Author: PoetrySays

I’ve gradually discovered that Great Uncle Jack Blight was a poet with something to say (and more than a few books under his belt). I delve into his 1965 lecture ‘The Shaping of a Contemporary Poet’, share his advice for other Australian poets (most of which still stands up) and take a few detours into family lore.

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Set up your tea/biscuits/wine/other treats because this chat with Melinda Bufton is cosy and joyful. Within the first 10 minutes we’ve covered performance, lyrics, the page, the lyric I, rhyme, feminism and constraint. It gets even better from there.

Show notes

• • Melinda’s poem The Possible Dream (Buying Jeans Online)
  • My interviews with UK poet and activist Sophie Mayer and Overland poetry editor Toby Fitch
  • D.I.Y. Feminism edited by Kathy Bail
  • The Whole Tool Thing
  • Melinda’s reading at Sporting Poets
  • Contemporary Australian Feminist Poetry edited by Bonny Cassidy and Jessica L Wilkinson
  • Frances Bean Cobain
  • Ed Dorn’s Yellow Lola
  • Gurlesque: the new grrly, grotesque, burlesque poetics edited by Lara Glenum and Arielle Greenberg
  • Duncan Bruce Hose’s Bunratty
  • The Punk Singer

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This episode comes to you from a messy desk, sandwiched between items on a long to-do list and a mostly blocked out calendar. I’m sure you’re familiar with the feeling.

Show notes

• Not writing by Jane Kenyon
• Antilamentation by Dorianne Laux

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It was a beautiful sunny day in Melbourne but that didn’t stop people coming down to Compass Pizza to hear Ella O’Keefe, Ed Tato and Alan Wearne. Listen in below if you missed it!

I’ve been trying to write a poem in response to Auden for about four years. It’s not going well. So I thought I’d talk to you about the ideas I’m trying to grapple with.

Show notes

• W.H. Auden – Tell Me The Truth About Love
• ‘People may really be what we first though them.’
• E.M. Forster’s note in conclusion from his posthumous novel Maurice
• Since by W.H. Auden

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• Kent MacCarter’s essay on Australian poetry micro-presses: They will oxidise before you even finish reading
• Close Up Books
• Tincture
• Cordite
• Verity La (check out Sean’s poem Lucilia Cuprina – an Ode)
• A Hundred Gourds
• Meanjin
• Island
• Overland
• The Lifted Brow
• List of UK poetry magazines
• pressure gauge journal
• Plumwood Mountain
• Rabbit Poetry Journal
• Snap Literary Journal
• Australian Poetry Journal
• Flash Cove
• Going Down Swinging
• Southerly
• Westerly
• Australian Book Review
• Foam:e
• Best Australian Poems

• Submittable
• Trello
• Scrivener
• Pressbooks
• Tim Love’s website: Litrefs Articles

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Ashbery’s poem ‘Your name here’ has been pinned up in my office for almost a decade now. Reading it again in light of his passing, I saw another element of the poem I’d never noticed before.

Show notes

• A review of Your Name Here
• Sign up for ModPo 2017 on Coursera
• Al Filreis chats with Ashbery below:

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Can poets learn something from the world of improv? After chatting with Alistair Baldwin I’m more convinced than ever that the best elements of poetry and comedy are basically aligned. This episode is also for you if you’ve ever hit a wall writing that dreaded 100-word bio…

Show notes

• ‘Disability Impressions Offensive’ Decrees Meryl Streep To Room Of Award-Winning Disability Impressionists
• My disability helped me embrace my queerness: Re-evaluating masculinity through the gift of weakness
• Ian McBryde’s bio
• Julie Koh’s Portable Curiosities
• Teeth by Spike Milligan

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Feeling a little sketchy, I went back to Joanne Kyger’s On Time, which led me to a poem about why calendars can be so very scary.

Show notes

• I am afraid (the younger)
• I am afraid (the elder)
• I’m Very Busy Now So I Can’t Answer All Those Questions About Beat Women Poets

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