The Sonnet: A Moment Built in Words

Here is a sonnet, Corteo D’Amore,  by award winning Canberra poet, Suzanne Edgar, that appeared in Panorama, Saturday, 10 Mar 2012, The Canberra Times.

The poem was written to accompany the picture in the National Gallery.

This sonnet is married to the picture.

It could not exist without it, yet the picture comes to life because of it.

………………………………………………..

Suzanne Edgar’s book The Painted Lady is available @
the bookshop of the National Library of Aust and the
Paperchain Bookstore 34 Franklin St Manuka ACT.

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Motherlode Launch

 

Motherlode: Australian Women’s Poetry, 1986 – 2008 edited by Jennifer Harrison & Kate Waterhouse will be launched @ Daltons Books 54 Marcus Clarke St Canberra City on Saturday 12th September, 2.30pm.

 

Motherlode can also be ordered from publisher Puncher & Wattmann   #mce_temp_url#

Anthologies by nature must have a great many voices trying at times to out shout one another or combine in a mesmerizing chorus. I haven’t managed to get my hands on Motherlode yet… but here is a poem from Motherlode by Jane Gibian. This poem could be loaded, ambiguous. Is this domestic bliss or captivity, love or resentment? Writers will, of course, read their own lives into the poem. Writing steals time. Writing steals you away from your lover. The writing (not the writer) can be resented and this resentment appears in the writing.

 

 

As I write
 
My mother told me always
keep your own bank account —
I called it my running away
account — I can’t stand
his footsteps in the house
as I work; I have to walk
out into the fields where
ghosts from the goldmine shafts
hover amongst the weeds —
back then I was stronger;
with my first I went into labour
on the mountain slope,
and finished rounding up
the cattle — but he’s very good,
gets his own breakfast
and all — yet sometimes
I can’t breathe when his
thoughts drift through me
as I write —

 

 

 

Sydney poet Jane Gibian’s work offers emotional depth free of pretension or affectation, dry humour, a quick and sharp wit, and an equally sharp and poised eye for detail. You can find more of her poems @ #mce_temp_url#

PIc Matildashiela Photostream: #mce_temp_url#

 

 

 

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Given

Melinda Smith’s poems cut to the bone. In this poem, Given, few words span a great black canyon in the soul. Yet this poem shimmers with hope and also sighs a promise.

 

Christmas is in the air.
You are given into my hands
out of the quietest, loneliest lands.
My trembling is all my prayer.

“Five Days Old” – Francis Webb

Given

Poolside baby showers
herald the summer pregnancies.
Sweat caresses swollen knees;
mothers tally labour hours;
giftwrap is everywhere.
Christmas is in the air.

But by the time you come
first frost has been and gone.
A long walk brings you on.
I howl ten hours, a dumb
animal shocked at pain’s demands.
You are given into my hands:

all downy with the smell
of love, my warm wise frog.
Then: eight months of the black dog.
I crawl back from cold hell
that no one understands
out of the quietest, loneliest lands.

Now you seem newly-made
or is it me, new-born?
Chill fog melts in the dawn
and now I am afraid
of how much I can care.
My trembling is all my prayer.

by Melinda Smith

 

Melinda Smith is a widely published ACT poet. Her poems have appeared in Quadrant and The Canberra Times. ‘Given’ won the 2006 David Campbell Prize for best unpublished poem by an ACT poet. It was also shortlisted for the Rosemary Dobson Prize for best unpublished poem by an Australian poet. It was later published in Swings and Roundabouts (anthology by Random House NZ, May 2008). Lines from ‘Five Days Old’ quoted by permission from HarperCollins. You can read more of Melinda’s poems on her  mull and fiddle blog: #mce_temp_url#

 

The pic comes from Shuttermeister photo stream #mce_temp_url#. This eerily empty photo reflects the early mood of the poem.

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