Before by Janette Pieloor

.......................© J Pieloor
.......................Published by Walleah Press

.......................Reproduced on The Tuesday Poem with permission

.......................Editor: P. S. Cottier

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Janette Pieloor had her first collection, Ripples Under the Skin, published earlier this year by Walleah Press, who are producing attractive and compelling books.  The cover, reproduced here, incorporates a photograph of the poet as a child.

I asked Janette if a poem from the book could be featured here, and was delighted when she gave permission, and chose 'Before'.  The deceptively simple piece deals elegantly with the loss of a loved one, and plays with our perceptions of time. Here is the back story to the poem, as provided by Janette:

The inspiration for this poem was when a friend told me that she had been lighting a candle each night, following her separation from her lover… 

'I thought I’d like a candle light in my bedroom. I lit one on a stand on my desk which also had shelves above it with papers, notes, etc. My bed backed onto the desk. I dozed off. I think my cat came in and walked along the desk, as she usually did, and caused the candle to flare. I woke to the sound of crackling; saw the flame had reached the wicker cane basket with papers in it, on the shelf above. On the desk I had one of my grandmother's large decorated bathroom tiles as a stand for my cup of tea or glass of water. I grabbed the tile and dropped it over the wicker basket and smashed the candle, the fire put out. The tile broke in half. The smell of burning lingered and I never lit a candle again.' 

 Janette lives in Canberra and states that she enjoys the city's creative environment.  She is an active member of the poetry scene.  This debut book is marked by an arresting combination of longing and the quietly sardonic; the type of work that demands more than one reading.

It was a pleasure to attend the launch of the collection, where members of the poet's family read.  I hope that Ripples Under the Skin is followed by other books in the near future.  It can be ordered from Walleah Press.

Editor P.S. Cottier lives in Canberra, too far from the sea. 

In addition to today's feature be sure to check out the wonderful poems featured by the other Tuesday Poets, using our blog roll to the left of this posting. 

Two Lips Went Shopping by Lizz Murphy

Two huge lips went shopping

​on a pogo stick

​​for a red satin handbag

coordinated in colour

​​with their cupid’s bow

'Two Lips Went Shopping' - title poem from Two Lips Went Shopping by Lizz Murphy (Spinifex Press 2000) republished with permission from the publisher.

The poem was previously published in Blast. The book was the outcome of a 1998 ACT Creative Arts Fellowship for Literature from the ACT Government.

Editor: P.S. Cottier

I love this little poem.  It insinuates itself into the brain and jumps up and down there.  

The image of two huge lips on a pogo stick raises problems for the literal minded.  How do they balance?  How do they jump up and down?    

These are obviously fashion-conscious lips who like a co-ordinated wardrobe.  I love the way that the slightly old-fashioned expression 'cupid's bow' is given new life through the earlier reference to satin.  We see the top of red lips and a real red bow; where one ends and the other starts is impossible to say.  Of course, cupid's bow refers to a bow for shooting arrows, but I defy anyone to read the poem and not to think of a bow tied around a present or a pony-tail.

Spin the poem on its side and it even looks a bit like a pogo stick jumping up and down, powered by a rather erratic rider.

There is a lot in these five lines, and indeed, Lizz Murphy is something of an advocate for the shorter poem.  Along with fellow poet, Kathy Kituai, she is holding a number of readings emphasising the shorter poem, at which members of the public can read their works.  I attended one of these readings, and about thirty people were there, at a library, in the afternoon. This is a good number and a credit to the organisers.  No Small Thing is the title of the series of readings, indicating both how much oomph a shorter poem can deliver and how difficult it can be to create memorable short poetry.  Lizz is notable for the number of readings she organises in the greater Canberra area.  I include Binalong, where she makes her home, in that literary/geographical area.

Oomph gets no oomphier than that image of two lips on a pogo stick though!  I am so glad that the two lips were not early converts to on-line shopping, and therefore had made their purchases at home.  Although I do wonder how they purchased the pogo stick that they are using in the poem to go shopping...sometimes the desire to construct a narrative is a curse, isn't it?  Perhaps it's wiser just to enjoy the image.

Thank you to Spinifex Press and to Lizz Murphy for allowing me to send this poetic kiss out into the world.  

Lizz Murphy was Highly Commended in the Blake Poetry Prize and a finalist in the UK’s Aesthetica Poetry Competition in 2013. Her awards include the 2011 Rosemary Dobson Poetry Prize (co-winner), a CAPO Singapore Airlines Travel Award, 1998 Creative Arts Fellowship for Literature and the 1994 Anutech Poetry Prize. She has published 12 books. Her seven poetry titles include Portraits and Six Hundred Dollars (PressPress), Walk the Wildly (Picaro Press), Stop Your Cryin (Island) and Two Lips Went Shopping (Spinifex Press). She is widely published in Australian journals with poems also published in Canada, China, England, India, Ireland, Poland and the USA. Lizz was born in Ireland and has lived in Binalong NSW for a long time. She occasionally blogs.

This week's editor, P.S. Cottier, lives in Canberra.  She recently edited The Stars Like Sand:  Australian Speculative Poetry with Tim Jones, and will be the facilitator for an on-line course on speculative poetry offered by Australian Poetry in September.  She has blogged at pscottier.com since 1523 AD.

Someone forgot to tell the fish by Hal Judge

Someone forgot courtesy and politeness. Someone forgot to rinse off the weed killer. Someone forgot to turn off the billing software. Someone forgot to rent the crowd. Someone forgot to tell the owners of the 4 million cars sold in China. Someone forgot to bring the Zombie-Killing Manual. Someone forgot to tighten the sidestay shackle. Someone forgot to tell Rocky. Someone forgot to strap down the ammo case. Someone forgot to install it. Someone forgot to tell the Arabs it’s our oil under their sand.  Someone forgot to use lube. Someone forgot to tell me about labour pain. Someone forgot to declare 60 share transactions. Someone forgot to plug my biohazard suit. Someone forgot to shut the door. Someone forgot to tell the one million little snot-faced kids. Someone forgot to wax. Someone forgot to chlorinate the gene pool. Someone forgot the rivets. Someone forgot to tell her he was gay. Someone forgot to bring the griddle. Someone forgot to flush. Someone forgot to separate their whites. Someone forgot to socialise the dog. Someone forgot to lash the damn thing down. Someone forgot to invite the wind. Someone forgot to read him his rights. Someone forgot to do the Voight-Kampff test. Someone forgot Sun Tzu’s little maxim. Someone forgot the roots of liberalism in liberty. Someone forgot to invite him to some lawn party. Someone forgot their humble beginnings.  Someone forgot to use her diaphragm. Someone forgot that “pastor” means shepherd not wolf. Someone forgot to de-magnetize my purchase. Someone forgot to plan after the invasion. Someone forgot to put in the thingy. Someone forgot to take her meds. Someone forgot to check the “looping” feature. Someone forgot to remove a piece marked “Remove before launch”. Someone forgot that capitalism is a system riddled with contradictions. Someone at NASA forgot to convert meters to feet. Someone forgot that meth-heads can buy the stuff in bulk online. Someone forgot to disarm the killer dolphins.

                           Editor: P.S. Cottier

I love this poem: a slippery little thing that evades easy categorisation.  There is an ecological awareness here, but it does not drape itself in simple robes of green.  There is a gender awareness, that refuses to simply shout about anything.  There are drugs and sex ... and dolphins.  And peculiarly badly-informed fish.  Perhaps they, like all of us, are subject to killer sharks, in one form or another? But killer dolphins that need disarming?  Flipper of a last line that seems to refer back to the title of the poem.

Australian poet Hal Judge cannot be described as a fixture in the Canberra poetry community, as he is far too mobile for that.  He writes (obviously) suggestive and ambiguous poetry.  He performs such poetry very well.  He organises so many things for other poets, and is very generous with his time.  For instance, he agreed to launch a book of poems I had written, without really knowing me.

Here is how he describes himself (when asked to do so for this blog entry): 

Hal Judge is a versatile writer—poet, spoken word performer, playwright, screenwriter and librettist.  Having lived and worked in Canberra most of his life, Hal is imbued with the city’s culture, politics and literature. Six of his plays have been staged. His poems have been published in over 30 literary journals.   

His award-winning poetry collection Someone Forgot to Tell the Fish is available on Amazon’s Kindle. He has featured as a guest writer at many writers’ festivals in Australia and Indonesia. He has run writing workshops for students, soldiers, prisoners and homeless people. 

Hal is a person, it seems to me, who is willing to take risks.  Apart from daring to write the line, 'Someone forgot to put in the thingy', I have heard him read a poem in Bahasa Indonesian, for example, and he is not a native speaker of that language.  He is willing to cross over between art forms; a recent reading at Manning Clark House here in Canberra, for example, featured music and a live dancer to a poem about a snail...

As a poet, it is a real joy to meet other poets who are experimental, generous and just plain good at what they do.

Chase up his work if you can.  It's well worth the price of a can of worms. And make like an educated fish, and gorge yourself on poems.  World Poetry Day occurs this week, you know. 

This week's editor, P.S. Cottier aka Penelope Cottier, is also from Canberra. She has worked as a lawyer, university tutor, union organiser and a tea lady. She wrote a PhD on animals in the works of Charles Dickens. Her most recent book is a suite of poems called Selection Criteria for Death. She blogs on pscottier.com.