Go Jonny Go

Radiohead's guitarist and creative powerhouse, Jonny Greenwood (with all due deference to the genius of fellow band member Thom Yorke), has once again proved why Radiohead are the contemporary creative outfit with this orchestral piece "Popcorn Superhet Receiver", here performed by the BBC Symphony Orchestra at last year's proms at the Albert Hall. News this week is that Sydneysiders will be able to judge its merits for themselves with a series of recitals in late May at Angel Place. Check your favourite venue guide for details.

 

Poetry Events

Saturdays 5 & 12 June

PLAN TO BE PUBLISHED with Les Wicks
at the NSW Writers’ Centre, Rozelle 10am – 4pm

One of the best known poetry workshop

templates in Australia will be on offer in Sydney.

Be inspired! Be published!

More details: http://www.nswwriterscentre.org.au/html/s02_article/article_view.asp?keyword=june2010 or ring 9555 9757

Exceptional, supporting yet challenging, showing (and earning) respect, a privilege to

attend this leader’s workshop;

serendipity but fabulous; contributed very generously ­ great value for money;

I got more from two days with Les’ workshop than I did over a postgraduate year at university

One of the best-known poetry workshop templates in Australia. OK, you write and are starting to think it may be better if your work gets out there into a wider world, on to the next level. This is for you, all styles, all ages. Les' workshops are known for their constructive and friendly orientation. This workshop will have an emphasis on the nuts and bolts of establishing a poetry audience. A key component of the two days will be traditional workshopping where 3 of each participant's poems are discussed (don't worry, it's not intimidating, we just work together to make a good thing a little better). But this won't be all that's covered. Participants will benefit greatly from applying insider's hints on how the poetry scene works. Poems are examined with a view to finding outlets that fit your style... all in addition to intensive editorial feedback. Other topics include running your own projects, taking up opportunities offered by the internet and, of course, getting your book published. Everyone who so wishes will have their poems published in an established internet magazine. Experience has shown this approach is highly effective… combining practical information with an artistic dialogue among peers over a solid block of time. 

LES WICKS is widely published both in Australia and overseas, an accessible poet with 8 collections to his name. He's been involved in dozens of editing projects over his 35 years as a writer and has done his popular workshops from Hobart to Byron Bay to Perth.

Enquiries ring 9555 9757
 
Full price $270, NSWWC members $190, Conc members $165

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Date: Friday May 21 Voices from Underground

An interactive performance by the Sydney-based group, Harbour City Poets, presenting all-new poems and a new chapbook. These edgy readings feature buried Sydney, from the city margins to the centre. Political, ecological and social issues surface from its history to disturb the smooth façade. Expect sewers and cemeteries, the Police Museum, convicts and larrikins of the nineteenth century, The Rocks (earliest Chinatown), rat plagues, jails, in fact anything subterranean (literally and metaphorically) that our poetic ventriloquy can re-create.

Time: 5.30-7pm
Venue: Sydney Philharmonia Choir Studio
Cost: $5 at door (cash only)
MC: Margaret Bradstock
Time: 5.30-7pm

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Auburn Poets and Writers’ Group (APWG) 22nd May

Zalzala: Inner quakes and after-shocks       10.00am

Event:  ZALZALA: Inner Quakes and After Shocks

Date:    Saturday 22 May

Time:    10.00 am

Venue:  Bangarra Mezzanine

Address:   Walsh Bay, Sydney

Entry :    Free entry

Earth Quakes:  

Listen as APWG goes under the skin of culture shock.

Cultures within cultures:   intersexions of body and soulful words, dislocations  of place and inner languages, a collidescope of climate changes in the whether.

Tremors of the heart:    A collaborative spoken-word performance in English, Tamil, Arabic and Farsi, creating rhythms and linkages between the experience of change in culture and climate.

Shocking:

For further information please phone Auburn Community Development Network (ACDN) on

Tel. (02) 9649 5559 or

Email:  Alissar Chidiac at ACDN   auburnarts@acdn.org.au

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Friday the 21st of May
Red Room invites you to "Poems to Share at SWF!"
When: 6:00pm to 7:00pm
Where: Pier 2/3 Cafe, Sydney
 
On May 21st, The Sydney Writers' Festival hosts a Red Room event,
celebrating seven years of successful collaborations with Australian
poets. Come and mingle with ten of Australia's top poets!
 
Celebrate the work of the Red Room Company and contemporary Australian
poetry at the Sydney Writers' Festival. The Red Room has organised a
special event for the SWF, gathering ten prominent Australian poets
featured in Poems to Share, our new set of poetry cards produced in
collaboration with our design partners, Corban & Blair.
 
Each poet will read their piece from Poems to Share, and also share
another with the audience. Along with the readings there will be a
discussion on the notion of sharing and its relation to poetry;
perhaps an anecdote of a book lent, or a poem read aloud by a lover,
or a favourite poem long kept tucked away.
 
The audience will be seated at tables with the poets, able to share
their own ideas and impressions of the event.
 
Visit www.redroomcompany.org to see more information about the event.

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DiVerse and the S.H. Ervin Gallery

Presents

Poetry from the Salon Des Refusés 2010

A poetic rendering of the S.H. Ervin Gallery, Salon des Refusés exhibition.

Sunday the 23^rd of May 2010 at 3.00 pm.

Part of the Sydney Writer’s Festival for the fourth year, DiVerse perform their specially written poetry, based on the art works of the Salon des Refusés.

The DiVerse poets have been invited to write ekphrastic responses to this eclectic selection of works.

S.H. Ervin Gallery
National Trust of Australia
Watson Road, Observatory Hill, The Rocks, NSW 2000
National Trust Reception: (02) 9258 0123

Friday the 21st of May
Red Room invites you to "Poems to Share at SWF!"
When: 6:00pm to 7:00pm
Where: Pier 2/3 Cafe, Sydney
 
On May 21st, The Sydney Writers' Festival hosts a Red Room event,
celebrating seven years of successful collaborations with Australian
poets. Come and mingle with ten of Australia's top poets!
 
Celebrate the work of the Red Room Company and contemporary Australian
poetry at the Sydney Writers' Festival. The Red Room has organised a
special event for the SWF, gathering ten prominent Australian poets
featured in Poems to Share, our new set of poetry cards produced in
collaboration with our design partners, Corban & Blair.
 
Each poet will read their piece from Poems to Share, and also share
another with the audience. Along with the readings there will be a
discussion on the notion of sharing and its relation to poetry;
perhaps an anecdote of a book lent, or a poem read aloud by a lover,
or a favourite poem long kept tucked away.
 
The audience will be seated at tables with the poets, able to share
their own ideas and impressions of the event.
 
Visit www.redroomcompany.org to see more information about the event.

The "Clare" Suite by Phillip A. Ellis

"Silver Linings (for Clare)"

I will let the clouds come. From horizons
they will glide, at first a white, then a grey
as they meet up, join in a panoply
that may ferry rain. They may well flatter
the skies from New Zealand to New South Wales,
decorating the satellite photos
as they pass silently over the lands
underneath, with watery breath bated.

But the clouds you see are the clouds I see,
perhaps, and will trap the sun's rays; it seems
a strange thing to say, there's silver lining,
but when clouds are heaviest, pressing down
and muttering thunder, the thought of you
cheers me up to no end, and I am glad.

*****

"Firelight (for Clare)"

In the firelight of my childhood, when youth
was yet to be prized by me, evenings spent
before the burning ashes and the hearths
of reverie were not lost to my thought.

Now I remember them, and find it hard
to see in the ashes the same landscapes,
and wonder if it's poverty of thought,
or hardening of the mind's arteries.

I don't need to dream in firelight to see
you, nor do I need a bed of glowing
ashes. All that I need is the merest thought.

And like the ashes you will glow, brighter
than the copper sun at sunset, winter
days, when the wood is brought out, piled up, lit.

*****

"Tinnitus (for Clare)"

I have been thinking of you in quiet
moments, when the winds of the world are thin
hissings in sound-ravaged ears. I would wake
out of a dream of being cisgender
and adoring just you, with quietness
and a sense of peace, and I would hear this
noise, and I would think of you then, and I
feel the soft seep of endorphins within.

You are never really far from my mind,
just as the hissing and whistling never
really fades, just sinks under. Sometimes I
forget that I hear them, unlike thinking
of you: too many good things exist, and
each reminds me, in its own way, of you.


- Phillip A. Ellis 2010

New Poetry by Michael Lee Johnson

Charley Plays a Tune

Crippled, in Chicago,

with arthritis

and Alzheimer's,

in a dark rented room,

Charley plays

melancholic melodies

on a dust filled

harmonica he

found  abandoned

on a playground of sand

years ago by a handful of children

playing on monkey bars.

He hears bedlam when he buys fish at the local market

and the skeleton bones of the fish show through.

He lies on his back riddled with pain,

pine cones fill his pillows and mattress;

praying to Jesus and rubbing his rosary beads

Charley blows tunes out his

celestial instrument

notes float through the open window

touch the nose of summer clouds.

Charley overtakes himself with grief

and is ecstatically alone.

Charley plays a solo tune.

- Michael Lee Johnson 2010

Harvest Time

A Métis Indian lady, drunk --

hands blanketed as in prayer,

over a large brown fruit basket

naked of fruit, no vine, no vineyard

inside -- approaches the Edmonton,

Alberta adoption agency.

There are only spirit gods

inside her empty purse.

Inside the basket, an infant,

restrained from life,

with a fruity winesap apple

wedged like a teaspoon

of autumn sun

inside its mouth.

A shallow pool of tears

mounts in native blue eyes.

Snuffling, the mother offers

a slim smile, turns away.

She slithers voyeuristically

through near slum streets

and alleyways,

looking for drinking buddies

to share a hefty pint

of applejack wine.

- Michael Lee Johnson 2007

Michael Lee Johnson is a poet and freelance writer from Itasca, Illinois.  He is heavy influenced by:  Carl Sandburg, Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, Irving Layton, Leonard Cohen, and Allen Ginsberg.  His new poetry chapbook with pictures, titled From Which Place the Morning Rises, and his new photo version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom are available at: http://stores.lulu.com/promomanusa. The original version of The Lost American: from Exile to Freedom, can be found at: http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-46091-7.   He also has 2 previous chapbooks available at: http://stores.lulu.com/poetryboy.

Joh at the Bay

 

After all the tireless support she has lent Australian poetry over the last decade, it behoves me to call your attention to a rare reading by Johanna Featherstone (director of the seminal Red Room Company) of her own poetry during this year's Sydney Writer's Festival. Johanna, who I admit is a very dear friend, is attractively reticent about her own poetic efforts, considering how gifted she is at promoting the outpourings of others (precious little of which lives up to her enthusiasm). But I have read enough of her work to know she has a keen eye for the tender absurdities of our condition, and will no doubt be an engaging reader after so many years of practice at public speaking.

When: Sunday, May 23 2010, 1pm-2pm

Where: Bangarra Mezzanine, Pier 4/5, Hickson Road, Walsh Bay

Cost: Free, No bookings.