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Three photos


Unpacking my photos I find lots from France but I especially like these three.










                                        Resnais dreaming






In Brittany

dark grey granite houses
tuck low into the landscape
like rocks
darker hedgerows protect them
from the winds we walk into
along the coast

small red tractors
plough patches of pink soil,
across the narrow road
eschallots burst
from black plastic groundstrips

this is the kind of place
you’d locate a film
but not live in,
Godard made one here
but none of us
remembers it

bleached & tufted grasses conceal
the purple thistle
on the windswept bank
above a glinting choppy bay

a group of hikers
singing loudly
strides by
just outside the house

& here comes Daniel,
with a wicker basket
of saltwater prawns -
back from fishing in the rocks

some of the last beret-wearers
of the 21st century
are on their knees
weeding their fields

at sunset
the rye field blurs
like double vision



                                        Godard dreaming



(click to enlarge images)




The Lee Marvin Readings





                    THE LEE MARVIN READINGS

                JUNE PROGRAM

                Adelaide * South Australia







awake and refreshed
    tho with nothing on the page


Derek Motion reviews Peel me a zibibbo in the latest issue of galatea resurrects and ends with two lines from
Ken Bolton, quoted from the title poem.




Peel Me A Zibibbo is a group of recent poems - five poems written for friends. It's a 14 page C5 sized chapbook. Here's the title poem -

 Peel me a zibibbo

I could go
in any direction
but it's best that here and now
I remain lesbian,
keep my vanishing cream
sealed.
I'll go south
eventually
to follow the sheen
of your signals,
in the meantime
my problem's like how to
design a wall didact -
serif or not's
a big decision

*

it's October so
the bogong moths
are back
and the koels - the October
crack of dawn racket -
are back again too,
mauve jacaranda petals
are stuck
on the windscreen wipers rubber

*


by now the wall text task
is impossible -
application decreasing,
attention span diminishing -
transparency an aim,
how coded the coding

*

imperfection in kindness
comes with the void,
you need to
choose
the 'I'm feeling lucky' google option

*

drinking in the cemetery
sounds like an early
Nick Cave song
but it's
something-to-do,
it's also the subject
of Paddy Fordham's
drawing

*

should I start carrying
my books
in clear plastic bags
inside
my polyester document bag,
is this a solution ?
16° centigrade
95% humidity
what a precipitate place

*


shouting Shakespeare aloud
to the sea
in Surfers' Paradise
in 1964
after hurling your body down
fine off-white sand dunes.
now it's 2006
you're experiencing thanatos
high up on a Seidler balcony.
if you are in doubt
(slurp over drinks)
what gives the false poet
such confidence ?

*

awake and refreshed
tho with nothing on the page

*

John T phones -
this cloudy gloomy
early summer day
is 'like the fifties' he says.
every day ?
miserable childhood ?
photographic weather memory
à la recherche du temps inclément

*

I was reading
about the sweet potato farmers
of Osaka
living such long lives -
nonogenarians, centogenarians -
when Kurt called in with his new book
Hyper Taiwan
Taiwan - it's 'sweet potato island'

hi Kurt, hi John T,
hi Nick, Paddy, hi Shakespeare,
peel me a zibibbo
would you,
one of you guys ?




Ivy Alvarez writes a short review of My Lightweight Intentions


Never-Never Books * 157 Wentworth Street *
Blackheath * NSW 2785 * Australia



Meshings


NEW AT MESHWORKS :



Cambridge Experimental Women's Poetry Festival

Cambridge University, UK - October 2006
Organizer: Emily Critchley

The CEWPF feature brings you video documentation of readings and talks by:

Andrea Brady, Lisa Samuels, Kathleen Fraser, Susan M. Schultz, Rod Mengham,Susana Gardner, Geraldine Monk, Peter Middleton, Redell Olsen, Carol Mirakove, Keith Tuma & Justin Katko, Marianne Morris, Tom Raworth, Catherine Wagner, Coupons+Coupons, Camille PB, Kai Fierle-Hedrick, Kristen Kreider,Tim Atkins, Ken Edwards, Wendy Mulford, Peter Manson, Maggie O'Sullivan,Caroline Bergvall, Leslie Scalapino and Lucy Sheerman.

For more further documentation of the Festival, please visit the Archive of the Now and HOW2






Unpacking my posters I found this one screenprinted by
Ken Bolton in 1979 or 1980 for the Wollongong Poets’ Union reading series. It was printed at Coalcliff, on recycled matrix computer paper provided by Leigh Stokes (then of
Wollongong uni). It’s a beauty.




click on image to enlarge

Beat Scene


I don’t know where I’ve been for the last 50 issues of Beat Scene but until John Tranter lent me a copy of number 51 just the other day, I had never seen it before. And if you’re interested in the Bolinas Scene (and I am) it’s a great issue of this terrific magazine from Coventry in England, edited by Kevin Ring.



             Cover photo: Lewish Warsh & Anne Waldman in front of Angelica & Tom Clark’s house, Bolinas, California, 1968 (foto : Tom Clark)

Number 51 has articles, interviews, photos, book covers -
Alice Notley, Ted Berrigan, Allen Ginsberg, Lewis Warsh, Tom Clark, Philip Whalen, Joanne Kyger, Robert Creeley, Anne Waldman, William Burroughs, Gilbert Sorrentino, Jack Kerouac, Ron Padgett, Joe Brainard, Michael McClure, Bill Berkson - and the list goes on.





                              Ted Berrigan

I like this magazine. I’ve ordered number 51 and other copies from the Beat Scene website. If you’re an old beatnik poet like me you should do likewise, daddio. And thanks, John T. for sending it to me.







remember, click on the images to enlarge them


Red Room Event






The Sydney Writers' Festival &
The Red Room Company
present

Occasional Poetry

An installation of poems, mannequins and materials that investigate poetry's relationship with costume, fashion and the slogan.Taking the wit and disguises of the late Australian poet, Gwen Harwood, as its “muse” The Red Room Company has commissioned three Australian poets to each write a poem for an occasion.

Featuring poetry by
Adam Aitken, Greg McLaren and Claire Potter.

On Sunday June 3rd at the End of Season Party the participating poets will give a reading and poet and associate editor of Jacket, Pam Brown, will deliver the 2007 Mineslec (‘miniature essay/lecture’), a public address on the topic of occasional poetry, pseudonyms and fashion.

Installation venue:
‘Simmer on the Bay’
Walsh Bay
Thursday 31st May - Monday 4th June

End of season party:
Readings and Mineslec

(poems will be available to wear)
Bangarra Mezzanine
Wharf Theatre
Hickson Road
Sydney

Sunday 3rd June at 6.30pm

free or by donation

Visit the Occasional Poetry site.