Poetry Says

Talking with Jeanine Leane gave me so much to think about. We covered what it was like to study and write in Canberra in the 1980s, the role of writing groups in her writing process, the difference between racism and white privilege, the understanding (or lack thereof) of Indigenous Australians amongst settler critics and publishers, and the questions she never gets asked in interviews.

Show notes

• The Ngunnawal Lecture 2015: Jeanine’s speech at the University of Canberra
• The Us Mob writing group
• The Distribution of Settlement: Appropriation and Refusal in Australian Literature and Culture by Michael Griffiths
• White critics don’t know how to deal with the golden age of Indigenous stories by Alison Whittaker

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My favourite poem – ever – is Dorothy Porter’s ‘Lucky’. In this episode I talk about why it matters so much to me and what it is to have someone who’ll make you coffee while you’re trying to decide where the hell to put that line break.

Show notes

• The Best Australian Poems 2007, edited by Peter Rose
• Dorothy Porter’s The Bee Hut
• A Deaf Rough Trade: Defending Poetry to ‘regular people’
• Michael Farrell’s I Love Poetry
• Audre Lorde on poetry

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…I kind of wish I’d written Eddie Paterson’s Redactor. There. Now you know.

In this episode I get to hear about how Eddie made this hilarious and moving collection of found poetry, who he was writing to and why, and about his artistic influences. Billy Collins and Carly Rae Jepsen are also mentioned.

Show notes

• Jenny Holzer
• David McDiarmid
• Bella Li
• Michael Farrell
• Laurie Anderson

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I finally get it. The O’Hara thing. Walking to Work – a strange, broken poem full of dismissiveness and resolve – has finally won me over.

Show notes

• Frank O’Hara Selected Poems from Borzoi Poetry
• Personism: A Manifesto
• O’Hara’s celebratory poem Today

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This didn’t feel like my first conversation with Newcastle poet Claire Albrecht. We started out with The Mighty Boosh and Atwood, moved on to Claire’s chapbook pinky swear, covered guilt and the writing life, the enduring comfort of Dawson’s Creek and Claudia Rankine. Somewhere in there, I remembered to introduce myself.

Show notes

• The Mighty Boosh’s Killer Roo
• Morgan Parker
• Eileen Myles at The Wheeler Centre
• Swallows and Amazons by Arthur Ransome
• Anupama Pilbrow’s Body Poems and SEMIAUTOMATIC
• The sick leave reading series
• Claire’s poem ‘Annexiety’
• My chat with Melinda Bufton
• Jack’s kiss on Dawson’s Creek
• ‘Salmon’ by Jorie Graham
• Claudia Rankine’s Don’t Let Me Be Lonely and Citizen
• Claudia Rankine on On Being

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David Brooks’ The Balcony was one of the first poetry books I truly connected with. In this episode I look closer at two of his poems and draw some parallels with another of my favourites, Jane Kenyon.

Show notes

• Wild Duck Sutra in Meanjin
• Jane Kenyon’s Depression in Winter

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‘Fuck you Adam Ford’ is a tough way to introduce yourself to your favourite poet. But that’s what my cousin, Bridget Mackey, ended up doing.

This is the story of a Canberra girl who fell in love with a poetry book – and accidentally ended up living inside it.

Show notes

• Bridget’s play Fools Gold
• Adam’s books Not Quite the Man for the Job, Man Bites Dog and The Third Fruit is a Bird
• More about Adam’s current projects

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To kick off Poetry Says for 2019 I take a look at Kate Lilley’s ‘Pastoral’ – a funny, biting poem about maths class, movies and refusing to write about the seasons. ‘Pastoral’ is from Kate’s 2018 book Tilt, which just took out the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for poetry.

Show notes

• Charles Harpur’s A Midsummer Noon in the Australian Forest
• The Story of O
• Emmanuelle

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I’ve been looking for John Russell McCarthy’s Friendship Broken for a while now. It reads more like Luke Davies that something published in 1938. I hope it speaks to you as much as it does me.

Show notes

• The Lives of a Naturalist and a Poet Intertwined in Sierra Madre
• how many of us have them? by Danez Smith

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1. I love a good list poem.
2. I can’t define them.
3. Stevens is probably a bad example.
4. But I’m going to start there anyway.

Show notes

• Wallace Stevens: Thirteen Ways of Looking at a List Poem
• Auden’s Funeral Blues
• Eloise Grills: Reading a list of celebrities who own islands as self-care
• James Waters: Impossible Images or; a list of things i cant describe
• Morgan Parker: 13 Ways of Looking at a Blk Girl
• Alex Selenitsch: 13 ways of looking at a magpie

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