Tuesday Poem - Coburg by Amelia Walker

Coburg

The old man hung stuffed animals
from the trellis in his front yard.
Sometimes he'd hobble out to water the tomatoes.
If he spoke English, it was a secret.

When it rained, the corpses swelled
and the framework creaked as if to sigh.
The tomatoes were red and round as valentines.
I don’t know who ate them.

I came upon this poem in an anthology called Reflecting On Melbourne and took to it straight away. Such a little charmer of a poem, with its own weird energy. I don't know Coburg, which is on the Upfield line, very well yet, but this poem gives me a way of seeing it. An entree into its mystery. Amelia is a friend. When she lived in Melbourne we boarded together for a bit and she ran me to the doctor and made me mushroom soup when I was very very sick. So she's nice with it. We also toured Frankston together with the Melbourne Poets Union and I miss her very much now she has gone away. She is a seriously committed poet but she has a light, fresh touch which is very appealing to me. I always thought she would go far, and of course she has. She's gone to The Netherlands.

Amelia Walker is an Australian poet currently based in the Netherlands. She has published two collections of her poetry and three primary school poetry books in Macmillan's 'All You Need To Teach...' series.

http://www.macmillan.com.au/primary31/newsite/libraries/index?open&label=onix&view=subjects&type=cat&div=Teacher+Resources&cat=English&start=1&count=100

Tuesday Poem - The Winding Stair by Robert Sullivan

I had rented a little car to Boyle

where my grandfather’s birth was registered,

was returning when I saw Yeats’ Tower,

turned off the country highway with its sheep

reminding me of New Zealand—went in

to the cottage shop, paid the price, and sat

through the presentation. Then up I climbed

wagging my tail as I went. The stone steps

were narrow, windows were slits in darkness,

each chamber was a stanza of the great

man’s dreams. The sedge and slate were repaired

for visitors like me. I recommend

one takes a drive to Coole Park too as I

missed out—fear the rental company might

charge late fees prevented that. The visit

astonished me: a cosmic accident

to stand atop the tower and gaze out

as Yeats once did, and to imagine stars

placed there, to feel his intellectual fire.

Ten years after I climb and climb the stair.

This elegant poem of homage and a kind of home-coming was published in Robert Sullivan's recent book – Shout Ha! To The Sky. Reading it enticed me to go away and reread The Wild Swans At Coole. I haven't met Robert Sullivan, or read much of his work (yet), or ever heard him read, but I hope all these things will happen in good time. It is a very attractive poem, with a gentle charisma and that touch of magic that makes a poem keep on working as the days go past.

http://www.saltpublishing.com/books/smp/9781844714551.htm

Robert Sullivan (Nga Puhi, Kai Tahu, Galway Irish) has published five collections of poetry with Auckland University Press. His most recent collections are Shout Ha! to the Sky (Bloomsbury: Salt Publishing, 2010) and Cassino City of Martyrs (Wellington: Huia, 2010). Also this year, he coedited with Albert Wendt and Reina Whaitiri Mauri Ola: Contemporary Polynesian Poems in English (AUP and University of Hawaii Press). He is Head of Creative Writing at Manukau Institute of Technology, having recently returned from the University of Hawaii at Manoa where for a time he directed the creative writing programme.

TUESDAY POEM - www.tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com

Tuesday Poem - Quasimodo by Andy Jackson

 Quasimodo

I am twelve when they tease you into me, name-first.

With your fist around my spine as I try to grow up

into my own upright self, I am quiet, think you small,

like you might climb out while I yawn or piss or sleep.

Your nest of collected sticks grows in this belfry chest.

Afraid and facing away, I blur mirrors with spit and hide

behind excuses to not take off my shirt at the beach.

The thin white frames of schoolgirls rise like lighthouses.

They call out my name in voices I have thrown.

No-one is saved. Through my eyes, the flickering

fires you fuel are signs. Men begin to close in,

waving their torches of word and fist. I fix a rope

to my mouth and lower myself down inside.

These bones enclose a flapping of echoes, what darkness

can't silence. Tendrils reach for my legs, memories

begging to be fed. But at last I clutch your throat

and haul you out. Your face is white and wet,

your bottom lip trembling with the weight of our shape.

You smell of the filth and luck of cul-de-sacs, your home,

my flesh. My arms reach around your swollen bulk

before I can think or flinch. We are two halves

of a heart stitched together with myth. Over my shoulder

you stare out to where the sun re-enacts its death.

Against your hump, my soft skin sweats and breathes.

Andy Jackson

from “Among the Regulars”

papertiger media, SOI3, 2010.

http://www.papertigermedia.com/soi3-modern-poets/andy-jackson.html

Andy Jackson lives in Melbourne and I think it would be fair to say he is part of the scene. This poem was the runner-up in the MPU prize a few years back and since then he has won the Rosemary Dobson Prize. And next year he is off to Chennai with an Asialink residency. He has won and done all sorts of other stuff, including the most intriguing and poignant puppetry collaborations with his partner Rachael Guy, which have been performed at the Overload Festival in Melbourne and at the Queensland Poetry Festival. Andy was born in 1971 and lives with Marfan Syndrome.

TUESDAY POETRY www.tuesdaypoem.blogspot.com

Hello Testing

This City

I am travelling away from my life, towards my life.

This city knows all my secrets.

And that tram, lit from within, waiting at the end of the line.

This city, which is nowhere else.

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When Mary McCallum got the Tuesday Poetry thing going I was a bit choked because I didn't have a blog, and didn't know how to go about getting a blog. But I think I have a blog now. So now I can join in. And I start the easy way by posting the title poem of my next book to be published by Otago University Press next year.