Monday 24 November 2008

6th 6x6 Exhibition


The sixth annual art shindig. It's easy to
remember: 6pm, 6th Dec, 6th year, 6 works each
by 6 artists.

cheryl scowen

nick powell
suzi krawczyk
jen saunders
andrea lofthouse
kaye johnston

Where?
Cambewarra Hall, Cambewarra (Shoalhaven)

This is a heap of fun. I been every year so far. Mostly I buy something. Red dots everywhere.

Saturday 22 November 2008

Exile and Place

I have been a subscriber to American Poetry Review, I'm astonished to discover, almost as long as it's been around. For some of that time, when it arrived I'd remind myself, that I only bought it for the articles. But not recently.

The current issue (v37 no6) has poems by Mahmoud Darwish (trs by Fady Joudah) and an article called 'The Architecture of Loneliness' by Kazim Ali which are worth a look.

Ali's thoughts on exile are framed by a meditation of the cathedral inside the Great Mosque of Cordoba. Or rather the mosque with the cathedal inside.


Speaking about Darwish: "…if a place is to be made into metaphor, the wanderer has a shot of keeping his home alive and in his pocket" he compares this with the experience of Cristina Peri Rossi, Mehmedinovic and Yannis Ritsos. And asks: What is important - the place or the exile from the place?

When in the Great Mosque:
...I haven't uttered prayers in years but neither have I ever decided I wasn’t a Muslim There in that space, where prayer is expressly forbidden, I – who am myself in a certain fashion forbidden – found myself in the most curious position: it wasn't that that I should pray, obligated by my faith, but in that place, vexed and altered, was perhaps the only place I could …That vexed place, the once-mosque now very stridently Not-a-mosque for me became the only possible mosque, and exile in a structure of loss and loneliness, [like] a Jew at the remaining wall, the site of my very faith an interrupted, displaced, transposed place.
As he says elsewhere: Exile is a condition of the heart.

And later
No one knows a country like those exiled from it, and no one knows god like those expelled from paradise. …the primary condition of a person excluded from history or paradise is loneliness. it is not loneliness for the country or god left behind, because the very fact of exile convinced you that it was never yours to begin with. Rather one realises a deeper loneliness, profound, that lives in the heart of the human and cannot be succoured.

Friday 21 November 2008

Michelle McGrane's Peony Moon Blog


Came across this nice blog via Facebook. It's worth a look - and not only for the fabulous amount of useful links in the blogroll. There are poems and short pieces on other writers - news etc. Try it, you might like it.

Tuesday 18 November 2008

Chatoyant

You've got to love Michael Quinion's World Wide Words:

Chatoyant /S@'tOI@nt/
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Having a changeable, varying lustre or colour.

No two dictionaries seem to entirely agree on the current meaning
of the word. Some mention only the bright lustre of a gem caused by
reflections from within the stone, because the word now most often
appears in discussions by gemologists; other dictionaries include
the sheen of a bird's plumage or the changing colours and texture
of a material such as silk.

All agree, however, that the source of the expression is the gleam
of a cat's eyes in the dark. The direct source is the eighteenth-
century French verb "chatoyer", to shine like a cat's eyes. Its
French connections remain strong enough that it is still sometimes
said as though it were French (roughly "cha-twai-yan").

Many examples in English literature refer to shining eyes, as in
The Insidious Dr Fu-Manchu, by Sax Rohmer, of 1913: "I managed to
move sufficiently to see at the top, as I fired up the stairs, the
yellow face of Dr. Fu-Manchu, to see the gleaming, chatoyant eyes,
greenly terrible, as they sought to pierce the gloom."

Tuesday 11 November 2008

Exhibition


From the pen of Ken Bolton:

If you've been attending the Lee Marvin Readings - or even meaning to - you may be interested in the exhibition Mentor/Mentored #4. It features four artists: Viv Miller, Tim Sterling, Louise Haselton, & Ken Bolton. That last is me.

I'm exhibiting a series of illustrated poems (& some filmed footage of reading) - plus work in collaboration with painter Viv Miller: some poems written to her specifications & a work of mine that she began illustrating 'blind', not having seen the text.

OPENING NIGHT
Friday November 14, from 6 PM

CACSA, 14 Porter St Parkside
Opens 6 PM November 14th & runs thru till December 19th.
11 AM to 5 PM, Tuesday thru Friday, & Weekends 1 - 5 PM


This would be very interesting if you are Adelaide. Or even if you're not in Adelaide. But you could GO if you were in Adelaide.

Sunday 2 November 2008

North of the latte line: Launch, Carolyn Fisher's 'The Unsuspecting Sky'

North of the latte line: Launch, Carolyn Fisher's 'The Unsuspecting Sky'

A well-deserved award to Di Bates



Good news! Di Bates, the much acclaimed children's writer from the 'Gong who is also a great champion of writing for children, has been given Lady Cutler Award.

The Lady Cutler Award has been presented annually since 1981 for distinguished service to children’s literature. It is sponsored by Hachette Livre & hosted by the Children’s Book Council of NSW.