Printed Shadows – 40 Years plus of Writing and Cultural Journalism

Category: Mark Roberts

  • Bloomsday comes early to Sydney – Joyce Jam at the Gaelic Club with Open Mic!

    Bloomsday comes early to Sydney – Joyce Jam at the Gaelic Club with Open Mic!

     

    Getting reading to travel down to Sydney to kick off Bloomsday celebrations a few days early at the The Gaelic Club for the Joyce Jam at 6pm. I’ll be reading my prose poem about reading Ulysses called ‘Cites that are not Dublin’. I’ll be reading with Linda Adair and Anne Casey and a host of fabulous musicians and performers (details see https://rochfordstreetreview.com/…/bloomsday-comes…/

    Thanks to the Prankqueans in n partnership with the Consulate General of Ireland, Sydney the Irish Support Agency NSW Inc. and of course the wonderful The Gaelic Club in Sydney.
    Tickets are available from https://isa.supporterhub.net.au/events/joycejam2026

    If for some strange reason you can’t make it to Gaelic Club tonight you can join in the fun by following the Rochford Street Review 2026 Bloomsday Supplement which will continue to load Joycean and Dublin related work over the next few days https://rochfordstreetreview.com/reviews/rochford-street-review-2026-bloomsday-supplement/ 

    The picture, by the way, was taken on the morning of Bloomsday in Dublin in 2016 outside the The James Joyce Centre Dublin.

  • 2025 – Going out with a bang: ‘Best Australian Poems 2025’ & ‘The Stony Thursday Book 50th Anniversary Edition’

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    As 2025 drew to a close I was excited to find my work featured in two anthologies, the Best of Australian Poems 2025, edited by Nam Le and Jill Jones (Australian Poetry) and The Stony Thursday Book 50th Anniversary Edition, edited by John Liddy & Jim Burke (Limerick Arts Office, Republic of Ireland).

    Le and Jones chose ‘Shadow Birds’, a poem from my 5 Islands Press collection, The Office of Literary Endeavours, for the Best of Australian Poems 2025 and it was great to see this short poem that I tried to pour so much into, included in the anthology.

    Liddy and Burke selected ‘Knitting’ for The Stony Thursday Book 50th Anniversary Edition. Knitting is a new poem, once again quite short, but a poem I have been working on for well over 5 years. It is wonderful to see it finally emerge into the light of day. I was particular pleased to have been included in this anthology, which is one of Ireland’s longest running literary publications and to be in the company of so many wonderful poets. My only regret was that my trip to Ireland this year did not coincide with the launch!

    Over the next few weeks I look forward to working my way through each of these publications – a great way to start the new year!

     

     

  • Culture Night at Charlie Byrne’s Bookshop Galway

    Linda Adiar and I will be reading a few poems on Friday night (19 September) at Charlie Byrne’s bookshop in Galway as part of 2025 Culture night. We will be reading for 5 minutes each and this will be our last reading in Ireland before returning to Australia. I am particularly exited to be reading at one of my favourite bookshops in the world!

    Culture Night / Oíche Chultúir in Ireland is a national moment, celebrating culture, creativity and the arts and seeks to actively promote the belief that this rich and varied culture is alive, treasured and nurtured in people’s lives, today and every day. It is delivered nationwide in cities, towns, villages and rural locations as well as online and through our media partners. For more information you can go to https://culturenight.ie/

    You can find Charlie Byrne’s at The Cornstore, Middle Street, Galway, H91AH7A https://charliebyrne.ie/

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  • Mark Roberts – The poetry of place, history and memory – Guest editorial, Live Encounters

    I was honoured to be asked to write the guest editorial for the September Issue of Live Encounters. In my editorial I talk about the importance of place in poetry, and in my recent work in particular. Beyond my editorial there is great work in the issue from a plethora of my favourite writers and poets, including: Linda Adair, Mark  Tredinnick, David Rigsbee, Jordan Smith, Brian Kirk, Jane Frank, Hugh McMillan, Terry McDonagh, Angela Costi, Richard W Halperin, Anton Floyd, Phil Lynch, Indran Amirthanayagam,
    Lincoln Jaques, Edward Caruso, Justin Lowe, LaWanda Walters, Stephen House, Amy Barry, Ma Yongbo, Patricia Sykes, Daphne Wilson, Gita Chattopadhyay – translations by Paramita Banerjee & Carolyne Wright and Dr Salwa Gouda.

    Many thanks to editor Mark Ulyseas for the opportunity to contribute my thoughts.

    You can read my editorial on-line https://liveencounters.net/2025-le-pw/mark-roberts-the-poetry-of-place-history-and-memory-guest-editorial/. 

  • Mark Roberts & Linda Adair to read at Poetry Plus, Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary

    I’m excited to be reading work from my latest collection, The Office of Literary Endeavous (5 Islands Press 2025) and Concrete Flamingos (Island Press 2016) along with my wife and co-editor of Rochford Street Review, Linda Adair, in Ireland on Friday 12 September to kick-off a new of Poetry Plus at the Brewery Lane Theatre & Arts Centre, Carrick-on-Suir, Co. Tipperary. This will be a special reading for me as my great grandmother was born just up the road in Mullinahone.

    If you are anywhere in the vicinity on Friday night it would be great to see you there. Seating is limited so you will need to book at https:// www.ticketsource.com/ booking/select/pqeayjldoxqn and admission is only €10.00.

  • 5 Islands Press Reading at Gleebooks: Mark Roberts & Kai Jensen

    I am excited to be reading and discussing poetry with Kai Jensen at Gleebooks this coming Sunday afternoon!

    5 Islands Press is excited to collaborate with Gleebooks in this event featuring Mark Roberts and Kai Jensen, the authors, respectively, of two of our most recent publications, The Office of Literary Endeavours and The Zebra Path of Tree Light. Readings from both of these books will be complemented and enlivened by conversation between the poets about, among other things, where the poems came from and how they came to find their final shape. The event will be introduced by 5 Islands Press Managing Editor, Mark Tredinnick. Why not join us for a drink, nibbles and an entertaining and instructive afternoon?

    This is a free event but registration via Gleebooks events page is essential. Click here to register.

  • ‘Theory of flight for two voices’ longlisted for the 2025 Liquid Amber Poetry Prize

     

    I’m excited to have a new poem ‘Theory of flight for two voices’ longlisted for the 2025 Liquid Amber Poetry Prize. It really is an honour to be listed among the other great poets on the list (https://liquidamberpress.com.au/2025/07/14/2025-poetry-prize-longlist/). My thanks to the judges Willo Drummond, Rose Lucas and Ali Whitelock. I’m really looking forward to reading the anthology which will include all the longlisted poems.

  • The violence of erasure: Les Wicks launches ‘The Office of Literary Endeavours’ by Mark Roberts

    Les Wick’s launch speech for my latest collection, The Office of Literary Endeavours (5 Island Press), is now live on Rochford Street Review. If you couldn’t make it to the launch you can see what he had to say at https://rochfordstreetreview.com/2025/07/09/les-wicks-launches-the-office-of-literary-endeavours-by-mark-roberts/

    “For me, I was struck by the constant violence explored in this collection. What is remarkable is the way Mark with a deft and gentle voice recreates that violence on the page. The way he presents it makes that violence even more tangible. Impossible to disregard. It is physical in the poems shadow birds, how many more are coming and the conscription vote 1916. Economic violence is explored throughout alongside extensively the violence of erasure”.

    The Office of Literary Eneavours by Mark Roberts is available from:

     

     

  • Mark Roberts to read at the first Katoomba Winter Poetry Reading this coming Thursday at the Little Lost Bookshop

    I‘m excited to be involved in setting up a new poetry reading in Katoomba at The Little Lost Bookshop (Hapenny Lane, 181 Katoomba St, Katoomba NSW 2780). I will be kicking off by reading, along with fellow Blue Mountains poet Justin Lowe, at the first Katoomba Winter Poetry Reading at 6.30pm on Thursday 19th June. There will also be an open reading.

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    Both Justin and Mark will be reading from their recently published collections, San Luis, Puncher & Wattmann (Justin) and The Office of Literary Endeavours, Five Islands Press (Mark). Both books will be available to buy on the night.

    Justin Lowe

    Justin Lowe has been writing and publishing poetry for more than thirty years. This, his ninth collection and first with Puncher & Wattmann, is in part inspired by his formative years spent on the Spanish island of Menorca with his artist mother and younger sister. Justin was until recently editor of international poetry blog Bluepepper.

    “Justin Lowe’s San Luis is a collection of veils, partly lifted or shifting in the breeze, providing glimpses of things perhaps not fully apprehended, of questions not answered. In poems that are wistful, nostalgic, remembrances, heartaches, Lowe probes a lifetime of the uncertainties of ‘this crooked little boy / with his warped view of time, / of belonging, / that never got truly mended.” – David Ades

    “Such wide-ranging, strange narratives told with an ear for varied subject matter and formal structures. Tightly controlled, evocative and nuanced. An original and distinctive voice. Powerful and moving. In a word – brilliant.” – Mark O’Flynn

    “Enter Justin Lowe’s San Luis, a lyric psychogeography embodying philosopher Gaston Bachelard’s observation that “inhabited space transcends geometrical space”. From a childhood spent in Spain to a life lived within the vast Australian landscape, Lowe’s poems inhabit temporal, spatial and imaginative realms with a keen, compassionate, finely crafted consciousness. These deeply human poems will find their home in you.” – Michele Seminara

    Mark Roberts

    For much of the last four decades, Mark Roberts has been involved in writing, criticism and publishing. In 1982, he established P76 magazine in with Adam Aitken and has been involved in small press publishing ever since. In 2011 he set up the on-line journal Rochford Street Review with Linda Adair, which has recently published its 41st issue.

    The Office of Literary Endeavours is Mark’s third book, after Stepping out of Line (Rochford Street Press 1986) and Concrete Flamingos, (Island Press 2016).

    “This is a book evidencing a life spent in appreciation of poetry, deep observation and participation in ecologies of many kinds. Discomfort is constant but there is succour and reprieve in kin and creative expression. The Office of Literary Endeavours is a wise and reverential book by a gentle and accomplished poet at a high point of their writing life”. –AMANDA JOY

    “The poetry is carefully crafted and elegant. The subject matter wide ranging and richly brought to life within the forms Roberts has chosen. Reading through this collection has been a privilege and a delight”. –LES WICKS

    “The Office of Literary Endeavours is a witty and insightful collection characterised by its lucidity. The strength of these poems lies in their interrogation of migration and colonisation through poignant familial memories that are never sentimental but always elegiac, with their critique of colonisation and account of Irish dispossession.  A feature  of the collection is  the way  it deftly navigates different moods, so that alongside the poems of migration and colonisation there are also poems about the landscape, the passion of lovers, old friendships, and favourite films. A sharply observant eye unites these poems into a cohesive manuscript of layered emotions and experiences.” –TINA GIANNOUKOS

    “Roberts lends his deft touch to subjects and places both new and old, and specifically to what must always resonate as essential to the human condition–continuously, from pram to old age. In his shared memories, real and invented, ancient and modern, a jam jar or two might be shot for target practice, deadly snakes slung over wire fences, trains might be caught or missed.  Here is subject matter to engage seasoned poetry readers, as well as keen students of Australian literature and cultural history: a lively content able to both re-trace and advance, often simultaneously”. –JOHN JENKINS

    “The Office of Literary Endeavours is an excellent collection of poetry that demonstrates the poet’s range, skill, talent, experience and wisdom, along with his willingness to experiment with form (including lines, stanza structures and the shape of the poem) and to engage with crucial contemporary issues (such as Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationships to country) as well as European culture and history (as demonstrated through the sequence of poems inspired by films). The book is engaging, accessible, insightful, entertaining, witty and, at times, playful”. –NATHANAEL O’REILLY

    If you can’t make it to the reading you can order both books directly from The Little Lost Bookshop.

    There will also be an open mic section at the reading. Spaces will be limited so if you want to read please pre-register by completing the on-line form

  • Reading at AVANT GAGA #74: Poetry Night at Sappho Tuesday 10 June

    I’m looking forward to reading from The Office of Literary Endeavours this coming Tuesday night from 7pm at Sappho Books Cafe & Wine Bar, 51 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe NSW.

    I’ll be reading along with Cornflake Sunset (Luke Beesley), Suneeta Peres da Costa, and Moya Costello, along with the usual open mike. Books will be on sale, but if you can’t make it and want to by a copy of The Office of Literary Endeavours you can order it directly from Rochford Cottage Bookshop by clicking here.

    Further details, along with bios of all the readers, can be found Facebook event page.

  • The Office of Literary Endeavours – Sydney Book Launch

    5 Island Press invites you to the launch of this stunning new poetry collection from Mark Roberts, co-editor of Rochford Street Review and the occasional poetry journal P76.

    The Office of Literary Endeavours with be launched by Les Wicks; Angela Stretch will be your MC.
    Time & Location: 25 May 2025, 3:00 pm – 4:30 pm. Benledi House, 186 Glebe Point Rd, Glebe NSW 2037, Australia.
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    This is a free event but please register to assist with planning and catering  https://www. 5islandspress .com/…/ book-launch-the…/form
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    If you can’t make the launch you can buy the book from https://www.5islandspress.com/…/the-office-of-literary…
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    About The Office of Literary Endeavours
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    “This is a book evidencing a life spent in appreciation of poetry, deep observation and participation in ecologies of many kinds. Discomfort is constant but there is succour and reprieve in kin and creative expression. The Office of Literary Endeavours is a wise and reverential book by a gentle and accomplished poet at a high point of their writing life”.
    ………………………………………………………………–AMANDA JOY
    .
    “The poetry is carefully crafted and elegant. The subject matter wide ranging and richly brought to life within the forms Roberts has chosen. Reading through this collection has been a privilege and a delight”.
    ………………………………………………………………–LES WICKS
    .
    “The Office of Literary Endeavours is a witty and insightful collection characterised by its lucidity. The strength of these poems lies in their interrogation of migration and colonisation through poignant familial memories that are never sentimental but always elegiac, with their critique of colonisation and account of Irish dispossession. A feature of the collection is the way it deftly navigates different moods, so that alongside the poems of migration and colonisation there are also poems about the landscape, the passion of lovers, old friendships, and favourite films. A sharply observant eye unites these poems into a cohesive manuscript of layered emotions and experiences”.
    ………………………………………………………………–TINA GIANNOUKOS
    .
    “Roberts lends his deft touch to subjects and places both new and old, and specifically to what must always resonate as essential to the human condition–continuously, from pram to old age. In his shared memories, real and invented, ancient and modern, a jam jar or two might be shot for target practice, deadly snakes slung over wire fences, trains might be caught or missed. Here is subject matter to engage seasoned poetry readers, as well as keen students of Australian literature and cultural history: a lively content able to both re-trace and advance, often simultaneously”.
    …………………………………………………………………..–JOHN JENKINS
    .
    “The Office of Literary Endeavours is an excellent collection of poetry that demonstrates the poet’s range, skill, talent, experience and wisdom, along with his willingness to experiment with form (including lines, stanza structures and the shape of the poem) and to engage with crucial contemporary issues (such as Indigenous and non-Indigenous relationships to country) as well as European culture and history (as demonstrated through the sequence of poems inspired by films). The book is engaging, accessible, insightful, entertaining, witty and, at times, playful”.
    ………………………………………………………………–NATHANAEL O’REILLY

  • Redundancy

    ‘By Five o’clock’ by Kevin Higgins from The Boy With No Face, Salmon Poetry 2005

     

    Yes. I have been made redundant and today is my last day at a company at which I have spent the last 17 years. They say one door closes and another door opens. As Kevin Higgins once wrote:

    “A universe of time for nothing but writing!”

    Leaving the office this afternoon I will think of Kevin’s poem ‘By Five o’clock’, from his 2005 collection The Boy With No Face (see above). While I suspect I will end up in a better place than Kevin’s character (note: Please contact me for paid writing gigs – reviews, articles commissions etc), Higgins poem is a reminder of the viciousness which lies at the heart of capitalism.

    Anyway – I’m looking forward to reading Kevin’s final collection Life Itself available from Salmon Poetry

    Tomorrow, perhaps, I will share my own redundancy poem…..

     

     

  • Mark Roberts at the Sydney Poet Lounge – 21 May 2025

    I’m excited to be one of the feature poets, along with JR Grogan, at the Sydney Poetry Lounge at the Glebe Hotel ( 63 Bay Street, Glebe, New South Wales) on Wednesday 21 May from 6.30pm. I will be reading from my new collection, The Office of Literary Endeavours (5 Islands Press 2025).

    Details

    Welcome back to the May 2025 chapter of the Sydney Poetry Lounge, featuring poetry from Mark Roberts, JR Grogan and our incredible open mic! Join us upstairs at The Glebe Hotel for a night filled with powerful spoken word performances and heartfelt poetry.$10 entry, $5 concession, tickets available on the door or via Humanitix. The May SPL Facebook Event 

    Mark Roberts

    For much of the last four decades, Mark Roberts has been involved in writing, criticism and publishing. In 1982, he established P76 magazine with Adam Aitken and has been involved in small press publishing ever since. In 2011 he set up the on-line journal Rochford Street Review with his wife, Linda Adair, which has recently published its 41st issue; the Review is one of the leading (and long-lasting) independent cultural journals around. Mark’s work has been widely published in journal and magazines both in Australia and internationally. He has also published three collections – The Office of Literary Endeavours (5 Islands Press 2025) is Mark’s third book, after Stepping out of Line (Rochford Street Press 1986) and Concrete Flamingos, (Island Press 2016).
    .
    JR Grogan
    John Robert Grogan (aka: JR) is an Irish-Australian poet based in Sydney, Australia. His childhood in Ireland and wanderings since, spawned a love and curiosity for the connectivity of the natural world and the human condition. He has poems published in a number of anthologies and online at: The Madrigal, Blue Bottle Journal, Live Encounters Magazine and From Whispers to Roars literary magazine. He is one quarter of the SPL team & sometimes known as ‘the voice of reason’. Find on Instagram: @jr_grogan.

  • Dublin GPO – Easter Poem from ‘The Office of Literary Endeavours’

    Easter means different things to different people. For many it a time for deep religious and spiritual contemplation, for others it represents a holiday and lots of chocolate. For the Irish Catholics on my mother’s side of my family it was a time of great solemnity, not just because of the Christian celebration of the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, but because it was the anniversary of the 1916 Easter Uprising in Ireland.

    In my poem ‘Returns’, which appears in my new collection The Office of Literary Endeavours (5 Islands Press), I write of my return to Ireland, over 150 years after my great grandmother was forced to flee with her family. In the final part of the poem ‘Dublin GPO’ I remember my grandfather. While he never saw Ireland, he grew up with the stories of Irish resistance and the memory of hearing about the Easter Uprising and it’s aftermath stayed with him all his life. Before I read the history of Easter 1916 in books I had already heard his version of events numerous times.

     

    The  Office of Literary Endeavours is available from https://www.5islandspress.com/product-page/the-office-of-literary-endeavours-by-mark-roberts

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  • ‘The Office of Literary Endeavours’ cover reveal

    I’m excited to reveal the cover of my new collection, The Office of Literary Endeavours, which is in the process of being published by 5 Islands Press. Many thanks to Judith Nangala Crispen for the use of her Lumachrome glass print, Blue Wren and for 5 Islands Press for the overall design. Thanks also to Amanda Joy, John Jenkins, Robbie Coburn and Tina Giannoukos who provided endorsements for the cover.

    Stay tuned for presales, publication dates and launch details.

  • Poems on films – Le Quattro Volte: Cordite Issue 92

    I have recently been writing a series of poems about films. The first of these, ‘Poems on films – Weekend – Jean-Luc Godard’ was published in The Tundish Review Issue 9 earlier this year. The second poem to find a home is ‘Poems on films – Le Quattro Volte – Michelangelo Frammartino’. I am particularly please that the editor of Cordite Issue 92, Claire Gaskin, found a place for this poem as the film on which it is based is particularly poetic and beautiful – something which I hope I have captured in this poem.

    http://cordite.org.au/poetry/notheme8/poems-on-films-le-quattro-volte/

     

  • Cuplet #12: Martin Dolan, Kelly Norah Drukker, Mark Roberts & Anne Walsh

    A MONTHLY POETRY EVENT

    Looking forward to jumping in the car on Thursday and heading down the Mountains and then up to Newcastle to read at the monthly Cuplet Readings in Newcastle organised by Claire Albrecht.  It promises to be a great night of poetry and I am excited to be sharing the program with the following amazing poets:

    • MARTIN DOLAN is a Canberra-based poet. His second collection, Peripheral Vision, was published in 2018. His new collection is due for release in 2020. Martin is a PhD candidate in Creative Writing at the University of Canberra. He is a co-convener of That Poetry Thing, a weekly poetry night in Canberra.
    • KELLY NORAH DRUKKER (CANADA) was born in Montreal, and grew up in the Laurentian region of Quebec. Her first collection of poems, Small Fires, published by McGill-Queen’s University Press in 2016, won the A.M. Klein Prize for Poetry, the Concordia University First Book Prize, and was a finalist for the Grand Prix du livre de Montréal. Kelly’s work has received a CBC Literary Award for Poetry (2006), and has appeared in journals in Canada, New Zealand, and Ireland. Petits feux, the French-language translation of Small Fires by Lori Saint-Martin and Paul Gagné, was published by Le lézard amoureux in 2018.
    • ANNE WALSH is a poet and a story writer whose work falls somewhere on the border of those two countries. Born in Philadelphia, she lives in Australia. Her poems have been shortlisted for the ACU Prize in Literature and twice for the Newcastle Poetry Prize. Her work has appeared in Cordite, Mascara, Canberra Times, Verity La, Poem and Dish, FemAsia, Not So Quiet, and her short story, The Rickman Digression, in Glimmer Train Press (U.S.). Her first collection of poems, I Love Like a Drunk Does, was published by Ginninderra Press (Australia, 2009). Her second book of poems, Intact, was published by Flying Islands Books (Australia, 2017).

    Meanwhile I am dusting off a number of my Newcastle poems to read and might even throw in a few new ones.

    Cuplet #12 will take place on Thursday, July 11, 2019 from 7:00 PM  at The Beaumont Hamilton 70 Beaumont Street Hamilton. If you are in the area it would be great to see you!

     

    For further details go to https://www.cupletpoetry.com/events/2019/7/11/cuplet-12

     – Mark Roberts

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  • Poetic Journal: 20 December 2017: ‘Ha’penny Bridge.’

    Day 4 of the journal – I observe the Christmas lights from one of the famous bridges across the Liffy.

     

     

    The Liffy reflects back the Christmas lights
    on Ha’penny Bridge forming an imperfect

    oval. The river is as still as a mirror
    yet the image is distorted slightly

    on the southern side – a grimace
    more than a smile. So perhaps

    the opposite of a Dublin frown
    is not complete happiness.

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  • Poetic Journal: 19 December 2017: ‘‘Easter 1916 – Dublin GPO’’

    Day three of my December/January poetic journal.  On our first full day in Dublin we visited the Dublin GPO.

     

    19 December 2017 ‘Easter 1916 – Dublin GPO’

    Along with the saints
    my grandfather taught me
    the name of the martyrs:

    ……….Patrick Pearse,
    ……….Thomas MacDonagh,
    ……….Thomas Clarke,
    ……….Joseph Plunkett,
    ……….William Pearse,
    ……….Edward Daly,
    ……….Michael O’Hanrahan,
    ……….John MacBride,
    ……….Éamonn Ceannt,
    ……….Michael Mallin,
    ……….Seán Heuston,
    ……….Con Colbert,
    ……….James Connolly
    ……….Sean MacDiarmada.

    He was just about to turn sixteen
    when the uprising took place
    on the other side of the world
    fifty years later he still held that anger.
    He told me that they had to rope Connolly
    to a chair in front of the firing squad
    because his ankle had been shattered
    by a bullet in the GPO.

    My grandfather never saw Ireland
    but today I silently tell him
    there is no union jack
    flying on Dublin GPO.

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    Over the coming few weeks I will be doing a bit of travelling on the other side of the world. I have decided to try and keep a small poetic journal to capture some of my observations and thoughts during this period. The poems aren’t complete or polished, please treat them more as observations or first drafts.

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  • Poetic Journal: 18 December 2017 ‘Yellow Sea Chest’

    Day two of my December/January poetic journal. I still have the sea chest that my great grandmother brought with her to Australia from Ireland in the mid 19th century. As we tried to meet the baggage restrictions for the flight to Dublin I reflected on the luggage restrictions she faced.

     

    Yellow Sea Chest 18/12/17

    A per airline instructions
    we have packed  two bags each
    to travel 30 hours to Ireland.
    We have left behind
    my great grandmother’s
    sea chest which contained
    all her possessions when she travelled
    from Cork to Sydney 150 years ago.
    She had luggage restrictions as well
    one sea chest for everything she wanted to keep
    for her new life away from hunger and the British
    (I have often wondered about the British
    in the colonies but my grandfather said
    it was a different oppression).

    The sea chest has secret compartments
    and pictures from the 1860s vanished onto boards
    the leather straps have rotted away
    and my grandfather painted it yellow
    during the depression
    “a bright colour to cheer things up”.
    I have recently found that the curve top
    meant that it had to be stacked on top
    of the pile of cases in the hold
    and indicated that my great grandmother
    had a little more money than most.

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    Over the coming few weeks I will be doing a bit of travelling on the other side of the world. I have decided to try and keep a small poetic journal to capture some of my observations and thoughts during this period. The poems aren’t complete or polished, please treat them more as observations or first drafts.

     

     

  • Poetic Journal: 17 December 2017 ‘hidden’

    Over the coming few weeks I will be doing a bit of travelling on the other side of the world. I have decided to try and keep a small poetic journal to capture some of my observations and thoughts during this period. The poems aren’t complete or polished, please treat them more as observations or first drafts. The first post is dated 17 December and covers the flight from Australia to Ireland.

     

    hidden

    leaving melbourne
    flying northwest
    across night desert
    below
    …………darkness scattered lights
    above
    …………a richness of stars
    stories are hidden here
    even in daylight
    but at night they call to us
    singing across country
    and reaching into the sky

    …………in this plane
    we eat
    watch a movie
    and try to sleep

    .

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    Poetic Journal: 18 December 2017 ‘Yellow Sea Chest’

     

  • The Disappearing Reappears with my Newcastle poems

    red-roomI went through a literary hibernation for a number of years from the mid 1990s. There was an element of burn out involved, together with the pressures and joy of being involved in bringing up young children. The result being that for many years any writing I did was private and not intended for publication. A few years ago, however, I started thinking of re-engaging with the wider writing community. Around this time I saw a call for submissions from the Red Room Company for the first version of the The Disappearing project and decided to dive back in.

    The Disappearing  was/is an intriguing project. Designed to be linked to place by mobile device or website, the project highlights what is being lost by means through poetry. I had a poem selected for that first Disappearing release. ‘Flood Watch’, which was about a relationship that had long disappeared, as recalled a Newtown that was also fast disappearing. The poem can be found here  http://disappearing.com.au/poem/flood-watch/.

    The Disappearing has now been relaunched with a new website and more poets and poems. Among the bunch of new poems are two of my Newcastle poems which first appeared in the anthology A Slow Combusting Hymn: Poetry From and About the Hunter Region (edited by Jean Kent and Kit Kelen). These poems, which are based on my memory of two photographs taken by my grandfather in the 1950s, can be found at: http://disappearing.com.au/poem/photographs/

    While you are at The Disappearing make sure you have a look around, there are some great poems about place and memory there and they are still looking for contributions.

     

  • ‘Forgetting is So Long’ – Love Poetry by Australian Men

    Forgetting is so Long: An Anthology of Australian Love Poetry edited by Robbie Coburn & Valli Poole. Blank Rune Press 2016

     

    Love is so short, forgetting is so long.
    ………………………… – Pablo Neruda

    forgetting-is-so-long-2

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    When we think of anthologies were generally think of larger books with lots of pages so it was exciting to be asked to contribute to a chapbook anthology of Australian love poems. Some years ago I had some poems in the Inkerman & Blunt Australian Love Poetry anthology. That was a huge, diverse and ultimately uneven anthology (as anthologies of that size tend to be). Forgetting is so Long is the opposite – it is a small, beautifully constructed chapbook and it features love poems by men. When I was submitted my poems to Robbie Coburn I was unaware that the anthology would be purely love poems by men but I have been pleasantly surprised by the result and the company in which my two poems have landed. There is a hint here of a different masculinity, something that deserves to be explored in greater depth.

    Along with my work Forgetting is so Long contains poetry by Ashley Capes, Robbie Coburn, Glenn Cooper, Phillip Hall, Ramon Loyola, Pete Spence, David Ellison, Andy Jackson, Ariel Riveros Pavez, Kenneth Smeaton and Les Wicks. It is available from Collected Works Bookshop in Melbourne or you can contact the publisher for details on how to acquire a copy blankrunepress@gmail.com

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  • ‘perfume’ wins 2016 Dangerously Poetic Byron Writers Festival Poetry Prize

    With Anthony Lawrence (left) at the Dangerously Poetic Byron Writers Festival Poetry Prize presentation. Photograph Linda Adair
    With Anthony Lawrence (left) at the Dangerously Poetic Byron Writers Festival Poetry Prize presentation. Photograph Linda Adair

    Last weekend I had the wonderful experience of attending the three day Byron Bay Writers Festival and, on Saturday night, being awarded the 2016 Dangerously Poetic Byron Writers Festival Poetry Prize for my poem ‘perfume’. In his judge’s report for the prize Anthony Lawrence described ‘perfume’ as:

    ‘perfume’ moves like frames in a sepia-tone, grainy film. Its story suggests intrigue, death, rural myth or local history, in a time of war.

    First and third person points of view combine in clipped, lyrical stanzas to create a miniature novel in which mystery and allusiveness are palpable.

     

    Details of the award, together with the winning poems can be found here http://dangerouslypoetic.com/2016/08/and-the-winners-are-2/ or you can find ‘perfume’ below.

     

    perfume
    ………………………………………………….she heard him
    ………………………………………………….an instant before
    ………………………………………………….the scarf pulled tight
    ………………………………………………….against her throat
    the train to lithgow
    settles into a metal song
    reassurance of steel on steel
    ………………………………………………….her arm swung around smashing
    ………………………………………………….the perfume bottle to the floor
    last night I smelt a ghost
    sweet & alluring
    flowers, orange
    a suggestion of earthiness
    ………………………………………………….wartime
    ………………………………………………….he will be shipped out
    ………………………………………………….before
    ………………………………………………….they find the body
    a ripple of iciness
    flowing up the bed
    my eyes closed
    but awake
    colder now
    than a bathurst winter
    ………………………………………………….left behind in the pub
    ………………………………………………….next to the station
    ………………………………………………….waiting

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  • Concrete Flamingos – Poems by Mark Roberts

     concrete flamingos

    Concrete Flamingos, the first book by Mark Roberts since 1985, will be launched by Anna Couani on Saturday 27 February from 2.30pm  at the Friend in Hand Hotel 58 Cowper St Glebe.

    Lauren Williams’ Clean Skin Poems and David Gilbey’s Pachinko Sunset will also be launched on the same afternoon)

    If you can’t make it to the launch you can order a copy now:

    Credit Card/Paypal $20

    buy

    $20 Cheque/Money Order

    Mail to Mark Roberts, PO Box 5399 Chatswood West NSW 1515
    (make Cheques payable to Mark Roberts)

    or

    Island Press and sent to 29 Park Rd, Woodford NSW 2778 Australia.
    (make Cheques payable to Island Press)

    Mark Roberts was born in Sydney and has been active in the writing community since the early 1980s. He has been widely published in journals, magazines and anthologies both in Australian and overseas. He co-founded the occasional literary journal P76 in 1982 and set up Rochford Street Press in the same year. In 2011 Mark founded he online cultural review journal Rochford Street Review and he is currently poetry editor for Social Alternatives journal. Concrete Flamingos is his first major collection of poetry.
    “Concrete Flamingos is a long-awaited collection of work from a writer who has been a prominent behind-the-scenes presence in the Sydney literary scene for decades. The work has an uncanny familiarity but traverses a wide conceptual and literary territory. Very Sydney, self-consciously writerly and drily witty. The collection includes moving memory pieces from a Sydney childhood alongside conceptual pieces that reference other writers. Whilst embracing international influences like The New York School, Mark Roberts’ work is distinctly authentic and effortlessly political”.
    ………………………………………………………………..– Anna Couani
    “In these ironic contemplative poems, Roberts has examined our literature and assumptions with precision, depth  and delicacy…”
    ………………………………………………………………– Rae Desmond Jones
    “What is our time, our current moment about? Has the near future arrived? Mark Roberts is a poet I would read for a (non)answer. What cannot be said is said. Here is a voice that slips between the ribs, where you want it to, to offer succour for the incommensurable, where no other balm is available but these poems.”
    ……………………………………………………………..– Moya Costello

     

    http://islandpress.tripod.com/ISLAND.htm