the sense that debating John Howard gets us nowhere.”DAVID MARR, HIS MASTER’S VOICE

*David Marr will be touring Australia - see below for Quarterly Essay 26 events*

Memories Like Angels

After four long years, Brentley Frazer has finally released his much anticipated follow up to "Dark Samadhi", a book I savoured both publicly and privately. I may as well 'fess up now that I have written the blurb for this one, at least the one that appears at the publisher's web site, but some of you will already be well aware of my regard for this Brisbane poet recently relocated to Melbourne. We share a common sensibility, although our styles and artistic milieu are markedly different, and his energy and commitment to new writing is far more effective than mine. Would that there were more Brentley Frazer's in our small but vibrant poetry scene and a few less of those Sydney beatnik hacks last seen penning dross for the harbour city's most august and questionable rag. This one has the long and typically Frazerian title of "Memories like angels at a ball tripping over their gowns" and is available first and foremost at the publisher's website (just click on the post heading) as well as all good bookshops worth the name.

Call for submissions

I am in the process of setting up a website, but as my web designer is about to fly back to Malta for a whirlwind of avuncular advice and grappa, I will keep the bluepepper flying for the foreseeable. If you feel you have anything worthwhile to add to this kitchen experiment with fridge magnet forever at your back, then please send me your best and honest, and please do so secure in the knowledge the whole lot will be linked to the new website (if and when it happens) and will continue pretty much as is in that capacity. As far as I can fathom from the white fog sprouted at me by IT guys (I am in my forties and do drink and so on a great deal) this will mean many more hits for anyone posted at bluepepper. The website I envisage as a more permanent display of contemporary poetry's newest and brightest, but we have all heard that before, so I will attempt (very much against my Scorpio nature) to tread lightly from here on in. So please feel free, which is, I am afraid, what your poetry will continue to be in this particular corner of cyberspace until the aprons are finally off and the fridge magnets politely fed to the belching one-eyed monster canvassing your electorate any day now.