australian public intellectual network. now there's a concept.

writing is really the only art where you have to work entirely with found objects. sound and image are things in themselves; a colour can be made that has never been made before. but unless you are James Joyce and a master of neologism, you are stuck with worn and polished words used a billion times before. and like any found-object artist, sometimes you come across something so nice you must use it: like Elizabeth Bishop's "man-moth" . and on a more mundane scale, I just looked up wire fencing because I realised "chain-link" wasn't what I meant, and found "woven wire", which has those Ws that visually reproduce the pattern of the fence: WWWW
WWWW

short fuse poetry compilation

I was going to make another blog for the sandbox; for experimenting and strange thoughts. but all the good names are gone, and this is what bluebug was going to be in the first place, I think: a combination of a writing and information blog.

I woke up early this morning; nothing unusual about that. but today, instead of trying to sleep, I followed the thoughts that bounced around my head, making me feel as fragmented as the Women of Avignon



I thought about deadlines and limited time: the first, the chance that I might die at rather short notice. The second, the pressures of life with a baby and until yesterday, a part-time job. I thought about what it means to give up your day job to study and write. I thought what the hell am I doing?

Things may get weird in the sandbox. Let's play.

poetry australia

poetry organisations page, including bluedog - though I think it's at Melbourne uni now.

have started a list of mags and comps that ignore writers. it goes like this so far, where "nada" is that they just have not got back to me after 3+ months. at least it will help narrow down where I send stuff...


MAGS:

Space - nada

Linq – nada

Hecate – nada

Westerly: uses admin person to write replies

quadrant - nada

Woorilla: just useless at communication

COMPS:


papyrus publishing: put commendation on site but didn’t notify or respond to my emails.

Henry Savery Award – no notification.

current project: sending anything at all that is possibly worth sending out before Christmas. it's very motivating, having nothing sitting here ready to go. most of the better ones are out, so now it's a matter of choosing my markets for the rest of it. and facing reality with the stuff that just doesn't work...

famous reporter guidelines