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Chittagong A kennings poem for Bellevue Hill Public School Rusted whales beached in the Bay of Bengal. Ribs dismantled, returned to metalled mud. Ships splinter, brittle as bone. No time to carve tombstones in sand. Blueprints don’t detail these distances or depths, boys hide and seek in hulls. Debris blazes on scrapyard shores. Fractured shifts of salvaged sleep, dreams set adrift with tomorrow’s satellites. Below, there is a broken city, the ocean can’t recall all it has kept. __________________________________________________________ Tamryn Bennett is an Australian writer and visual artist currently living in Mexico. Since 2004 she has exhibited artists books (Showers and Clearing and Polaroids and Postcards) illustrations and comics in Sydney, Melbourne and Mexico. Her poetry, illustrations and articles have appeared in Five Bells, Nth Degree, Mascara Literary Review and various academic publications. She has a PhD in ‘Comics Poetry’ from The University of New South Wales and when in [...]

This entry is part of a series, Papercuts» The Ventriloquist’s Lament Let me tell you: in strangers’ houses all roads lead to rooms mirrors turn a blind eye to undone hair and buttons the swoop of lambent moths and other accidental creatures kitchen tables float like coral pomegranates stain your hands blood red for days space is reserved for long eyes and afternoons glancing in windowsills every day a new photograph in the thraldom of debt I grew out of all that dust. __________________________________________________________ Lindsay Tuggle grew up in Alabama, Kentucky, and Kansas. She moved to Australia ten years ago, and now lives in Austinmer. She has written poetry for most of her life, though she only began writing for publication a few years ago. Lindsay is interested in the relationship between language and place, especially vanished or vanishing places: those that exist now only in the memories of the [...]

This entry is part of a series, Papercuts» , Papercuts» Attempts to Get Oats Into this Poem For Bishop Druitt College, 2012 It was no reflection on my fondness for you, the throwing of the sour milk. The sound of the silver bucket spread out like a town at the beginning of a Kurosawa. The milk was hula. The day: ultra marine. You stepped in the mood. Do you still follow bees? I found four in a tea pot … On the cover of your book is an open locket and within it your relatives? Cousins? Their faces are small but I can recognise your eyes. With what poems will you describe them this Christmas? Christmas like the name Tony Tuckson. I guess I see spilled paint across the canvas like a pulled muscle. We could get a towel, or sit in the sun? There’s a bus! And our reflection [...]

This entry is part of a series, Papercuts» Cranbrook, Mid-June After Martin Harrison The inarguable harbour proves the point hit by the low winter sun, we squint fishing for cutlery, facing the mirrors in a high-ceilinged room. We discuss pies and north coast water, pale meat, dark gravy, Broken Head. Each beach orchestrates a meeting of sand and water, a certain mood or consistency, according to sandbars, light, temperature, rock outcrop—and what to call the way we gauge the feeling of surrounding water, its pressures, its tastes and density on our faces, in our thinking and remembering mouths, summing up this place and the last, this place and the possible next. The feeling of a wet face in the open air. These summer memories persist in their fading. I watch the unpainted, unphotographed scenes, where two shadows stand in the shallows hurling a ball back and forth for eternity. Knowing, [...]

This entry is part of a series, Papercuts» If you force the sea through a sieve For Year 8, Frankston High School If you force the sea _____through a sieve __________stand back. Oceans will run clear and thin. __________You’ll grow bright over your dull catch – __________eat like Neptune, then sleep __________hardly feeling the neap and king __________movements of your mind’s floor. __________Light will pass, __________and the sea things douse and drawl __________through your dreams. ____________________At last their drip- __________ping will seem to have sunk in silence. __________Only then will you find yourself stir, __________slowly ascend through the levels __________to surface, hauled out __________into blue avenues of spreading mass and murmur. Papercuts Poet at Frankston High School VIC, 2011 ____________________________________________ Dr. Bonny Cassidy is a poet and writer based in Melbourne. In 2008 she undertook an Asialink/Malcolm Robertson Foundation literature fellowship in Japan, and she is currently the recipient of [...]

This entry is part of a series, Papercuts» Papercuts is Australia’s only national poetry education program. Papercuts promotes the living practice of poetry through a series of workshops with contemporary Australian poets. Through Papercuts, students and educators in primary and secondary schools, correctional centres, community organisations, professional associations and universities, undertake workshops to develop their own poems, poetry collections and exhibitions. Created by The Red Room Company in 2007, Papercuts is now programmed in over 50 schools across Australia. Originally designed for High School Students, the learning kits have since been expanded to cater to primary students from years 1-6. A diverse range of students have so far benefitted from the Papercuts learning experience, from students with special needs to gifted and talented groups. We have also run a project at Sunning Hill School in the Juniperina Juvenile Justice Centre. . Entries in this series: Papercuts: Introduction Papercuts: Bonny Cassidy [...]

The Pieces A group poem If my hand had fallen into yours earlier, I might _______still be holding you. I’ll always remember what you told me: In order to build a castle, learn how to build a ____________________________house first. I’m excited and nervous at the same time. I can’t wait to come home. Listening to your echoes surrounding me. I’m sick of this jail because of the lockins. Curiosity and patience grow longer ____Awaiting an answer that feels like eternity. I look out the window at night And see the brick wall and the shadow Behind the security lights which Light up the premises to form a sparkle Which reflects off the shiny razor wire. I’ve realized that it’s not the time here that’s bothering me ______But the time I’ve lost with you. ____________________________________I need a new pen… This is my everyday life. I long to carry your burdens. ____________________With [...]

This entry is part of a series, Unlocked» , Unlocked» Ralph A dead dog. A deep hole. A piece of rope. I tied one end around the dog’s waist, the other around mine. Ralph (I’ve given him a name) went in first. We didn’t make it as far as China but we did come out in a strange city, a city unlike any I’d ever seen. Everything – the streets, the buildings, the doors & windows – was made of polished steel, everything. And it was bright, much too bright for my weak eyes. I soon went blind. Ralph (who by some miracle has come back to life, or perhaps he was only sleeping) was not cut out to be a seeing-eye dog but he’s doing the best he can. ______________________________________________________ Philip Hammial has had twenty-two collections of poetry published. His sixteenth collection, In the Year of Our Lord Slaughter’s [...]

This entry is part of a series, Unlocked» The Northern Road 1. I should have known him but I had no prior experience with prophets. Something about the time of day felt still as _______the invisible press of tobacco, the rustle of upturned leaves in a thousand barns. Finality slides deeper. Uncut grasses roll and die. Commodified firewood fills the absence of orchard bones. Other attractions: winter anonymity, _______once done creeps into country, etches convoys in the woods. The prohibition of nostalgia is born in cellar holes and undone buttons. Ochre cigarettes paper the urinal. Letters above the caricatures. Please proceed in an orderly fashion toward the faith cures. Changes that would seem evidently _______paranormal such as _______the regeneration of lost fingers do not arise in the context of _____________________modern healers. Still it remains— glass in her wound. I never left the house I just took the door with me. [...]

This entry is part of a series, Unlocked» Confused Like Horses He sat down and tried to focus but couldn’t truly make out the shapes. Some nights, he sleepwalks into streetlit rooms all over the planet. You dream of your best friend’s house – it’s a collage, but you’d swear blind it was the real thing. Us here, we’re confused like horses kick in thunderstorm stables. The distant end of every tunnel is darker than the blue of night above. _____________________________________________________ Rob Wilson is a poet that currently resides in Sydney. He has had poems published in Cordite, Boxkite and Ampersand Magazine. His first collection of poems, Camera Farm, was released in 2003 by Bird in the Mouth Press. His poem is featured in the . Entries in this series: Introduction to Unlocked Unlocked: John Morony Poets Unlocked: Rob Wilson Unlocked: Lindsay Tuggle Related Posts Introduction to Unlocked Unlocked: John [...]

This entry is part of a series, Unlocked» Jumanji a group poem Trunk packed and ready for nowhere, Manuscript tells stories in spots and dashes called songs. Song list on the lampbase doubling as a microphone, The man looks lonely and lost As though he’s taken one last look before leaving It reminds me of Jumanji. What is the lion doing in the house with a police hat on? The light is on and it’s already daytime. The boundary line between the man and the lion: The antique collector’s lounge. __________This is one scary cat. __________He dominates the room. This is the lion’s domain, The man is his pet It’s a jungle in there, _____This strange man’s den. Cat in a hat. There’s a dog wearing a cop hat. The dooryard echoes of an open suitcase. _____________________________________________________ The John Morony Correctional Complex is located 5 km south of Windsor. A [...]

This entry is part of a series, Unlocked» Unlocked is an educational program developed and run by The Red Room Company in collaboration with NSW Correctional Centres. The program aims to unlock the potential of inmates through the transformative possibilities of poetry. Australian poets are taken into the centres to run intensive writing workshops, working with the students on every stage of the writing process, from the initial exercises and experimentations, through the editing and rewriting process, to recording, performing and publishing their work in a professionally designed print anthology. You can . Piloted in Sydney in 2010, the project has now entered its third year. The most recent Unlocked project was held at the Balund-a Project, a residential diversionary program for male and female offenders between 18 and 40. The program has a strong Indigenous focus, which is also a focus for Unlocked for 2012. Indigenous poet Lionel Fogarty [...]

This entry is part of a series, The Disappearing» Fountain 77, Glebe For Timothy Yu Plastic-sheathed roses embroider the dark. _________________Set to volplane we take photo-triptychs, each of the other. Moments of daring oscillate in the strangers we become. _________________And arms betray us, they link our assembly of states, ventriloquised, ________cravassed by cloud, echoes, reason’s sastruga faults, whole continents of inaccuracy ________rumoured, unrumoured. Making for the 336, syllables cleft as we inhale olfactory flakes, a wrapping scrapes the asphalt ___________in our roan-coloured quarter. Parting, of course, is not sinking like some Titanic hybrid, cobalt-feathered ________________favouring métissage, ________but a cold coming— ________So riddled —are we? _____________________________________________________ Michelle Cahill is a Sydney poet, author of two collections of poetry and two chapbooks. Vishvarupa and Night Birds are her most recent books. She received the Val Vallis Award and was highly commended in the Wesley Michel Wright Prize. Entries in this series: The [...]

This entry is part of a series, The Disappearing» The Disappearing Suite They hover on the edges, their voices haunting the blue hour when the tide of memory recedes and forgetfulness returns, washing over the ash-prints of their passing, so faint, yet so fresh you can’t tell if the moment is disappearing or about to happen, if something is being written or erased, your body still alive with the touch, the echo of their breath, their absence a faint shiver in the curtain and you wait in the silence between words, between forgetting and remembering. __________________* Between pages, books, stations, between one life and the next the list of the disappeared grows, a book writing itself, a ledger bulging with absences, a map where the empty quarter spreads, advancing sands erasing the traces of the disappeared, and you are on a floe shrinking with each vanishing, each face and place [...]

This entry is part of a series, The Disappearing» Clouds Afternoon Jazz Sprinkles For Jill Jones (1) Clouds Abercrombie Street, Chippendale Reading your electrical poems in a Northcote bar in winter was just too much: like trying to drink beer sailing freely through the air: free of the glass, sure, but harder than buckshot to catch between your teeth. I longed for some o’ that Sydney where July was windy and wet but not cold. I wanted to perch in that laundromat on Abercrombie Street just down from the Reasonably Good Café, chew on an Incredibly All Right Ham Sandwich™, read William Faulkner’s Light in August (i-in August! & simply wait for September’s frangipani blooms to disappear down the Chippendale lanes like odd socks above Central Station or perhaps (sure, in desperation, to close my eyes & also disappear. (2) Afternoon Fouveaux Street, Surry Hills I could pretend to live [...]