Tuesday Poem - An instance of the genre by Vincent O'Sullivan

An instance of the genre

You can't help liking this grey-haired

never-quite-pretty woman who tells

you, 'Frankly,' as she says, aware

the word is fondling a hedgehog

should you trust it too deeply, 'Frankly,

I love being middle-class. I vote

of course we all do, I've only to see

a flood halfway up a village wall

and I'm phoning with a donation. I

have the local bookshop automatically

deliver the three best books

of the month according to the list

they get – good bookshops do.' I

like the way she tells you, straight

out, how well the children prosper.

She uses expressions like 'A-team'

and 'B-team' without a hint of either

swank or rancour, and assumes you

understand the praise her husband

gleans on the back of quite justified

glamour some years back is only as

it should be. She smiles, she knows

there's a dash of irony with any

success, she says, 'Luck? Of course

luck's crucial.' I know if I wrote

this out as accurately as I can

to the way I heard it, the reader

as likely as not may imagine

there's a slinking figure somewhere

not being quite straight on what

the story is. I appreciate why

you'd think so, geared as we've

been for decades on the lookout

for subversion. In even the most neutral

phrase say, 'You can't help liking...'

This poem is from Vincent's latest book – The movie may be slightly different - published by Victoria University Press 2011. It is such a strong, rich book, from cover to cover, it is jolly hard to pick just one. All the poems seem to work together and ring each other's bells. Not that they don't stand alone. One of the best books I have read for yonks. Almost carelessly generous.

http://www.victoria.ac.nz/vup/2011titleinformation/moviemaybe.aspx

Tuesday Poem - The Toppled Head by Les Murray

The Toppled Head

The big bald head is asleep

like Lenin on a pavement.

Tipping backward, it starts

a great mouth-breathing snore

throttling as stormwater.

loud as a hangar door

      running on rails

but his companion gently

reshapes his pillow, till his

postion's once more foetal,

breathing towards his feet.

His timbre goes silent, and

the glottal dies in a gulp.

This poem is from Les Murray's book Taller When Prone published by Black Inc. I went off to Adelaide Writer's Week this year to have some fun on the excuse that my book Barefoot had been short listed for the John Bray Award, and I promised myself that I would ask the winner if I could have a poem for my blog. I knew it couldn't be me because they tell you if you have won. But not if you have lost. You just have to infer that. And Les won. He is a mate and a fine poet so I was well pleased. It is a strong shortlist, perhaps because it has been, up until now, awarded every second year, so it draws on two years of poetry. But that changes from now on in, it will be a yearly thing.

John Bray poetry award

Jennifer Compton, Barefoot (Picaro Press)

Diane Fahey, The Wing Collection: New & Selected Poems (Puncher & Wattmann Poetry)

Les Murray, Taller When Prone (Black Inc.)

David Musgrave, Phantom Limb (John Leonard Press)

Tracy Ryan, The Argument (Fremantle Press)

Petra White, The Simplified World (John Leonard Press)

Tuesday Poem - The Portuguese Fish Basket by Connie Barber

THE PORTUGUESE FISH BASKET

                     

Surprised to meet an intriguing light

in woven whitewood: fine strapping like corded silk,

half boat, half sideways egg, I bought it

in an avant-garde, up front, high-tone boutique:

an impulse to engage with its beauty,

its total practicality.

It carried fish for the family from the market,

                  heads resting against the woven wood,

eyes smiling and comfortable. It held to

the deep sun-splashed window sill

like a throne, like a ritual boat. Straked sides, a curving base

bound to a wattled rim, the whole shell woven as one

to strong gunwales with sleaved wood like bands of silk,

held fruit for the children: apples, bananas,

                  and one small bowl for small unthought-of  things.

In another hemisphere, it played a role as crib

for a small saviour, tried out parts in school plays —

                  unsuitable for poisoned apples the director said.

It could hold a pumpkin on its side,

until fetched on command, without capsizing. 

After the children left it lived on above the sink

cradling ginger and garlic and a few strange fruit:

avocado, custard apple, purple figs. In time

it collected dust. A hulk, it lost

its half-shining creamy glow, its silky touch,

                  held corks and candle ends in the small bowl,

garlic and ginger, until it had to move.

Still holding the air of continents and the strength

of trees it moved to a narrow room,

still remembering fish, and the hands that wove

forest into a coracle. Dirty and dull,

washed with care, scrubbed a little, dust

rinsed away, its weft and woof exchanging light,

its silky woven flesh shone again — satin.

An old vessel, ready for fish, fruit, or dreams,

whatever you need to take into the next room

The basket dripped water propped against a red geranium

in the return corner of a ramp linking cottages;

a ramp that allowed the frail and weak to walk

to ground level — look, no steps —  a rail, a web of wire.

a corner to hold the geranium.

The potted flower, steel wire, careful ramp,

shrunk rooms, all intimations of time

that has passed and memory.  A frail evening wind

blew into the basket’s hull. The Portuguese

fish basket fell across the boards, open, vulnerable.

And kicked. It would not slide below the wires,

would not fly, bounced back from a kicking foot,

kicked and kicked and kicked. It lay sideways,

half strangled by the wire below my window

above the ramp, the wire and the red geranium.

I brought the basket in. My neighbour of the ramp

has not seen me. She has stopped kicking, retired.

We share the ramp. We need to reach the ground.

Now the basket lies in the shelter of a fridge,

holds a knob of ginger, garlic and tomatoes

still remembering the fish it used to hold smiling,

coming from the bustling  market in the square,

and forests of woven light in another continent.

I heard Connie read this poem at the Wheeler Centre at a MPU reading – Celebrating the Celebrated, and I was so taken with it I just had to have it for my blog. And Connie was most kind and gave me permission. This poem was shortlisted for the Newcastle Poetry Prize in 2010 and published in the anthology, Time With The Sky.

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