Contains essential information about upcoming Davey Dreamnation shows, concert performances and mime cabaret experiments.
The La Trobe English Program is running a 12 week reading series entitled Eggs & Roses, with a couple of writers—emerging or established, La Trobean or from further afield—reading each week.
For anyone (someone?) who will be at the La Trobe Bundoora campus this Thursday from 4:30 til 6pm, I’ll be reading in room 431 of the Humanities 2 building.
I’ll be reading poems from We Will Disappear and my new chapbook Morgenland (more on this in a day or two).
I’m kicking myself that I didn’t take the opportunity while I was in Bris Vegas to grab one of the posters for the Queensland Poetry Festival, in which I was lucky enough to take part. Still, I did manage to grab a copy of the festival program (cue image, left – featuring my escort for the weekend, the divine Miss Kat), as well as checking out some cool poetry talent, rubbing shoulders with the famous and not-so-famous, eating Himalayan food, sharing an apartment with Matt “Not the Guy from the Full Monty” Hetherington, ranting about haiku with Myron Lysenko, experiencing the delight that is Brisbane weather in the spring time, and suffering a bizarre attack from a spider inside a tent while camping on Stradbroke Island. Ah, Queensland – what’s not to like? Actually, don’t answer that one. There’s plenty not to like about any place. On the other hand, Brisbane is a damn sight more interesting than it was the first time I went there, in the late 1970s, to have a fragment of an earplug wrenched from my ear-drum. Youch.
My conversation with John Tranter at the Melbourne Writers Festival was a surprisingly pleasant and interesting affair. I say surprisingly because I was nervous as all get-up beforehand – due mostly to the fact that for me, John Tranter has always been a somewhat larger-than-life figure. I studied his work in the early 1990s, at a time when his first Selected Poems had been around for about ten years, and he’d just released Under Berlin and The Floor of Heaven. Some might say this was the peak of his career and yet he’s gone on to write a ton of new stuff, culminating in last year’s Urban Myths: 210 poems, which won a swag of prizes and accolades.
It’s been so long since I posted here (I blame Facecrack, personally). It really is about time I wrote something. So what’s news? Well, the truth is that I’ve been in and out of rehab since my book launch at the Melbourne Writers Festival, almost three weeks ago. That’s what happens when you choose to drink a glass of champagne for each page of your book. And even with a ‘slim volume’ of verse, that’s 84 champagnes. By the end of the night, I could actually hear Betty Ford singing “Simply the Best”, over and over again.
It’s not mentioned anywhere on the MWF programme so I’ll forgive you for not believing me but I’m excited to say that on Sunday September 2, at 1pm, I’ll have the pleasure of partaking in a conversation with Australian poet John Tranter. Not just over a glass of bubbly (although I suspect red wine or pink gin might be more to JT’s liking), mind you, but a proper (ie public) conversation in front of (hopefully) a roomful of curious festival-goers. Think Parkinson meets Enough Rope meets the 7.30 Report. It’s the first time I’ve ever done a thing like this, and I’m doubly flattered to have been asked in this case, as JT’s poetry has been a big influence upon my own ever since I studied his work as part of my undergraduate degree. For those who don’t know much about John Tranter, he’s the editor of Jacket, the inventor of the tongue-in-cheek term Generation of 68 and, funnily enough, one of its most prominent members. I met him for the first time only last year in Sydney, when we were both reading as part of a Red Room Event. The only thing is, I’m not sure what kind of questions to ask. I can’t very well go with “So, did you get here all right?” or “First time in Melbourne?” as that would be just daft. But what should I ask him? Any thoughts?
