foam:e 7

foam:e issue 7 is now live. This issue, edited by Louise Waller, features poems by Michael Aiken, Stuart Barnes, Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Iain Britton, Chris Brown, Sam Byfield, Julie Chevalier, Jennifer Chrystie, Stuart Cooke, Mark Cunningham, Alison Eastley, Angela Gardner, Patrick Green, Stu Hatton, Matt Hetherington, Jill Jones, Peycho Kanev, KJ, Natalie Knight, Kent MacCarter, Clyde McGill, Siofra McSherry, Adam Moorad, Kristine Ong Muslim, Jal Nicholl, Mark O'Flynn, Sergio Ortiz, Lyn Reeves, Ian Seed, Nathan Shepherdson, Paul Squires, Yassen Vasilev, Vlanes, Les Wicks, Jena Woodhouse, Enda Coyle-Green, Cherry Smyth and Enda Wyley, plus reviews by Derek Motion and Angela Gardner.

sleeper (2010)

what’s said offair re
dud pills you’re not
who they pay you to
be hushing undertow
of riffage tho on alert
for nonimitations as if
deviants make the best
witchhunters could
you be any more uni
formed & those prods
sting real bad mate
just ask the casual
ties those cartoon
wackies never out
grown a tad under
dressed for a funeral
the poster boys of neo
tony can only bet on
walkovers tribes of
bacteria colonising
less polite hosts &
re spraypainting the
18th jed the greens
keeper says he really
has no other option


Notes: neotony is “the retention, by adults in a species, of traits previously seen only in juveniles” (from Wikipedia).

The greens of golf courses are sometimes spray-painted with ‘turf colourants’. This practice has been observed in Australia.

poolhall (2010)

racked balls break over
blue felt

_______fingertips
as feet for the shot

behind the table a mirror
that no longer works &
obama on the live cross
declares, “at stake now is not
just our ability to solve this
problem but our ability
to solve any problem”,
though the tv’s on mute

beer threatening to strand us
beyond such misery
(scotch is a promise)

_______________the
game-lifting sweetspot
long gone

________going for the
8-ball suicide mission

wading this quadruple
vision cannot be
blinked away

___________the
video juke entertains:
extended adbreak
looping insatiably

_________left
stranded by language

______________jim
gets himself ejected
shouting, “every hour is…
amateur hour” over & over
while punching himself
in the head

so little and so much

"Why poetry? Its materials are so constant, simple, elusive, specific. It costs so little and so much. It preoccupies a life, yet can only find one in living."

- Robert Creeley, from the Preface to his Selected Poems, 1989.

Below: Creeley in 1970.

recurring poem #9

Peter Porter : 'Your Attention Please'

(Notes on the poem can also be read here).

Image: "XX-11 IVY MIKE, was fired on Enewetak on October 31, 1952. It was an experimental thermonuclear device." (From Wikimedia Commons)

Poets @ Watsonia this Tuesday 9 March

A last-minute gig alert... this one came out of the blue.

This Tuesday (the 9th of March) I'll be featuring along with Lisa Gorton at Watsonia Library. 7pm for 7.30pm start (or thereabouts).

I expect to read for about 10-15 minutes, mainly material from my manuscript How to be Hungry, probably including two or three poems which I've never performed before.

Would be great to see you there...

real money makes things more interesting (2010)

“lucky at cards?” (he laughed
(as if it were simply a matter
of overcoming superstition (yet
he believed (he held)
a poorly constructed hand (&
had a ‘feeling for
the measure of things’ (doesn’t
know now what he knew
then.)))))
_______“gentlemen,
as of now, every card
is wild.”

Below: 'The Jokers of the Pack' (click image to enlarge) by incurable_hippie.

New blog URL

Folks, I've now changed the URL (i.e. the address) of this blog to www.stuhatton.net

The old address (wordyness.blogspot.com) will redirect to the new address.

Still, you might like to update your bookmark/blogroll/etc.

I'm currently testing out the feed settings. Everything appears to be functioning as normal, but please let me know if you experience any problems.

upcoming & recent

This Friday I'll be heading along to the monthly reading at Caffe Sospeso. I enjoyed the last installment, which featured David Gilbey and Randall Stephens, plus there was plenty of quality in the open mic. This Friday features Derek Motion versus Nathan Curnow; the theme is domestic rock 'n' roll. Hmmm... if I read in the open mic I might have to tweak that to 'undomesticated' rock 'n' roll. Maybe.

I also went to see Matt Hetherington's feature at the Dan a few weeks ago. Great stuff from Matt... a really diverse set... at times enigmatic, often hilarious... unexpected, vivid... showing no fear of honesty.

Something I couldn't make it to, unfortunately, was the Melbourne launch of Out of the Box: Contemporary Australian Gay and Lesbian Poets, edited by Michael Farrell and Jill Jones. It's a brilliant anthology - highly recommended.

Looking ahead... on Saturday March 13 I'll be at the Format Festival in Adelaide, featuring on a panel re: non-paper publishing as part of the 'Academy of Words'. Chances are I'll be talking about blogs and the online publication of poetry, and the discussion may also swerve into spoken word as a form of publishing.

And one to put in the diary: on Wednesday April 14 (6-8pm) I'll be at Readings Carlton for the launch of Miscellaneous Voices: Australian Blog Writing, which is to be published by Miscellaneous Press. This anthology, edited by Karen Andrews, will feature work by "James Bradley, Lisa Dempster, Angela Meyer, Jennifer Mills, A. S. Patric, Penni Russon, and many others." I'm one of the many others: my poem 'café date' will be in there, and I'll be giving a reading of it at the launch.

it is not a song (2010)

seek evil

(if only to verify
____________its existence)

the cure for curiosity

____-______-or

“fate is what
_________has already happened”

____________this scattering

__(scratch upon the sky)

(try to be afraid)