continual commentary on infinity

a lot of hits on the blog yesterday. possibly more individual visitors than any other day. i know the reasons – i posted twice, but, also linked up to two other websites that probably experience reasonable traffic (both incoming & outgoing links). i won’t link these sites again (you can scroll down & observe what they are if you like) because it’s been making me consider what it is to write for an audience, & how i do tend to check the blog stats every time i get on here. does it matter if 5 people read a post or 100? actually the character of the reader matters. if i wanted to increase traffic to this blog, i’d say the best way to do it would be to endlessly comment & leave my trace in all the right places. but i’m only really interested in the person who’s going to return because they like the character of the place. it’s a vague sentiment that parallels an acquital category i invented for the nsw government this year; i claimed that i intend to report on the numbers of people who return to more than one artistic event during the year. it’s something i really have no hope of following through on (don’t tell anyone in ministry) but nevertheless, something i still like to think of as apt.

i have to throw in another link, but it isn’t to boost traffic! check out the site of one Dr. Robyn J.A. Silverman. she offers advice on powerful parenting. strangely enough one of my posts from a long time ago was randomly linked to her post of today. it’s funny the way the net connect us up in the cloud. but then again, it’s awfully human. i link up with ‘like-minded people’ (not people with the same psychological obsessions; generally people with similar cultural facades), but i also randomly link up with people i have little in common with. sometimes that’s the pure enjoyment of it. in the words of today’s mobilised youth: ‘that’s so random!’ i imagine this common phrase – when shared between two youths of a short-acquaintance-span – is often followed up by the unspoken suggestion of ‘let’s be friends!’

i left a comment for dr. robyn. i expect she & i shall become friends. i will read her for hints on how to control my children, powerfully. she will of course read my blog avidly, noting with joy every minor up & down of my textual life.

 

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i know when you click the links

one of my poems is up on graham nunn’s blog as part of his Guided by Poets venture. this one originated in Queensland, & it’s interesting to see the chain stretch right down to the bottom of Victoria so quickly. makes me wonder how far around the world such a project would go if it were let run indefinitely…

also (i may have said this before, but) go over & check out the overland blog. there’s some ineteresting discussion going on. i’m a sporadic contributor, & really should try to post something thought provoking soon (my latest comment’s only purpose being to talk up my cool wordpress profile image).

 

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prized

great to see tim wright’s poem ‘emoticon’ awarded first prize in the overland judith wright prize for emerging poets. congratulations tim.

many friends in the awards this year too.

i didn’t even get around to entering this thing last year, despite it being one of the most relevant things i could enter. i mean, aren’t i one of those also  ‘participating in a poetic community/coterie/culture which, while definitely still a ‘minor literature’, manages to circulate across media and place‘?  (keri said that)

i must be less lazy. well, only in certain pursuits.

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gallery reading

David Gilbey: reading poems at the Brett Whiteley Studio this Sunday, March 22nd, 2-4pm.

If you’re in Sydney why not go along?

the count

x.

Generational touch If stanzas

or imperial measurements flare up

remembered as iced cake, always

“initials” affirmed into fake people,

their arms, their flit & swagger. m-mm.

y.

& then walking straight past the shallow

confrontation with your predecessor.

Divisive use of “you”. let’s be

giraffes straining at leaves, unconscious

of teens looking for a role model. Me.

z.

formal constraints as names of poems &

i’m quartered in a hospice, naming trees, then

coffee without sugar, triptych of beach settings.

she’s always breathing on you. They’re

temporarily confounded.

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re: view

my review of michael farrell’s a raiders guide is now up in foam:e 6. to be sure, there are also many poems in the issue, & also an interview with laurie duggan. by all means read those things too.

also in this foam:e is a review of mtc cronin’s Our life is a box. / Prayers without a God. reminds me how good this book is, & worth a revisit today.

 

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derek motion painter decorator

booted tradesman skulking in our bathroom blurt

a similar unique noise / everyone going down the street

mincing / mincing / some conspiracies just more paragon

 

(than others) can i do this ken would say / while doing it

shoving the incidentals up in threes / cockamamie / never

so easy / sun afloat atop abreast naked limbs & a lens

 

intentness odd in others so it shuffles a deck / your heart

see-through on that tandem bike ride & with relief:

a squelched homily of plasma / finding people’s hairs

 

i’d have to sort out memories of maidens & trysts plus

whatnots / magical woodpecker diaries / (where it a

box-factory) i’m only going to fuck with the telephone

 

a cross pollination / dashes em or en / residual couldn’t care

lesses / the perverted idea treated carefully / intellectual techno /

wait three / there here’s a thaw then / anew

another canberra bar / josh pyke

the sveltefringe meanders a surd sort

of alike the similitude paralysed evening

venting its clagginess: we could heart

mistletoe beneath this splurge of you:

aching unguent swift in the vomiting

left bodyspatials, support desertion

friends with frayed bandaid bladders

two looks & potentiality in singsong

elsewheresex, half & half farce

crises or dirt, mythic, pulse:

the setlist display mingling

giggles at lastly hearing ears

bland boys for saturn, we’re

ex-pacifists in time, we’ll

elope & swing gossamer

180s, violin like.