dumbfoundry

'I was, quite literally, on the verge of tears leaving the bar after that reading. I realized that over the years, I had been denying myself not only the information that would have made my writing career easier to manage, but the ability to express gratitude to those whose work was written, if even in part, for those like me.'

Michael Farrell has just posted some comments on a couple of my poems on the Jacket2 site. He points out that some recent poems, such as these two, 'Leaving It To the Sky', from Dark Bright Doors, and 'Misinterpretations/ or the Dark Grey Outline', recently published in Overland, are, in his words, more 'aggressive' and 'rawer, rougher, more "live" '.

I hadn't thought of the newer poems in those terms, exactly. And another reviewer has pointed out the 'violence' in some of my work, overall. But it's apparent that Michael has noticed a newer mode in my work, that there are things 'up with which I will not put' any longer. A new assertiveness, rather than the previous assertiveness (which is there, if you look). He says: "It's a broader, more assertive platform for Jones's brand of projective verse, and one that bodes well for a midcareer future."

Parts of the poem, 'Misinterpretations ...' certainly were written out of a frustration with some not-well-thought-through ways critics were taking with my work, that, for instance, what I've been recently writing was a form of comfortable ecopoetic with some fancy philosophic or metaphysical flourishes. Living inside and out on the planet, where you are, and writing it, isn't easy, and it involves some thinking and some emotion - gee whiz, how hard is that to divine? But I'm not interested in being obscure, amorphous, or hermetic (though when did that become a negative?) - then, language is never straight forward (and, hey, isn't that kinda PomeWritin 101?).

There are other digitally based literary works, of course, such as hypertext novels, electronic literature and flarf poetry. But these are experiments in the modernist and postmodernist vein. They feel familiar, even if they look strange.

Poetry evening was held in March - the second one this year and the last one before AWG left. Once again the collection of poems was diverse - but each poem revealed a little about the reader - such is the nature of poetry. Chris spoke about coffee being like his mate (...who must be dark skinned as he likes his coffee black - or perhaps she’s just steamy hot?), Vicky chose the humorous aspect and wrote a limerick for everyone (remarkable similarity to a Friday base meeting - all very humorous), Little Al read about 'what it feels like to feel artificial breasts,' (no comment), and Frin read two poems - one about chocolate cake (hmmmmm - the best food in the world, ...can I marry you...) and the other about a vicar with rather long fingers... And that’s just a few of the many read. With Tilley lamps lighting the building and the skeleton of wood that outlines all the rooms casting shadows over the poetry readers who clutched at cups of mulled ale, it was an evening to be remembered by all.

What’s surprising is the format of the events they run. Change the names from Om Swastyastu and Djenar Maesa Ayu to Twm Morys and Robert Minhinnick and this could be Bay Lit or the Dylan Thomas festival in Wales. How to write folktales. Journalism and Creative writing workshops at the local library. Turn your blog into a book. Words in motion – lose yourself in a lust for language. Storytelling: the secret society of the dragon protectors. Latin rhythms – sip on margaritas, graze on tapas, listen to Latin American words. The sun may be different here but what’s under it remains much the same.

This focus from the editor indicates that this year's anthology won't just be the sameold sameold. A look at the list of contributors also indicates that the spread of poets offers more of the newer and more innovative writers on the scene, as well as a number of anthology regulars. The anthology also picks up on work that has either been published overseas or was fresh but unpublished, an organisational model that can give a sense of what is happening now in a broader, more realistic, sense. The other, now defunct, annual anthology issued by UQP [University of Queensland Press] for a number of years modelled itself on the US Best American series which only took poems published in journals for the year in question. This meant that the UQP book would always miss work that did not appear in Australian literary journals. In the 21st century when publishing models have changed and online international venues are often where the more interesting work is being featured plus the focus of many Australian-based poets being not so parochial, this was starting to look very old school.