Author: Jennifer Liston

Here is an excerpt from a poem that will probably be included in my third collection:

Note to him/self

You’ve seeped through every living cell
you’ve made my bones your home.
Your presence shades my past uncertainties…

…What do you think?

…so I’d better get writing!

I was thrilled to do two poetry readings in Galway last week: one at the Roisin Dubh (4th November) and one at the Crane bar (9th November).

Both were well attended, and it was great to share the podium with such talented local poets, and with Canberra’s own Tobias Manderson-Galvin, who is Munster Slam Champion 2009.

Many thanks to Kevin Higgins of Over the Edge, Laurie Leech and John Walsh for organising speaking slots for me at short notice.

Much appreciated…and I’ll definitely be back mid-next year to do another few readings. Perhaps even a book launch…

…in dreams I see
a wise old man
draw our lives in sand: they meet
our old, vibrant spirits
dance
close
to another dimension’s beat…

The Hon. Michael Atkinson, MP, Attorney-General and Minister for Multicultural Affairs, launched my second poetry collection in the SA Writers’ Centre, Adelaide today.

Entitled 17 poems: one for every year of innocence, it is published by White Wave Press and is available for purchase here.

Each edition includes an audio/mp3 CD of me reading the 17 poems. The CD also contains bonus readings of two poems from my first collection, Exposure (2003).

Only 150 imprints of 17 poems: one for every year of innocence have been created.

Go here now and buy a book or several.

The anthology Poems in Perspex, Max Harris Poetry Award 2007, was launched at the SA Writers’ Centre on Thursday 6 November 2008.

One of my poems, Egg, was featured in the collection, which is available from Lythrum Press.

Here it is.

Egg

I take an almond-brown egg from the fridge.
Hello, egg.
Into almost-boiling water you go.
There you are, bobbing and twisting.
No use trying to escape.
Off what free range did you spring?
I’m told not to put you all in one basket.
You, potential sunny-side-up-runny-yoked half-life.
What chicken will you not become?
Your chocolate siblings dispersed at easter
by commercially cute button-nosed bunnies.
All the eggs in my womb basket
already broken,
devoured,
disgorged.
What boy or girl did they not become?
No sickly Hallmark verses marked that occasion.
An almond-brown man I know ate a raw egg daily.
He’s 80.
Egg, your time is up.

&copy Jennifer Liston 2008

I entered three poems in the Max Harris Poetry Award 2007 but didn’t feature in the winners’ circle.

I’ve just received an email from the Poetry and Poetics Centre Committee, however, and the good people there have told me that they selected my poem, Egg, for inclusion in the Max Harris Poetry Award anthology.

Apparently the anthology will be published soon.

Of course, I’m absolutely delighted; this was quite unexpected.

When I have it, I’ll post a link to the anthology.

…at last.

I’m thrilled to report that White Wave Press has published my second poetry collection. It’s called 17 poems: one for every year of innocence, and it’s available now.

Only 150 imprints of the collection have been created. Each one is numbered individually.

What makes this collection particularly special is that each edition is mailed with a bonus audio CD of me reading the poems.

Think of it as having me as a guest in your lounge room, car, or wherever you happen to be listening.

Sounds scary, doesn’t it?

But I’m quite nice really.

Honest.

“Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

— Carl Jung

“We become what we think about.”

— Earl Nightingale

A poem that I’m playing around with at the moment could look like this:

thatcriticdetonatedatom-bomb-likewarhead-wordsandemerging-confidence-seekingmissilesonmyself-beliefandnuclear-mushroomedsecretsexposedwiththeabolitionofexclamation-markslaverymywordstreamflowshereunadornedunashameduncluttered.

&copy Jennifer Liston 2006

or it could look like this:

that critic
detonated
atom-bomb-like
warhead-words
and emerging-confidence-seeking missiles
on my self-belief
and nuclear-mushroomed
secrets
exposed

with the abolition
of exclamation-mark
slavery
my wordstream
flows
here
unadorned
unashamed uncluttered.

&copy Jennifer Liston 2006

I’m not sure which one I prefer (if any).

What do you think?