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Redundancy

9 May

‘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…..

 

 

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Mark Roberts at the Sydney Poet Lounge – 21 May 2025

7 May

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).
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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.

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

18 Apr

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

21 Mar

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

21 Sep

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/

 

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

9 Jul

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.’

24 Dec

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’’

21 Dec

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’

20 Dec

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.

 

 

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Poetic Journal: 17 December 2017 ‘hidden’

19 Dec

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’

 

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