Train of Thought

This weekend I trained to Albury as recipient of the Poetry In Motion/Countrylink Poetry Prize.

I decided that I would stream-of-conscious record my thoughts, which lasted between Canberra and Goulburn. What lies below is that unedited document.

Train of thought

So I am typing this  entry as a stream of consciousness exercise from  Canberra to Goulburn as a part of my Countrylink Poetry Prize. I plan to load it onto the Modern Dyslexicon

First thought: I’ll fucking kill the old person and their key tones on their phone.

It took the laptop  until Queanbeyan to kick into gear in this time I had watched a hare rabbit its way through a broken fence nd a border collie shitting into the molongalo river

According to a study its natural to hate oldies I wonder if they hate each other, probably a reason behind why they die alone

I harbour a lot of old person rage as the train rolls on. One of my speakers in my headphones  are broken and it left the plastic in my ear at the inconvenient time that my brother called. I’m sharing this journey with him, but he is driving to Goulburn, while I wind my way through the molongalo gorge and leonard cohen sings in my right ear.

Please ; I’m your man

My Brother will meet me at the train station stop in Goulburn,because of the crazy rail system, the capital terriotory of Australia is not actually a part of their network, and Goulburn acts as a hub between south and western lines. This has provided me with consternation in the planning stage. Albury was never the plan. I wanted to head out west, to places I had never ventured, places like lightning ridge and bourke and the train lurches around a corner showing kangaroos fighting before running away. Only superman can stop a speeding train and live, so I think that’s a good decision.

All the exciting destinations that we tried to pick  had lengthy…. Long long long stretches of bus rides. I have to, no, I wish to capture the joy of  train travel, the cheap cups of wine a good way to increase the joy.

At Albury my bro and I plan to play it large, with a canoe of the murray and seedy bar crawl with the riverbillies

Listening to “do bad things to you”  which is the theme song to  True Blood,  which is terrible because it’s a great song and a poor show. Good vampires? Puh-lease. Lets jump on the Anne Rice, Poppy Z brite band wagon.  Vampires are a sliver of the devil manifest.

The tran picks up speed in the pine forests , towards Bungendore. I can hear too much of the old lady in front of me’s stories. The food in Canberra Hospital has improved.

The sings along the rails, sings like a chocking old lady, or a rusty frog. First Class is golden for leg room and looking left I can see the cyclone fenced JOCHQ, as some old person hacks up something bodily.  There are a large amunt of cars on the hill next to us.

My second job is love councillor to all my friends and my concentration on my own thoughts stop as I answer  a series of pent up texts.

Who builds their dream house backing onto a railway? What is this, Mexico?

I swap ears for my head phone as we pass some of canturf’s land. Sometimes they are my favourite billboards

My new phone is primitive.  Gum trees on  this plain grow like hairs from a mole, as we coast into bungedore’s the  new gunguhlin.

So my bro hops in in Goulburn,  because there is a 4 hour wait in Goulburn as we switch trains. He misses out of on two journey legs, but gets home 6 hours earlier on Sunday. I haven’t decided if I’ll try tto stay up and continue train of thoughting for as long as possible. The Friday coast traffic hates us as our three carriages hold up  everyone on the kings highway

Bungedores a quick stop. Four rusted horses” plays in my left ear as I realise Bungendore will grow into Queanbeyan and the QBN grw into Canberra as a large sterile conglomerate.

Face-fucking die,  or don’t cough so horribly

Would you capitalise on a view out here knowing that its gunna be suburbs with a woollies and bunnings and screaming kids everywhere?

Pasture here is good for suburbs, submerged power lines and a rail service.

Wind farms. Who wouldn’t want to live out here? Wind farm all of Australia

The olds behind me debate whats the difference between “wind turbines” and “wind mills” and I wish for the bovine ignorance of the grazing cattle who do not listen to the knit-pickers and plovers on their backs

Simon and Garfunkel are singing bridge over troubled waters. I heard this in the high clouds on the shoulders of kilamanjaro on a day that we had almost enough of walking.

An octogenarian keeps yelling about mobs of kangaroos as if a) they were a novelty and b) she just learned the term “mob”

A poor gymkhana and a dressage nag moulder in the thin trees of a disused paddock

Ploughed oats are greener this brown grey plain I assume I’m somewhere near Lake Bathurst

I was born in Goulburn and the rocky out juts and ute wheel ruts the hayseed and the sepia colour bleed stir something in me like a 1000 hectare driveway or the second verse of a national anthem, I know these dusty hills saddle sore horses on  rose shores I’m coming home

Pied alpacas protect flocks from foxes rabbits honey comb river bank dry bends

Black berry brambles pick their way between tussock grass serrations and generations of farmers have plowed the  hills and the hoof lines of ovines terrace the hillside earning the erosion know how

Fittingly Dam at Otter creek is my next song and it wont be long before I hit the streets of Goulburn not to blog to to dine with my bro. that me for this leg. Train of thoughting Canberra-goulburn.

Actually this is tarago the loaded dog is a great pub here, with bushrangers or policemen or lies buried beneath it Goulburn is the next stop.

Better go!

Canberra Guerrilla Poetry Splinter Cell

After years of operating as guerrilla poet lone wolf/loose cannon I've decided mobilise, and train a guerrilla poetry death squad in my top secret headquarters (granted it is the ACT Writer's Centre, but i asked for a hollowed out volcano).

The training will be in the form of a workshop that will run for roughly 4 hours, with a bit of history, powerpoint and poetry.

Attendees will be encouraged to participate, and create their own guerrilla poems, and unleash them upon Canberra.

The guerrilla poetry can then be posted onto the facebook page

a shorter follow up workshop will be arranged with the attendees.


Sign up through the ACT Writer's Centre here.

so bring your derring-do, your derringers and your Dillinger-style escape plans to Join the Canberra Guerrilla Poetry Splinter Cell

Happy New Year

Its taken me three weeks of the new year to sit down and compose a post (compost? Compoesie?) for you.

I'd ask how you are, but the truth is I don't care and if you answered, others would think you were strange.

Earlier, it was that time of year that people make promises to themselves that will hopefully shape the year to come, as if the first of the first bestowed an extra measure of Will Power or that the resolutions are somehow more sanctified because they were drunkenly spoken under the burning-magnesium-eyes of the god of New Years. This is not me.

I live with the intention of each year being better than the last, and it's worked so far, last year will be pretty hard to top, But I intend to succeed. in fact, exceed, in all forms of excess. I want to get continually better so when I die (nine years time - I'm predicting death at 40) I'd be a comet of awesome.

Well, we can dream. Certainly a better resolution than only drinking skim milk. Or giving up sex with marsupials. Or whatever it was you said while drunk... I wasnt listening.

Heres a poem. I hope to do one a week

Resolutions

By next year's summer
Vows of ours we've spoken
Promises broken

So Long, Schmoozers!

My reign as the Schmooze Artist in Residence is now over.

On the night of the 111th Schmooze, which also happened to be Schmooze's 9th birthday, I returned the badge and gun I was issued with.

I presented Phillip with a framed hand written Poem I had composed especially for the occasion

Photo by Kelly Chen Photography

Tesla Coils

Philip,
as puck on pipes,
Calls the dance.
                    We hum
Charged with Atmospheric
                            electricity

Synapse snaps from node to node
                 you to me
a tight-winding, loose coupling
magnetic energy edging
the pixie ring.
The Schmoozoisie of Oberon's
royal court;
each a rung on the other's ladder
each a step in the choreographer's scheme
each a portal to the other's dream.

My Artist in Residency blog can be reviewed here.

Kangara Waters Performance

Being both irreverent and civic minded, I took my poetry, anecdotes and puns along to Kangara Waters, a retirement village hidden in the outer-northern-but-soon-to-be-central-if-we-dont-stop-urban-sprawl-and-build-more-medium-density-housing district of Belco.

I managed to escape car-jacking or a brutal knife fight with the local denizens by pulling into the bully-proof named street "Joy Cummings Place".

Interestingly, Kangara Waters was ungated. Curious considering its location near Lake Ginnindera College and the bowling alley. Perhaps it was the overwhelmingly manicured setting, the building's "modern retiree" stylings, the permanent autumn feeling, the crushing ennui and the impression  the sky had transformed into a colossal stop watch that was held in expectant hands that protected it from the depredation of the teenaged.

The place was like the start of Edward Scissorhands or Blue Velvet. I'm sure it appeals to people who have run out of serotonin. everywhere you look you say gosh, that's interesting.

I parked at the entrance and was immediately lost.

The staff were very helpful and soon had herded a crowd together.

I performed for half an hour. Afterwards I lunched with several of the more attentive residents and we spoke of the funny threads of life, their stories and the impact that a stroke or dementia and the banality of existence, and how that half hour of poetry was an injection of colour on a beige canvas.

It made me glad that I chose my pieces a little more wisely than usual.

Stroke

I have lain here since yesterday

on the cold tiled floor

the refrigerator door is open, and chill

the pot on the stove top boiled dry

I cannot answer the phone,

or call for help

I cannot feed my dog

or fight him off.

As I was leaving, the director spoke with me about the Try To Remember program in the UK, which had success blending poetry and caring with dementia patients. I agreed to come back, if only to perform, but my head was filling with ideas.

walking out I realised that Kangara Waters was an exceptional facility, with wonderful, caring staff and not just a place to dispose of the olds. More of a place to dispose of them thoughtfully.

To pull this post back from irreverence, and maybe my soul from the hell-fires, and give myself a hollywood ending;  Dementia is a fearful loss of one's history, perhaps through poetry I can help readdress this. I wouldn't mind being involved in a Try To Remember-esque project.

Like all good stories, the character goes on a journey. I drove home.

D Day

Well, actually, bin day.  but that didnt seem as dramatic.

Friday is the day you get things done that you should have done on a more convenient day earlier in the week.

Due to this procrastination, I'm gunna overload you, dear readers.

you were warned.

Canberra Poetry Slam Farewell to 2012

Not going to Corinbank until Saturday?

well we want you! Come along to the last front Slam for 2012!

The theme is "Undecided between Blues or Valhalla."

The night opens with the open mic at 7:30 followed by the slam at 8
Join the slam and compete for cash prizes!

The features will be Steve Smart & Kim Jeffs from MELBOURNE!

The Slam will include the music of beauty and passion from
THE NIGHT CAFE, a latin/gypsy/jazz ensemble who will improvise intro/outro music for slammers and melt your nerves with their sultry sound.

Bios:

Over the past fifteen years Steve has performed his work and that of others thousands of times in hundreds of venues across the world. He's more famous than most people you know, but much less famous than Ryan Moloney who plays Toady in Neighbours.

Career highlights include 'Mouth Off' at the Sydney Opera House; the one man show 'Wild Optimist: rises and falls of a performance poet' (Brisbane Festival Under The Radar); performing at Bar Open's 10th Birthday celebration (Fitzroy); winning the audience award for 24 Hour Fix (short theatre competition); and co-featuring at the Berkeley Slam in California. Upcoming events include feature performances at the 2012 WA Poetry Festival and the Queensland Poetry Festival.

Kim Jeffs’ writing began as a response to the Black Saturday fires – as therapy. She set out to create a small book of memories for her children. Instead, she found poetry. Or perhaps, says Jennifer Compton, poetry sent a wildfire to chase Kim to its arms.

Epicormic growth is the new shoots thrust out by trees burnt by inferno. It is the tree’s desperate attempt to remain alive – for without leaves for photosynthesis the tree will assuredly die. After catastrophe, we must grow. To remain static is to invite death. Kim’s poetry mirrors her recovery – intense, painful, bleakly humorous, but not without moments of joy.


I first met Steve Smart at This Is Not Art in 2009, I met Kim on my tour to Melbourne in June and became acquainted with The Night Cafe through Schmooze,  and can say each are an extraordinary act in their own right and we have all three of them at the one place, throw in your regular host the Flying V, who'll no doubt be ready to improvise with The Night Cafe (is ready to improvise the same as planned spontaneity?) and its going to be a complete corker of a show!

7:30 at the Front Gallery and Cafe in Lyneham, 30th of November.

This Is Not Art is over. for 2012.

Another Labour Day long weekend has come and gone and with it Australia's leading emerging and experimental arts festival, This Is Not Art (TINA). and were TINA a person, they'd be intellectual, irreverent, inspiring, bright, sunny, humid, intoxicating and alarming thinner than before.

2010 was my favourite of the TINAs i have attended, even though the year before the Tragic Troubadours were in the program. Since 2010, the program has grabbed less of my attention, and less of my heart. The change has come due to funding changes, no doubt, and two of the five constituent festivals have splintered off (the People's Popular Front of Judea - SPLITTERS!).  you can measure the decline in the number of aisles of tables at the traditional Sunday Zine Fair, dropping from four in 2010 to two in 2012.  The budget cuts, or the loss of Sound Summit, robbed the Zine Fair of live music and forced the music-thirsty zinesters to overlook the blues guitarist thrashing away outside the Odditorium from the King Street Carpark's Fence.

The cuts in 2011 had forced the TINA Festival Clubhouse to move from its location on church street and into the Great Northern Hotel,  which previously had formed a venue in its own right. This de-centralised the festival, making a lazy person like me less likely to attend events on the western side of the city.

TINA's not the only thing to have changed in those four years, I'm older, less employed, more emergent. I'm no longer single, a little more sane and not so focused on being entertained as being educated, and here TINA shines.

TINA may have lost me from its twirling majorette of experimental theater, new musical sounds or cutting edge digital arts but it has caught me in it's cerebral net woven from panels, talks and reviews. I'm speaking about two of the remaining festivals, Critical Animals and National Young Writers Festival.

From the Critical Animals i listened to great talks such as Eva Bujalka's talk on George Bataille and how his references sublimates his writing from pornography to literature or the panels at the NYWF which featured successful writers like the panel on biography when young (Ben law, Marieke Hardy, Micheala Maguire) or translating cultures through poetry with Stuart Cooke and Eileen Chong.

These events (and not limited to just those mentioned, mind you) were gold.  Even better, the events were often podcasted, and are available here. if you are an artsy person, or on the periphery, and are thinking about funding, listen to the podcast "Who's getting Grants (and how)?".  Thats the sort of bread-and-butter knowledge writers, musicians, visual artists, artistic collectives need. AND ITS FREE!.
superfluous full stop for emphasis.

TINA 2012 had a lacing of JC in it too. Each year I have gone I have found a way to get some of my poems heard. 2009 was with the troubadours, 2010 i wrote and performed Human Caviar at the "Non-erotic Erotica", 2011 i wrote and performed My Breakfast Had A Face for "Oh Nigella, We Love Thee".

"I was a sol-ja, a revolutionary..."

My Breakfast Had A Face was served up again on thursday night's World Hurl Anti Slam, a slam without scores, with 2 awesome feature acts, and where i was selected by the feature judge to have performed the best on a night where the competition was so strong!

That crowd darkly in my mind.

The two feature acts were Vincent Gates and Amelia Walker, the latter donating her latest book Sound and Bundy* as first (and only) prize.

* Sound and Bundy has been a corker so far, inspired by the Ern Malley affair, 3 made up poets invent another poet. A surreal blurring of verse novel and a (or several) poetic anthology. Fabulous!

Following World Hurl, I had a weekend of booze related brain damage, and mental stimulation. I began to realise that TINA wasnt a remnant of past glories, but vibrant, and interesting. That maybe it was me that had grown stolid, phlegmatic and interacted with the festival in a way that made it seem like Critical Animals and NYWF had subsumed all other avenues of interest, and then limped on like cephalopagic twin.

Perhaps what was missing from this TINA was more JC? I attended the World Hurl on the thursday night and felt like I had achieved everything I came to do. Next year, i'd want to be more involved.
I left Newcastle feeling creatively recharged, inspired.

TINA 2013, Sharpen your pitchforks, I'm coming.

Success with Poetry In Motion

National Poetry Week 2012 featured what regular readers would know as the Poetry Train,  An event coordinated by Fiona McIlroy, a Cafe Poet, between CountryLink Rail and Australian Poetry Limited.

20 Canberran poets boarded and frenetically scribbled poetry as the train chugged towards Sydney. these poems were read on the hour to the poets and passengers who shared the journey. This were then read at Sydney's Central Station, and Australian Poetry had organised another reading at the NSW State Library and we formed the heart of a special slam at the Friend In Hand pub in Glebe.

The poems were collected to be published within a chapbook, and each was entered into the Countrylink Poetry Prize.

My poem, 'Upon Looking Back' was chosen by noted poet Charlotte Clutterbuck to be the recipient of the Countrylink Poetry Prize.

You can read the AP Poetry In Motion article here.

Upon Looking Back

I sat backwards as the train took off

it felt like

coming home/not leaving

the trees moved backward

the clouds rolled backward

rushing towards Canberra

not Sydney

The passengers looked forward to what was ahead

I mulled the past

The sign:

LARENEG

GNITIAW

MOOR

What else moved in reverse?

I thought perhaps/that just maybe/possibly/seems weird

But I was travelling backwards

through time?

things seemed less

modern.

strange and older.

I had no watch to test the theory

No. No I was not.

just the next stop was

NAYEBNAEUQ

September Schmooze

Good morning Dyslexiconians

Just a short note spruiking Schmooze's September Schmooze , the innovative networking company at which I have my artist residency.  I'm performing there for the aschmoozement of the members and their guests.

As the event is hosted by Hindmarsh Living, I might wheel out [pun intended] some old but themed poems such as
Your Grandfather
Grandad!
(De)Escalators At The Food Court
and one of my favourites, Stroke.

Hopefully aschmoozing enough to make the guests laugh at inopportune times, spraying their co-members with soylent green.

I'll be there performing A La Carte Blanche from menu of poems, some mushy, some sweet, some with a little spice, and some straight up hard like the tipple of whiskey Gran takes to make it between bingo and the endless hours of solitaire waiting beside the phone.

I'm going to finish this link-filled post on a highly referential note with this  little scone.

JC.

Book Launch Tonight (OMFGOFABAASAPSOIA)*

Tonight, 6 pm at Paperchain Bookstore, Triptych Poets Issue 3 is launched.

This is my first book of poetry, so of course i'm as excitable as a depolarising neuron (look it up).
Actually, rather than your regular book of poetry, its 3 suites in one, a hybrid, a demogorgon that features Canberra's P.S. Cottier, Geelong's Joan Kerr and Myself.

The night will be officiated by poet Paul Hetherington.

i feel like a party.
I'll be there to eat cheese and drink wine
and do some lines (...of poetry)

Come along!

Love
JC

PS: All my thanks to Blemish Books. If I've forgotten someone, I'm sorry but I've just gave away the last of my thanks.

*OMFGOFABAASAPSIOA is Oh My Fucking God Of Amaze-Balls And Anal Sex And Public Service Or Internet Acronyms

Publicity Trail!

Dear readers (listeners, if you use text to voice),

You can catch an interview regarding the launch of Triptych Poets #3 on Artsound Radio fm 90.3 or fm 92.7  at midday today.  The interview will include fellow contributor, P.S. Cottier, Leslie, our publisher from Blemish Books and myself.

Tune in!

regards
JC

Poetry In Motion Wrap Up

As another week winds up I look forward to another big weekend... and realise i forgot to wrap up last weekend.

The poetry train chugged into Sydney with me composing a few poems, drinking several of those tiny bottles of wine. I made more jokes than I did poems, but still had a few written inspired either by the landscape or the fact that I had chosen to sit backwards so that I  left rather than arrived.

For Dad

That culvert
was built by convicts
its bricks burnt in kilns
Burnt on trees freed
from the brick-hard prison of earth
Goulburn, indeed Oz,
built on broken rocks
hardtime labour
Australia:
Dungeon of the world.

Once we were on the platform we read our poetry to the other train riders, a few Sydneysiders and a lot of uninterested passers-by.

That night fellow train traveller, CJ Bowerbird and I teamed up with my brother and his mates to discuss the copious amounts of cheap wine we drank before sleeping on my brothers floor.

Saturday I awoke earlier than sensible and penned a new poem throwing down the gauntlet to CJ Bowerbird, which I performed at the State Library of NSW.  Other notable poets performing included P.S Cottier (She of fellow Triptych fame), Hal Judge and Hazel Hall. The event was curatored by Kate Rees, one of Sydney's APL Cafe Poets.

That afternoon we traveled to the Friend In Hand Pub in Glebe for a special poetry slam Hosted by Jack Peck. CJ Bowerbird took the honours, and Hazel came second. By the end of the night (2 or 3 in the morning) we had crawled through several other pubs and found more friends along the way.

I awoke with less than an hour to get back to the city and catch my bus, only to watch my beloved Sharkies bundled (bungled) out of the NRL Finals by the ramapaging Raiders.

Poetry in Motion, I hereby declare you a success!

Next stop, Sydney

Todays the Poetry In Motion train that leaves Canberra for Sydney. I'll be joined by 24 other poets on a tin missile. while a-board the four hour trip, poets are to compose new works. Every hour on the hour we're to share our offerings, and those we deem worthy can be entered for consideration into  a chapbook to be published later.

There is to be a recital at central station and on Saturday poetry readings at the NSW State Library, and a special Canberra Poets Challenge slam held at A Friend In Hand pub in Glebe Saturday night (7 pm).

now I've gotta find my platform shoes, as i have a train to catch...

thats what platform shoes are for, right?

Book Launch Flyer!

Blemish Books have released the flyer for my book launch.

 See you there!

August Schmooze!

Part one of my artist residency with Schmooze saw me attend the 2012 business marketplace held at Rydges Lakeside, and the cocktail party held on the 15th floor overlooking the city and the lake.


The marketplace and cocktail party tastefully curated by Schmooze founder Phillip A. Jones.  As resident artist I was situated in the thick of the action, composing poetry live on my laptop and projected onto the wall of the cocktail party, listening to some sultry jazz.

All in all the night was a success, I wrote some poems,  which I guess are a lot like kittens; you keep the ones you like and drown the rest.

For Desiree

Thanks for my drinks card

my lips were dry

and i

fumbled my hello

other poems can be read here

Poetry in Motion

I have boarded the poetry train to Sydney.

Australian Poetry ltd have sponsored a train to Sydney thats going to be crammed to the gunnels with poets. There'll be slams and recitals and media and food. So i'm in. I like the concept, it reminds me of the Tragic Troubadours, our performances for the You Are Here Festival, taking poetry to  different places.

The word "gunnels" (actually gunwales) always makes me think of trains, and not boats. This is due to me reading Ahma Hoarss, Tom Leonard's brilliant phonetic translation of Jean Arp's Ich bin Ein Pferd which, for the non-germanic, Jean had helpfully self translated into Je suis un Cheval.

Ahma Hoarss

Ahm oan a train
packt ti thi gunnilz
ma comparmints fuhll
a wummin n vri seat
a man oan ivri wummins knee
helluva hoat
lik sumhm oot thi tropics
aw thi passengers
fuhlin thir faces
champin away
when thi men aw suddnly girn
they wahnt thir mammy's tit
wahnt thir feed
wahnt thir sook
the oapn thi wummins blouses
lift oot the diddies
sook away fur life
fuhll thimselz wi good fresh mulk
ahm thi only wan no breastfeedin
n naibodys sookn it me
n am no sittn oan emdy's knee
an naibdyz sittn oan mine
coz ahma hoarss
sitn straight up a hoarss
ma hinn legs
upnthi seat
leanin nice n comfy
oan ma front legs
nay bothir a nieeeei gh gh gh
oan ma breast six buttns
shiny sixy sex appeal
neat n a row
lik glossy buttns n a uniform
how toaty thi world
how mega its cherries

Loved you once

Just in case you've missed previous links to the demo of Martin Raynor and My  song Loved you once here is the soundcloud.

Martin is playing a gig at the Potbelly in Belconnen on the 24th of August, 9pm. Come along!

Canberra Poetry Slam August Slam or Scrambled

Friday the 31st sees Canberra's longest running poetry slam, The Canberra Poetry Slam host Slam or scrambled, the August edition.

Featuring Canberra's CJ Bowerbird, a no-holds barred open mike, the slam itself and a return to cash prizes, the night promises to be chockfull of entertainment

Hosted by Myself and the Flying V, the night will kick off with the open mike, a defining tradition of the Canberra Poetry Slam, and then the slam proper will start at 8.

Slam rules are simple, 3 minutes of your own composition, no musical accompaniment or props.

Join the Facebook Event here.

the night kicks off at 7:30, Front Cafe and Gallery, Lyneham

Schmooze Artist in Residency

Last week the business networking gurus at Schmooze appointed me to their 2012 Artist in Residence, a position that I was lucky enough to even be considered for.  The residency will last for three months, where i will compose and perform at various functions culminating in a charity auction where businesses can bid for my talents and funds raised will go to the Cerebral Palsy Alliance as a part of Schmooze founder's Everyday Hero charity work.

Details of my residency can be found on the Schmooze website here.