Ruby Street

My next book, now it’s public, will be called Brink (unless there is a last-minute title change, always possible in publishing). Now that it’s more or less settled, I am of course working on writing ideas beyond that – ideas that are more than a poem here and there. Needless to say, this includes a ‘next next’ book, the one after this next book, as an idea.   I realise, of course, that in poetry publishing there’s never a ‘next book’ until it’s signed, sealed and delivered, but the idea of ‘next’ is a focus for activity, as well as a goad, and a reminder that there may be a place for a few things to land together. It may never happen, I may not make it (that gets more clear as you get older), and the-world-as-I-know-it may not make it (that’s pretty clear right now), but you never know your luck. Brink , I suspect, will be seen as broadly ‘ecopoetic’ (more on that soon) – anyway, I’ll bet at least one review (should I get any reviews but, hey, you never know your luck) will me...

I've just been in Newcastle to read as part of Poets Paint Words. Thirteen Australian poets were commissioned to write a poem inspired by an Australian painting in the Newcastle Region Art Gallery collection. The poets include Robert Adamson, Judith Beveridge, Luke Davies, Kate Fagan, Keri Glastonbury, Martin Harrison, Jill Jones, John Kinsella, Peter Minter, Les Murray, Dorothy Porter, Jaya Savige and John Tranter. The exhibition was curated by Peter Minter and Lisa Slade, in conjunction with Sydney Writers’ Festival. You can read an article in The Australian about this or go to the Newcastle Region Gallery's site to read some of the poems . The weather was good and a lot of people came and listened at the various sessions. I lingered for most of the weekend, though my gig was over by Friday night. I caught some kind of flu bug but luckily it didn't strike till Saturday. As someone said, it was a 'boutique poets' event'. And a cool idea.

Of course, next month is the Sydney Writers Festival , and as part of it there's Poets Paint Words , which is curated by Peter Minter and Lisa Slade, who commissioned a number of Australian poets to write a poem inspired by a painting in the Newcastle Region Art Gallery collection. Their choice, not ours. Poets involved include Luke Davies, Martin Harrison, Keri Glastonbury, Kate Fagan, Jaya Savige, Les Murray, Dorothy Porter, John Tranter, Judith Beveridge, Jill Jones, Peter Minter, John Kinsella, Robert Adamson. The exhibition runs until 17 June and during the Writers Festival there will be readings by a number of the poets.

Reading Jen at blue acres and also thinking of the times when the words don't come and when they do. I was doing one of the regular(ish) DiVerse readings today - we're the ekphrasis team, writing in reference to artworks, this time prints at the S.H. Ervin Gallery - and one of the other poets said an interesting thing - that she tried to write a poem in response to a print of a cat. She's a cat person, so it should have been a shoe-in, she and we all thought. But, nope, the poem wouldn't 'go'. Whereas another print 'insisted' she write about it. Of course, this is all speaking in metaphors about process, which is fine. I'm not scared or worried by metaphors. Jen says: "when I'm stuck it seems poems are like equations with one or two possible but elusive solutions, both requiring a good ten or twenty more IQ points than I have spare to find." I understand that as well, though it's not how I would have put it. I think in terms of f...

Osmosis What do we say to barriers or wounds, that we descend along them? What do we say to the other side the sun and moon we do not see? What of this tide, the thoughts in any tide making minutes in the gauge, traces in the grain? The passage of water in concentration a meditation on the wave, without it no shore or skin. It makes and moves the heart vessel and every rocky boat. Side by side we are rising – chest, rib, ventricle, moon feather, branch, plinth fall, returning stream, arrow, light, dark pulse carbon, membrane, light in light, wave and wound.

What is this? While we’re talking light passes, though it’s easy to ignore its radiant shift. We’re neither passengers nor eternal. Though we trip on each other’s recall there’s another history being rearranged in shades drawn on ground. I say, it’s how you think in circles, wanting to merge rather than mark. The four corners of a centre tremble as they touch space. Our argument may ignite in small layers or return to its great elasticity. It’s no more than extending a mirror into the existence of zero. But I can do nothing unless I lose my own track, in land that made the curve, neither fleeting nor continuing, but always drawn on ground. Here are the difficulties - of clusters, pebbles, mind moon, that great vacant sign, an eternal jewel, the head’s empty bucket, containing all things yet without, rearranging itself within clarity’s blue shadow. the light of your fingers skin under sky