ARTilley 2012

I'm doing an "Artist Residency" for ARTillery.

"'At Arm's Length' is an artistic exploration of one of the world's most pressing issues, arms trade, from a truly Australian perspective - at arm's length. Few of us here can really imagine the terror of living in armed conflict, or fully appreciate the consequences of unregulated arms trade. 12 artists tackle the issue through film, visual art, spoken word, performance, dance and music to uncover why the world needs an Arms Trade Treaty.

The possibility of an international Arms Trade Treaty will be tabled at the United Nations in July. 'At Arm's Length' forms part of hundreds of events around the world campaigning for such a treaty. Learn more about the issues here."

steve austin

channelling better
stronger
faster
we can
rebuild
him
we have
the technology

i dont care

i don’t care
about yr arbitrary badges
of democratic privilege
or the shiny pointy star-shape
on your black issue velcro
puffin up yr uniformed chest
yr armour-plated body suit
or yr sunday bloody sunday best
swaggered at the church of economic risk
you are fucking enormous
with thick batons and guns and riot shields
across borders you stand
alone one foot in each zone

and i don’t care
about yr number or yr status or yr position
or yr income or yr fifo
or yr plasma or yr solar panels
or yr make and model and type and colour and correct sheen
as if you are as important as a blade of grass or grain of rice
or an adultery death squad

i don’t care
because our words are bullets
our anti-military chants at the occupied places
when they’re spraying my brother’s faces
with canisters of police station pepper juice
a kind of spicy food
til we vomit in choreographed unison
a sitting troupe of vociferous subversion
our crazy screaming eyes
and you
you in a khaki burst of red misty pain
yelling move move move
yet we gather in an effort
to disallow the one percentile
to refuse yr capital access
to my open-mindshare
this time
up here
we’re collating names
at the source of the politic, the scent of the pain
we’re lifting long lights on beautiful borders
yr broken face in the bitumen
black boots bolder than my skin
unbroken in dissident cells
scratching the names of the guilty
on concrete – like the number of days
left in this stolen place
until every space is filled

i don’t care
that currency parity is reached again
that red rocks are worth more than ecosystems
that toxic stones are sifted and piled
and weighed and shipped and melted
into yr coins and guns and walls and detention centre cages
as democratic leaders deport those who uphold the rights
of those at risk those who climb trees and fences
and raise fists and spend busted lives
working for change
and my tears are as real as it gets
that subtle spill of salty recognition
that you and I are as close as it gets
in this global scene

i don’t care
that the mantra of the wealth accumulators
spin the spin of the coal seam fracks and uranium cracks
no more toxic than yr constant glare
and actions that keep people in concrete and steel
and razor wire at airports waiting
and I don’t care
I don’t care
I don’t care

performed at
http://www.facebook.com/events/111274048988760/

ARTillery’s Spoken Word night:
Tuesday 6th Dec 2011, 7.30pm
The Bird, William Street, Northbridge
http://artilleryfestival.com/perthevents.html

Medicine - from "PASH CAPSULE"

sugar studio 

turgid - in "PASH CAPSULE"

 sugar studio

hey draft

hey
its not even fucking January
but i smashed out
a million words already
planted them like little trees
in the ferocious dirt
like acacia acumulata
seedlings, hosts for
the sandalwood
deep and little more
than a bootlength apart
in the thick wet strings of mounds
or the depth of scalps
traversing paddock contours
green sticker swathe struttin
walkin on bones
but betting each other
on rhythmic mist
crazy fuck bows
and cocaine double rainbows
not uncommon triple bows
and in moonlit circles
we roll the barest of joints
cigarettes in the last order
for the actual
this is alpha actual
we have lost contact...

carry on
over

occupy
the entire sky
the swirl of new stars
and stupid clouds
and its not the first time
not the first time
i remembered you
your wet flesh on mine
as the rain spelt our names
on rooves, your voice
bouncing across
this impossible suburb
the time we stole
the Christmas carol
banner with our only
anarchist friend
on the way back from
the bottle shop
with the second carton
this time
not emu fucking export
and i thought
thats what you drank
he said
i don’t drink export
never have but

its wet
its fizzy

and full fucking strength
and we discuss pedantica

the new school getting franticer
and franticer...

metaphrastic tendencies - DRAFTING

metaphrastic tendencies
just woken up in a broken country 
no new hope for those 
without the funding
without the freedom
the paper nation 
fearing a twisted invasion 
locked up at the gatepost
those on busted boats are shunted

and pardon my metaphrastic tendencies
I'm dragging my knuckles 
on the concrete trees
the neon beer-stains
the lime-flavoured holdens
the fuck off we're full mentality 
- the spasticity 
of these cites
these rural cuntscapes 
under bonnets 
seeking solace in the suspension
the detention of children 
is barely an offence to them

scuse my metaphrastic tendencies
according to the idiotic 
mediocracy, the bent 
and busted idolatry 
of cheap authentic
chinese things

and digital
residuals

we eat pills 
and pills 
and pills 
and flourescent
corporate vegetables
and special special beers 
that taste like beer 
that look like beer 
but scanty chicks 
in shiny skin
deliver these

in packs
amusingly

Performance poets announced for Fremantle Poets 3 - FREMANTLE PRESS

8th July 2011 - Fremantle Press Poetry Publisher Georgia Richter announced the writers selected for Fremantle Poets 3: Performance Poets today.

Eleven Western Australian performance poets have been chosen for the collection which will be published in Fremantle Poetry Month in July 2012. They are: Allan Boyd (aka the antipoet), Jeremy Balius, Liana Joy Christensen, Gabrielle Everall, Amber Fresh, Afeif Ismail, Janet Jackson, Sam Knee (aka Byron Bard), Dosh Luckwell, Kaitlyn Plyley and John Charles Ryan.

Richter said the poets selected showed the range of voices and styles in Western Australia.

“These poets give a sense of the diverse talent, variety and vigour of our performance poetry scene,” said Richter.

Guest editor and performance poet Scott-Patrick Mitchell said he believed Fremantle Poets 3 was something West Australians would be intrigued by.

Article here:  http://www.fremantlepress.com.au/news/229

over city

these brittle
endless
tree-bent streets
rubber to go
on lygon, on brunswick
are overloaded nozzles
bleed basic enamel ink
neon lambs to pita
to spray gutters
in suspicion red,
a white-lined black
and pine mulch
in stencil inversion
our tram evasion
speaks to
bitumen
whispers
at 3am
we
drift
in
merlots

two new pieces - me and maitland - needs edit

Land cries out in pain shedding tears of blood for the young and old slain

Bones litter the ground like leaves

Channelling each others panic we are,

Wrecked on sweet jesus rhymes, pages on pages

Undone like shoes we stroll in jealous packs

Sounds of gunshots and screams embedded in the earth

Moans of the dying live on in the wind through the trees

she’s telling stories through the trunk

seven sisters bleeding bark

 train station crime

These you don’t hear, these you don’t feel

For they were not taught you in books and school

These wasted tales, unburnt here in this avenue

Those bitumen classics, knees scabbed up

All in lines and lines

Passed on down from mouth to mouth

Old to young

From our land to our soul

We know they are true

Our spinal journeys told in comas

This cellular memory failure

For we are one with the land

We feel what it feels

And remember what it remembers

Twitching muscle jumps spasmodically, rhythmically

Like a finger plucking a double bass

Yr nails in that space again

Where the sky enters my body

Pulling my head back, i’m arching

You can’t control your life

Well to a degree you can

But a lot depends on luck, chance, fate, the will of the gods

In the floodlit sun, goddess

We soak in each other’s skin

Each naked twist n turn thick and turgid

Tall, languid long-limbed

Slips into the room

Graceful arm raises, hand lifts

One long slender finger sensually unfurls

And points

Inside you now its clear

Yr lips at my neck

I’m back in yesterday

I’m at the brink here

I’m brinking brinking

Where do we stand with each other

What do we expect

What do we want

What are we prepared to give

Rhythm up-tempo and silky

Husky sensual sexual rasp keeps the atmosphere alive

Music stroking the vibes

Like a lover caressing your arm

Thigh...

You won’t let me in

this is to intense you say

Opening the door

My fingers slide in

Suddenly it slams

Locking me out

All yr skills spent on me

Wanting me to be in that place

That afternoon moanspace

As if we ever needed anybody else

Nails scrape FLESH

SENDING SHIVERS UP AND DoWN MY SPINE

TONGUE FLICKs OUT TASTING SALTY SWEAT

HARD SoFT BODIES ENTWINE

TRYING, WANTING, BECOMING

ONE

And now I’m not the only thing in this room

In this dark light, under yr expression

It rains

I STAND ALONE

NURSING MY PAIN

CONFUSED

antipoet v enforcer may 28 perth poetry club

www.perthpoetryclub.com

RACK CARD POEMS

FRONT: click to enlarge BACK: Click to enlarge
Working on a series of Rack Card sized poems. Just ordered 50 of these...

(just noticed the spelling error...)

move move move

standing at these fabricated
concrete mindsets
taking set shots at the blue bloc
behind the helmets
behind the shields
behind the barriers

they stand with tiny tears
at the corners of their eyes
and realise that
despite the tang of salt
this is good overtime
this is the real deal
where the weeks
of riot training kicks in
with these ferals to hit
these shitty dissidents
these subversives at their boots
shouting azadi azadi

and at the blue bloc six
in the military cages
is the danger
to something
something
something

and inside uniforms
that must keep us safe
from something - something

under the metallic numbers
protecting the citizens
from the breakouts
of these evil refugees

not for a moment
realising
that these people
yes people
with stories
that none of the likes of us
would ever understand
tales from boats
and children leaping from jetties
in pacific sunlight into crystal waters
with those that have little less than
the freedom to move
to move move move

except that inside
the serco profit machines
this is your mother
at the fences
this is your sister
at the razor wire
this is your brother
at the steel gates
of democracy
your children's faces
cut with vehement hypocrisy

and the next swill of that vegan beer
makes you you feel so much better

determined to make the first move
this is the freedom to move move move
this is the freedom to move move move

so patiently waiting in queues at airports
clustered in military camps in deserts

and all they seem to do is shout at cameras
repetitive slogans over and over
chanting
stop the boats
stop the boats
stop the boats

and all they want to do is
keep my brothers and sisters
in cages, at long arms law length
no dictionary to plead cases
no blood on these faces
as the blue bloc chant
move move move
and we can
we can move move move
we have the freedom to move move move

look at me run run run at the cyclones
my body bending the wire
look at two of us
our bodies pushing at the wire
look at three and four of us
pushing at the wire
a battering ram of solidarity
five ten twenty of us
pushing at the wire
fifty a hundred and more now
crushing the fences to the ground
as they belt us with batons
as we scramble in the thin sand
a mandate of sweat and bruises

and what they do to those detained
they will also do to you

back at xmas the blue bloc
taking shots
at desperate men in cages
shooting fish in barrels
with shotguns
loaded with nice little bean-bags of justice
lead shot rounds in bags
for those that complain
with their voices, their bodies
their sanity

and this is our country,
and some say they should have used real bullets
i say should they shoot your mother, motherfucker?

they shoot roos don't they
they shoot roos that can't move
without the freedom to move

at easter at the periphery
here's to the brave
and to those inside
lets tear at these fences
at the mental defences
its time to stand up fist raised
and relentlessly
like jesus in the temple
kicking tables of money
to the ground
these fences
this steel barrier
and kill this vile policy
that denies the persecuted
the right, the freedom
to move move move

azadi

performed 8 April 2011 at Freedom to Move - a RRAN fundraiser for converge2011.net

DIGITAL POETRY - An Introduction

DIGITAL POETRY

What is it?

Simply put, Digital Poetry fuses text with technology; combines words with computers; marries poets with machines, to create new works. Digital Poetry is also referred to as e-poetry, electronic poetry or cyber poetry.

Perhaps we could argue that in its most basic definition, any poetry or literature created using a computer program such as Word (or indeed any word processing device) could be considered as "Digital or Electronic Poetry" - as opposed to works created using a pen and paper, chalk and footpath, spraypaint and walls, typewriters and/or any other basic analogue device. When we create words from a keyboard to a computer screen we are by definition, creating "digital" works.

Indeed, since the advent of computers in our daily lives, we create literary works mainly using a word program to compose the bulk of our work.

However, the genre of Digital Poetry is much more than this.

Like concrete poetry, performance poetry and sound poetry, Digital Poetry does stuff to words - poems move beyond simple static words on a printed page, transforming the art of poetry into a visceral, tactile experience.

• For example: Roderick Coover's Voyage Into the Unknown

Digital Poetry embraces the technology of our current and past computer ages - redefining poetry into a 21st Century artform. Embracing readily-available, relatively user-friendly software Digital Poets can bring words to life - in many examples, letters dance playfully across the screen to create a new meanings, words appear and disappear, colours and images become significant - semiotics blur, with sign merging with signifier and signified.

In Digital Poetry textural expression is larger than simply the meanings below the surface - this is the poetry of design. The experience is beyond the static surface.

Sounds are also frequently used, elevating poetic consumption from merely "reading" the words on a page into a aural, musical, sonic experience - synthesising word-forms and allowing poets to engage in different ways with their traditional audiences of the printed word. Video and imagery can fuse with written and spoken words on and off the screen.

A Definition

Christopher Funkhouser in his essay, Digital Poetry: A Look at Generative, Visual, and Interconnected Possibilities in its First Four Decades - (cited in A Companion to Digital Literary Studies, ed. Susan Schreibman and Ray Siemens. Oxford: Blackwell, 2008.) defines Digital Poetry as

"a new genre of literary, visual, and sonic art launched by poets who experimented with computers in the late 1950s. Digital poetry is not a singular "form" but rather a conglomeration of forms that now constitutes a genre even though the creative activity itself — in terms of its media, methods, and expressive intent —contains heterogeneous components."Digital poetry is an evolving process... where Poets explore a variety of computerized techniques, from interactive installations to randomized and visual attributes... Labels such as "e-poetry," "cyberpoetry," and "computer poetry" have been used to describe creative work in this area... Digital poetry is a genre that fuses crafted language with new media technology... A poem is a digital poem if computer programming or processes (software, etc.) are distinctively used in the composition, generation, or presentation of the text (or combinations of texts)..."

Further, Funkhouser breaks down the genre into: Computer poems; Graphical poems; Hypertext and hypermedia.

Computer poems: Poets use programs to create databases, codes and instructions to manipulate content - poetry is generated using algorithms and displayed as a sequences of words etc, dependent on the programmed code. Funkhouser: "Computer poems challenge and invite the reader to participate imaginatively in the construction of the text; some mock the conventions of poetry, and others reify them.."

Graphical poems: Graphical poems use computer programs to incorporate the visual elements of poetry. Words, letters and images are manipulated. The the look and feel, style etc of the poem's graphical content is the main goal... As Funkhouser puts it: "poems, by design, move and change before the viewer's eyes"

Hypertext and hypermedia: Poets create clickable text with words and images as hyperlinks. A click of a word can take the audience on a new path, whether random or deliberate. Narrative becomes organic as the reader chooses to click through into new text, pages or other media.

• http://digitalhumanities.org/companion/view?docId=blackwell/9781405148641/9781405148641.xml&chunk.id=ss1-5-11&toc.depth=1&toc.id=ss1-5-11&brand=9781405148641_brand

---------------

Social Media

With the rise of Social media in our lives - eg: blogs, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, YouTube etc digital poetry is taking on new forms.

Collaborations across time and space on the internet allow us to expand the definition of Digital Poetry even further. Poets can collaborate, share poetry and information about new works using these networks.

• Blog Poetry: Here is a recent collaboration between myself and David Vincent Smith: http://apdvs.blogspot.com/
• An example of Twitter Poetry: http://twitter.com/twitterpoetry
• A Facebook poetry group: http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=2416793140
• Google "digital poetry on youtube" to see many examples of digital poetry as video.

Some examples of Digital Poetry

The 40th Poetry International Festival in Rotterdam, in June 2009, included a programme dedicated to digital poetry. The digital works of the Bits of Poetry programme: Digital Poetry Laboratory.

• Browse the many examples here: http://media.poetryinternational.org/bop/indexx.html

Another Definition of Digital - or Electronic Poetry

The Electronic Literature Organisation (ELO) which publishes works by digital writers recognises that "Literature today not only migrates from print to electronic media; increasingly, “born digital” works are created explicitly for the networked computer…"

There are many example of the genre at their website. The ELO define Electronic Literature as referring to:

"works with important literary aspects that take advantage of the capabilities and contexts provided by the stand-alone or networked computer. Within the broad category of electronic literature are several forms and threads of practice, some of which are:

• Hypertext fiction and poetry, on and off the Web
• Kinetic poetry presented in Flash and using other platforms
• Computer art installations which ask viewers to read them or otherwise have literary aspects
• Conversational characters, also known as chatterbots
• Interactive fiction
• Novels that take the form of emails, SMS messages, or blogs
• Poems and stories that are generated by computers, either interactively or based on parameters given at the beginning
• Collaborative writing projects that allow readers to contribute to the text of a work
• Literary performances online that develop new ways of writing"

See: http://www.eliterature.org/about

Concrete Poetry

In Concrete Poetry typographical arrangement of words is as important ore more so than conventional elements like semiotics rhythm, rhyme, metre etc. Often referred to as visual poetry, a term that has evolved to have distinct meaning of its own, but which shares the distinction of being poetry in which the visual elements are as important as the text. Often the pattern of the letters on the page illustrate the meaning of the poem.

Poems take on the shape of the object of the poem eg:

Image of "Easter Wings", published in 1633 by George Herbert. The poem was printed across two pages - so that the lines suggest two birds flying upward, with wings spread out:
SOURCE: The Noroton Anthology of Poetry, 4th edition, edited by Margaret Ferguson, et al., p 331, New York: W.W. Norton & Company (1996)

In this sense, Concrete Poetry is "designed" in that the words and letters, the shape of the poem becomes important, in much the same way that Digital Poetry embraces the visual aspect of the poetry.

---------------

• For more examples of Digital Poetry, see also the Study Guide document attached to this weeks lecture: 2008_CWNM_MA_E-Poetry_bibliography

moon faced

but while i have your attention
i thought i should quickly
mention that
there are thousands of
mums and dads
and children
hidden in boxes
on islands, in floodplains
and deserts, in suburbs
and cyclone towns
and asio
is taking liberties
thieving realities

in curtin they're rhyming
every other word with hurt
and waiting waiting waiting

yet on plasmas the shorts
cannot get much shorter
low-cut tops much lower
than the required standard
not that i mind really
admiring the curves
and idiosyncratic structures
of the female form
i do dig this
but why
does it have to be so biscuit-cutter norm
these shiny skinned girls
make-up guns set to whore
in this 3 minute narrative

i gotta say though

thanks heaps mate
for the introduction
but i'm just mutton
just mutton braised like cotton
trained in 27 types of military
communications
busted and broken
as if this were a battle
yet all here in seats are unrattled
unlike me here
standing, sitting
will be forgotten
as if libya is a monument
to satisfaction
lookin for a simple solution
a paypal button
to stop me feelin like
xmas island is an illusion
it isn't
its a thousand people
waiting waiting waiting

yet again here
under the moon light
in the sexy couches
in the misfit chairs
at the plastic tables
the sound of traffic
the saturday flavours
a retro remedy

and i
just spurt a few more fucked-up
werds at the 2 til 4 coffee
that crema makin you squirm n shift listlessly
never the semiotic remnant shells
of these nicotine-rushed words
just the chemicals of verbs
the organic slur

yeah but man
I know you all been seein bands n shit
on the schoolnights
sneakin out
gettin riffs
and hair ideas
cooler than some kinda jesus-faced
bohemia

right now i could
not have packed this pipe
any thicker
the beer cannot
seem to run out
like pandas
in streets without eyes
or an egypt minus
dictators, comedy of syria
and in palestinian tunnels
diggin deeper than nato buses

verges without edges
makin me feel
vertiginous
prodiguous
not some weekend genius
maybe a little curious
never acting on impulse

that up til then these rage moments
cured and cooked and broken
like perfect concrete strutures
waiting for heritage listing
in cages without customs
they seek gaps in fences
waiting waiting waiting

and now I'll shutup
and sit down
and sip on something
and forget
what I just
said

-

performed at
Perth Poetry Club
2nd April 2011

sometimes

under these stars
next to you
yr shoulder at my hip
i must have been yr tongue
the violent salt of yr lips
then my fingers impossibly deep
as time stops beyond logic
or science, and we chase history
before it happens, my stubble
scratching each thigh
each shaven monument to us
and we bleed each others blood
again, this time higher
than the last time

medicine

i forget these days of hard
hot reds, tasting you
then rolling thin sticks of wet tarmac splashes
and the velvet cumin seed rushes
or a bitter toast of us in the coastal soak
now we're building holes in each others breath
tight-walkin branches of body-parts
each limb lithe and taut, flexed in the sunlight sweat
our turgid secrets spent, thrust deep
and in the glass city of blisters
we've lost count of the times
we've fucked
each other
up

REVIEW - meet me at gethsemane - by Paul Harrison

Here's a quick look at my friend Paul's book:

Hey, I'm privileged.

Having heard Paul Harrison read his dark, witty and iconic poetry at slams, poetry-gigs, backyards, loungerooms and car-parks around Perth over the last few years (as well as over the phone, in txt messages and backseats of cars) - its almost impossible not to hear his rich voice, the thick Irish cadence - as I consume this collection of his poetry.

Published by Coral Carter's gutsy - and very new - little Western Australian publishing venture: Mulla Mulla Press, meet me at gethsemane is a collection of over 30 poems, some previously appearing in various zines and online publications.

Its difficult at times to remember that this is Harrison's first book. The poems spill down the page with inherent readability. His economical, reflective phrasing, the deliberate poetic intention, the bold lack of pretension is honest. Brutal. Powerful.

These poems are complex nuggets of simple language - all presented in lower-case text, no punctuation - just clever use of white-space and enjambment to carry an image, an emotion, a reflection.

Each poem stands alone, in solid skeletal punch, yet somehow marries the next, and the next and the next one - perhaps conjoined in the bitter taste that permeates the book's 68 pages.

There is gutteral sadness here - and drinking - lots of drunken pain. There is violence, sex and truth - all told in ordinary prose. As in love one another:

...me and her
sometime in the early hours
had our usual
psycho-sexual brawl
and so
before any more windows or lamps
got broken
i jumped in the car
and fucked of for more
rear-ending some prick
stopped on green...

Short sharp bony bursts of well-crafted punch. Harrison shares hard tales of mental asylum inhabitants, too-many cigarettes smoked, raw emotions spat, drugs and regret and self-reflexive anger.

The way he writes is the way he speaks. This is not avant garde, process-driven, experimental wankery - Paul's well-written narrative carries each piece, allowing us to fully realise each moment shared.

This is the poetry of isolation and despair. This collection finds little hope in the human condition, and certainly no love for the malicious capitalist culture we share. Peppered throughout though, there is a wicked, dark humour and a gift for subtle description. And whilst the darkness flows within these pages, there is fragility and even a hidden beauty amongst this work.

Get it.

Its ten bucks from Mulla Mulla Press:
http://www.mullamullapress.com/books

middle city format - too stubborn to die

thick summer sheets ride this middle-city tonight, beside churches sit tall crooked letters, those fat drops hit alsynite in smacks, i'm breathing deerfoofed. this cape-lilac wall. some sprayed easterly in gusts - our southern-tinted words, they state in typical command: dont change. a thing.

speed smokin up king william, colonel light street-walk rush, its 4.57 for a 5pm show, tuxedo cat at yr 2. manic 3rd floor stomp, seeking coopers without a rider, brow gleaming in stage light, in this deconstuctionist sweat, words drip. seven minutes in. time. stops. still.

slump. foothill city monuments, another overcast bitumen transition, at gate 14, we're lugging carry-on heavy-eye, brittle rundle omelettes, spinach-feta narratives, wincing in aviator gold - yesterday's pale green tales, almost masking that inner-suburban toxic hydrocity, skinned-up in thin joints. before the cab. before boarding.

back on western edges. in scorch. on driveway sunset, almost tangible thunderheads to the east, sheets of distant lightning. yet breathing is hard in this city now, a thick hot inhale, of tarmac and carpark heat-sink. we're stille pale green froth, seeking reasons not to live. here.

DRAFTadelaide stone

in adelaide 9am
february shadows
in the accom his
rapid fire bacon spits
as coffee textures grip tongues
we talk, we demand attention
we stress past, seek neoligisms
in hash-brown salt narratives
a yellow food bonanza
without a beefy grin
we're slicing each others' pink flesh
as the heat pulls hard thick sheets, thin streets
in toorak gardens, no birdsings
besides doves coo coo
and if we were iggy pop we'd have
hands in pants before breakfast
but we're not
we're in this town
this town, with beached corners
and bleached hill rationality
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