Solitary End

I am deeply sorry to have to announce the untimely death of one of Australia's leading sculptors, Bronwyn Oliver. Along with leading lights such as Fiona Hall, Bronwyn changed the way we look at sculpture in this country. She was an intensenly private person, although my sources tell me she was utterly engaging compan on the rare occassions she could be coaxed out of her Haberfield studio. According to her currator, Roslyn Oxley, she had "her own language: beautiful, refined forms with intricate, sometimes aggressive, sometimes soft structures within the forms." She goes on to say:" The details sort of summed Bronwyn up."

Why Bronwyn chose to take her own life at the age of 47 will no doubt be the subject of much speculation in the weeks ahead. All Bluepepper has to say on the matter is that it is another special life cut short, a resource we should all be taking much greater care with.

Sad Passing

Lisa Marie Bellear from the Noonuccal people of Minjerribah (Stradbroke Island), Queensland.

For those of you who were fortunate to be friends or colleagues with Lisa Marie Bellear, I am very sorry to pass on the news that she died suddenly and unexpectedly in her sleep last night at home in Melbourne.

She was 44 years old and all her friends and family are totally shocked as Miss Lisa was such a larger than life, happy-go-lucky character, absolutely dedicated to her people. Lisa never lost sight of her belief that all people should be treated equally and she was such a supporter of others. She worked as a writer, student activist, Indigenous fighter, poet and artist, and was a very kind and loving friend. We will miss her very much.

A memorial service will be held on Friday, July 14 at 1pm at the Aborigines Advancement League, 2 Watt Street Thornbury.

- Angela Costi

Vale the great of heart.

A Sunburnt Country - Calls for Poetry

Fancy the idea of seeing your poetry translated into Bangla (or Begali)? Well, if so read the post below.



Help Needed on an "Anthology of Australian Poetry" in Bangla


Every year since 1975, an International Book Fair is held in Kolkata, India for two weeks in January-February. And every year the theme of the fair is a different country. In 2006, the theme was Spain. In 2007, the theme will be Australia.

"Patralekha" is a publisher in Kolkata of offbeat and experimental literature in Bangla (or, Bengali) language. It also publishes a monthly Bangla poetry magazine called "Kabi Sammelan", the name literally means "a gathering of poets".

For next year's Book fair, Patralekha will be publishing an anthology of Australian Poetry translated in Bangla. We are in charge of selecting, translating and editing for the collection. And, we need your help.

We would like this collection to feel the pulse of poetry in Australia. We want it to include the beautiful and the ugly, the best and the brightest, the sacred and the profane. We want to reflect what is written at this moment in far corners of Australia as much as we can.

And, that's where we need your help.

Please help us make a representative and intelligent selection of poets and poetry. Please send us poems, magazine, books, book reviews, articles that would help us make the right selections, not just the well-known and the popular ones. Our email addresses are given below.

Any other assistance that you might be able to provide in this project, will be highly appreciated. We are in a time crunch because the material for the book has to be finalized by October 2006.

Contact:

Ankur Saha, California, USA. (ankur.saha@gmail.com)

Subrata Augustine Gomes, NSW, Australia. (AG210022@ncr.com)

Shoumyo Dasgupta, California, USA. (shoumyo@yahoo.com)

Poetry by Barbara Salamon

Vegie Magic On Crown Road


Mum's vegetable garden

was ordered, green and lush.

Sundry shapes fed us and

the lot worked on rotation principles.

New plantings began at middle fence

and rows right angled

a dead centre footpath.



Our garden party atmosphere

Was full of bubbles and balloons

As twice through twenty feet of baby carrots

We cracked and crunched

Munched and chewed.



Quiet dusk arrived with mum

who gazed out on a whirly show

of feathered fronds from carrot tops

sprawling greener brighter layers

of new seasoned light.



- Barbara Peta Salamon 2006

Poetry by Barbara De Franceschi

Origins


I walk through bracken

restless winds take my weeping



I am tinder for billy tea

the grass that feeds merino sheep

how then does thick moss on fallen stone

bring a prickling to my skin

a row of bushes divide my brain

into thorny hedgerows

and every spring

I remember fifty shades of green



time has denied my suffering

roots melt in dirt-veined clay

mountain ranges with granite lips

forbid an utterance

that might transport to heather and sprig



my signature is written

in red desert sand

mine shafts sunken in blistering heat

still … the bitter taste of Guinness

builds a cairn in my throat


- Barbara De Franceschi 2006





Falling into the Vertical


the fan thinks it’s a cat

somewhere a dog barks

a cylinder sound

travelling on hollow heat

lines wriggle before my eyes

unable to decide on shape

some disappear into dark humidity

others explode

so many things pass in & out

love snags on a feeling

yesterday’s freedom

reluctant to let go … & always

I am falling

slanted

towards a window overhung

with pink bougainvillea

a barbed curtain

thorns in a vertical line

to keep the night

straight


- Barbara De Franceschi 2006



Barbara De Franceschi from Broken Hill NSW is a prolific writer of poetry, her works have been published Australia wide and internationally. Barbara is an adventuress writer and is continuously trying to find new ways and forms to present her work. Barbara’s first collection Lavender Blood was published in 2004 and the manuscript for a second collection is well under way, she is a member of the performance group ‘The Silver Tongued Ferals’ and performs at caravan parks, arts festivals, ‘Poets in the Pub’ etc. and has also read her poetry live to air on ABC Radio.



Publications include: Centoria, From the Well, Barrier Daily Truth, The Bunyip, Poetrix, Yellow Moon, Saltlick Quarterly, Famous Reporter, Four W Sixteen, also on line USA via Eclectica and Culture Star Reader, her poetry and an article re ‘What hinges people to poetry in outback Australia’ has appeared on line in Niederngasse, Switzerland.

Poetry by Maggie Ball

Dicky Knees

“You see the folly of trying to contain writers within passports” Salman Rushdie (Imaginary Homelands, 1991, 67)

when in the course of human events
the homeland you once dug deep into your chubby fingernails
more self-evidently true
than life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness
dissipates into a half remembered dream
you can’t return to

you hold out a hand and find
one door open, another closed

in the land of my birth
king and country
already so long dissolved
by olive branch rejection, open rebellion,
dangerous and ill designing men
that it was already quaint
something more gently connected
with bluebells, good rock, and Shakespeare
than any governance

anyway it wasn’t my war
I was already the diaspora class
three generations removed
eastern european
not by accent or language, or even religion
all subsumed into a modernity
so encompassing it wiped out all tradition
except the tilt of my head
and a few wild hand gestures

going “home” to old Blighty
wasn’t a return to anything
migration, rejection, realignment
reconstruction

but what is commonwealth if not postcolonial
complex, multidirectional
slippery as an author
self-defining, autonomous, comforting
under a welcoming umbrella
I wrecked my knees in childbirth
setting roots into a new soil
anchoring myself deep into the human condition

there’s just that little point of allegiance
tricky
with these dicky knees

Bio: Magdalena Ball runs The Compulsive Reader http://www.compulsivereader.com/html. Her short stories, editorials, poetry, reviews and articles have appeared in a wide number of printed anthologies and journals, and have won many awards. Her non-fiction book, The Art of Assessment was published by Mountain Mist Productions in 2002, and her poetry chapbook Quark Soup is due for publication by Picaro Press late in 2006.

Comments

Anyone is free to leave a comment, as long as it's constructive. However, using the comment link to simply post your submissions is not quite in the spirit of things. I think my submission guidelines are pretty straightforward. So please, run your poems by me first and I'll publish them under the bluepepper.

Lemon Shark

In Luke Beesley’s impressive debut, there seems to be an awful lot of two things – rain and cinema. Fitting, perhaps, for a native of Brisbane, to be a little pre-occupied with tropical lows. And the cinematic references (mostly in the form of dedications) strike me as fitting too, considering the vivid, rollicking intellect of this poet. I think I would like Luke Beesley were we to ever meet in person. His is a wry take on life, a little obtuse at times, but that’s OK. The times demand that of we poets to an extent, and anyway Luke Beesley is, as I say, a native of Brisbane where an entire movement is shaping up around a gun with a very crooked barrel.

Soi Modern Poets, an offshoot of Paul Hardacre’s Papertiger franchise, have done a sterling job with this book. It looks smart, and has been meticulously edited, no small thing in these days of the “publisher’s lunch”. It is one of three titles on offer in this first series, and I only chose it above the other two because I am already pretty familiar with the work of Brett Dionysius and Billy Jones, whereas I have until now only glimpsed compelling snatches of Luke Beesley’s work in journals and anthologies and was keen for more. This collection has certainly not disappointed.

The word English is wet. It has rained recently and it works
like a smashed grape; not wine but the lamp-light quality
of its flesh under sunlight. England is the seed.

(From “The Cliffs”)

I can open this book at pretty much any page and such treasures will come tumbling out. There are a few, such as “Milk Teeth” that passed me by somewhat, but often on first reading a poem can seem intended for someone else, an audience of one, and the poem in question possesses enough originality to carry it further, if perhaps read separately from the rest of the collection. This comment should in itself serve as testament to the strength of this debut by a young and promising poet. Visit the Papertiger Media website to snavel your copy and get a smart canvas bag thrown in! Just click on the post header.

Poetic Education

AUSTRALIAN WRITERS AND MUSCIANS FOR EDUCATION

Free Stuff for Northern Territory School Students


It's part of promoting the idea of Free Culture and education in Arts, Ethics and Literature in remote areas like the NT. Students write in and request the book/CD of their choice and I mail it out to them is what happens. :)
So far there is myself, The Cube and James Blundell looks like coming on board as well with his latest CD.

I am asking writers, musicians and bands if they might spare a few copies (say 5-10 or more) of their book, CD or single for this project? Postal Address: The Thylazine Foundation GPO Box 1480 Darwin NT 0801. Thanks!

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The Thylazine Foundation Pty Ltd: http://www.thylazine.org/
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Winners and Losers

As I continue to explore the incredible world of digital technology and the opportunities it opens up to small publishers like myself, it has occured to me that maybe Bluepepper should put out its own little quarterly hardcopy. I envisage its conents adhering to nominated themes and remaining quite separate from the contents of the blog. Let's say here and now the theme for the first (hypothetical) issue is "Winners and Losers" and take it from there. Same submission rules apply as for the blog. Check the guidelines on the top right under the bluepepper.

Call for Submissions

I seem to have to beg for poetry these days. I'm still waiting to hear from Pixi. Just click on the "email me" tag in the top right hand corner and submit anything up to five poems, a 1000 word comment or review in the body of the email. NO ATTACHMENTS PLEASE. I have a very good turnover time, and that applies to most things I do. Probably why I haven't got a girlfriend...Anyway, be that as it may I see no reason for not submitting something. The worse you will get is silence, as I won't comment on subs unless I can see some way of working with the author to make them more suitable for posting under the Bluepepper. There are no payments and thus no guidelines.

Calling cards

Peter Alexander at UNSW is in the midst of editing the correspondence of the "Bard from Bunyah", Les Murray and is looking for postcards, letters, old restaurant menus,anything to put in the book. I have already offered up my own little souveneir, but I'm sure many of you out there have far more significant contributions to make to this fine project. If so, feel free to contact Peter at p.alexander@unsw.edu.au

Two Poems by Nikhil Rajoo

Rhea's Court

Hours in the garden
Dandelion, lilacs
the sheaves of daffodils
the fallacy of seasons
easter harvest
My little girl eclipsing
the sun
with her arms full of yellow
her crimson bedroom
the heart's shivered core

- Nikhil Rajoo 2006



Aztec Legend

inching out
along the base of a sheer rock face
with Lake Superior crashing at my back
and on the pink rock
appearing beneath my fingers
the hunger-drunk spirit drawings in
faded red ochre
of two thousand year old medicine men
pictures of fish - canoes - snakes - animals- people
- and horned Misshepezhieu
who only moments before had lashed his tail
and brought the rain

- Nikhil Rajoo 2006


Nikhil lives and works in Vancouver and has been published in the South Ocean Review, Attic Magazine and the Taj Mahal Review to name but a few. "Rhea's Court" is a dedication to the poet's god daughter.

Urban Myth

John Tranter Urban Myths: 210 Poems: New and Selected

University of Queensland Press, 2006. 322 pages. ISBN-0-7022-3557-1.

To be launched in Sydney by Pam Brown at Gleebooks, 49 Glebe Point Road,
Glebe NSW 2037, on Friday May 19, 2006. Time: 6 for 6.30pm. Cost: Free and
open to all. To reserve a place (or BUY the book!), visit Gleebooks.

http://www.gleebooks.com.au

Urban Myths: 210 Poems brings the best work to date from a poet considered one of the most original of his generation in Australia, together with a generous selection of new work. Smart, wry and very stylish, John Tranter's poems investigate the vagaries of perception and the ability of language to converge life, imagination and art so that we arrive, unexpectedly, at the deepest human mysteries.

Glass Poems

After many delays and fluffing about by editors, I have finally released the definitive collection of my poetry for the 21st century (so far). I decided to run it under my own imprint (ie Bluepepper) so that at least I knew the job would get done and done properly. The results are extremely gratifying, and the blurb by poet MTC Cronin a little humbling for yours truly. I am in the process of stocking it with the following book retailers:

Better Read than Dead (Newtown, NSW)
Gleebooks (Glebe, NSW)
Bookoccino (Avalon, NSW)
Ariel Booksellers (Darlinghurst, NSW)
Collected Works (Melbourne, VIC)

However, ask your nearest boutiquie bookseller for a copy and I'm sure they'll be able to track one down. It should be listed soon at Amazon and Barnes & Noble as well as on the Google Booksearch database. Failing that, contact me at www.bluepepper.blogspot.com and I'll see what I can do. At 135pp you really do get your money's worth.

To purchase on line, simply click the "BUY NOW" button in the right column under the bluepepper logo.

Poetry by Les Wicks

MY BRONTE BEACH

is the loudmouth in the waves singing Summertime.
It's actors, politicians
pensioners & the kids - minus all trappings -
no status beyond "animal with soul".

It is the dominance of birds
politely ignored by undercover dogs.

Someone known - just out of hospital -
totters back to the sea
like a great old turtle.
Cedars of lebanese legs copse around BBQs, 5 o'clock shadow.
A bum's washing dries on the memorial quartz beside
buffed girls laughing like lawn sprinklers.

Over the years it's become a community of friends,
the accretion of small tragedy that attends every understood life.
It's my wife, on a salt encrusted
wafer of towel, spiced
by utter quiet. The sun disinfects.

I write the words,
then a photographer captures me:
grey, round and affixed as the fence posts.
We don't own ourselves
but each one,
we all have separate Brontes.

The sand takes the shape of our need.


- Les Wicks 2006


OPPOSABLE THUMBS

Once I sang
I cool blueline
drenched in wonder.

But gave it away to the fingers, they
touched the bleak edge
of an unmoneyed future
& I saw it
like some untethered boat
react with a fingertip nudge
just float away
to the open sea of a stranger's way.
That was so simple.
What else?
Fingers wash
stroke
they fight, fuck up & fix.
We wait
as their batons rule the beat.

It's them who work the guns,
take us down from trees
to their shitty little thatch
on a beige savannah plain.

Glum
under the thumbcommute between fingerfoods
& a hand signed repossession order.
Our minds sit locked
in boxes made of muscle.



- Les Wicks 2006




LES WICKS' 7th book is "Stories of the Feet" (Five Islands, 2004).

The Late and the Great

I received this brief message this morning via the ever-reliable Coral Hull.

There is to be a program about my brother, John Anderson, broadcast on the Poetica Program (Radio National) Saturday 22 April at 3.05 pm. Mike Ladd has sent me a draft copy of the CD and I think it is a very good, although a slightly shorter version will go to air.

Roly Phillips
___________________________

John Anderson is a tragically under-read poet in this country. In fact, if it weren't for the efforts of poets such as Emma Lew and Coral Hull, his mss would probably still be gathering dust somewhere. I will see if I can arrange with Roly Phillips or John's publisher to post some of his work, as I believe his untimely death a few years back robbed us of a truly great talent.

Calling all Poets (sad refrain)

Perhaps I've only got myself to blame, but I'm still waiting for the flood gates to open. Am I really that scary? Ashlee, sorry, I mean Pixi, you were asking how to submit. Well, just click on the "email me" tag in the top right hand corner and submit anything up to five poems, a 1000 word comment or review in the body of the email. NO ATTACHMENTS PLEASE. I have a very good turnover time, and that applies to most things I do. Probably why I haven't got a girlfriend...Anyway, be that as it may I see no reason for not submitting something. The worse you will get is silence, as I won't comment on subs unless I can see some way of working with the author to make them more suitable for posting under the Bluepepper. There are no payments and thus no guidelines. I would like to see more snipes at me, too, as that's really what a blog like this should be all about. After all, if it gets too much I can just shut it down and join a monastery. I felt Pixi was holding back a little in her comments a few weeks back. Thoughts, though, not invective.

Quantum

Woke up bright and early this morning to frost on the ground and an email from Justin Lowe. That's right, there's a poet out there somewhere with my name, and it's not me! To cap it all off, he sent me a poem all about Quantum physics. I will spend the day trying to decide whether this fellow traveler is a help or a hindrance because I am like that. A little obsessive. Then I will probably decide there is absolutely nothing I can do about it other than warn the two or three out there who care that not all the words you read are mine.

TV Eyes

Johanna Featherstone has been quite the toast of Sydney literati this week, with at least three mentions in the mainstream press for her audacious and imaginative poetry projects. First was The Toilet Doors Project, about which Johanna informs me there was much tittering behind hands from a certain once proud daily, and secondly her venture into TV land with the launch of The Wordshed Wednesday nights on UHF-31 TV Sydney. It's not often you see a community tv show reviewed in the august pages of the Sydney Morning Herald Guide, but that's what I came across this morning. And guess what? NO TITTERING. Maybe because the first episode doesn't include any poets. Anyway, Johanna, congratulations and appreciations from all of us here in poetry land. Would the world were full of Johanna Featherstones. I know I'd be a much happier poet for one.

For those not in the catchment area of Johanna Featherstone, her Toilet Doors Project is displaying poetry and art on the backs of toilet doors in cinemas and airport lounges all over our vast island just west of New Zealand. I am informed by Johanna it took all her formidable reserves of self-belief to sit through hours with a bunch of CEO's picking over the merits of each piece of verse, but then who amongst us can boast of having sat in the boardroom talking poetry with the captains of industry? The woman relates such bizarre experiences with all the wide-eyed self-deprecation of a true poet, a quality I'm sure will translate perfectly to television. Remember, TV Sydney UHF-31. And no, as far as I know I don't appear in any of the episodes.