Back so soon? – well, the fact is I held a couple of items back in my post the other day. It seemed to me that I’d already hit you with too many words, and I hold the view that, in this didgy world, the ‘too much’ limit is reached sooner rather than later. So I cut it short.
Anyway, here follow the items I held back the other day.
After years of struggle, the talented and tenacious Terry Whitebeach and Gina Mercer have finally seen The Sky Falls Down: An Anthology of Loss through to publication, with the admirable Ginninderra Press. I’m in it. Well, I would be – loss has been my life’s signature. Some of it is too raw, even now, to write about. You’ll be surprised to learn what particular loss I chose to write about. It’s in an essay with a Latin title, but I hope that won’t put you off. And I don’t just mean my own essay. This is a book that deserves your support. To that end, for those who are old school, here’s a downloadable order form. Alternatively, you can order it directly from Ginninderra Press.
And the other credit I neglected to mention the other day is a floor talk I’m giving at the Queen Vic in Launceston, mere days before Anna and I fly to Greece. 11am on June 1, should you find yourself at a loose end in Lonnie on that auspicious date. I’m on the gallery floor with Jane Giblin, the wonderful artist with whom I collaborated in her Furneaux Group project, I Shed My Skin. In the islands I embarked on a manic period of concentrated writing, and I enjoyed it immensely – this is really Jane’s project, though. Call me the hired help. Anyway, we’ll be talking about the collab, and I’ll speak specifically of my writing (a mix of prose and poems). Here’s a sample.
Dead Wombat
Driving north, the Palana road,
and here’s ursinus ursinus, dead.
Little more than a baby.
Where I expect an eye there is nothing.
A corvid’s juicy tidbit.
At the tight-furred head
are gravelly scrabblings of birds’ feet.
A mother lies somewhere in a pool of grief.
And I mourn. Dark. Useless.