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thanks for the invitation.

I'm an 18-year old poet, currently studying first-year Arts at Melbourne
University. I'm still a novice, but thus far my work has appeared in
Thylazine, and is upcoming in Sidewalk, Paper Tiger, and Centoria. As far as
poetics go, I have no idea where I'm going stylistically, and I'm always
keen for some kind of guidance.

Right now I'm trying to get over just how good John Forbes is, and I've been
reading plenty of Gig Ryan's work. To supplement this I read a lot of Auden
and Roethke, plus a lot of Plath, but I'm currently fascinated by Australian
poetry.

cheers..

here are two poems.

Insight

Having no need to learn the escape-route
into fiction I can see by your
kaleidoscope spines, salacious jackets
just what makes a graceful paperback.
The kind of read gives you fixation of
imagination laid a-ways from my reality
of pacing lope and mirror-side findings,
done to a backing of insatiable greed,
say, on my behalf. Patient father, to mother
I looted your charms for the good of my
eyes, and they’re as much a mystery to
me as this first, amazing page – man in
pale shirt confiding in the air of a field.

Trampoline

My cousin, also from the city, we
could jump on all day, the
trampoline eating with soaring absorption
energy in our toes. This was the
drive-in cinema on the edge of a
paddock for us, the air our gentle
headset, toes getting close to farm
ground but bouncy webbing caught
us staring so we barely got a sniff
of the cow action. Just tasted the
strange country flavour fairy-floss
in the natural white of cloud.
With no added preservatives the only
colouring was the plastic wrapping of
blue atmosphere. And you, cousin, you
sent me packing as we vied for
finer gulps of liquid Cirrus – pushed
me off and I flew, blacked out when
first I felt the factory paddock
floor. Concussed, dad was after some
compensation so I pretended I didn’t
know the time or day. There I never knew.




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