Now is the Winter of our Discontent

Seeing as I haven't posted any of my poetry in a while, I thought I should share something I've been working on. I think the last two stanzas still need a bit of work. I received some great feedback from a friend at the South Coast Writers Centre, Adam Carr, about perhaps dropping the 'is' in both the last stanzas. As Adam said, with so little syllables it seems a waste to have 'is' in there. Fellow Fellowship of Australian Writers', Southern Highlands chapter, Greg Tome, also gave me some wonderful feedback. Greg liked the suprise of 'squeezing size 8 legs' and found 'the can of bull' a cold contrast to 'dark, warm and melty'. Thank you to both Adam and Greg for their encouragement and advise on this poem. I wonder what others think? I am stuck on 'voluptuous bosoms', I think that sounds a bit cliche, but it is the kind of image that I want to finish with, a woman who is older, more confident, and comfortable in her body, to the point that she can again enjoy the foods that she did as a younger child without the guilt that society places on women to look a certain way.

Dessert First

"now 'really' is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by cheesecake and fork" @PresumptuousBug.

I

Finger sucking cream,

saliva giggles over

mother’s hand.

II

Freckles stain your lips,

rainbow on your tongue, in your

hands dark, melty, warm.

III

Squeezing size 8 legs

chocolate cake is turned away,

for a can of bull.

IV

Now cake is ordered

first, for glorious laughter

and voluptuous

bosoms.

8th of June Cafe Poet Residency

Another productive day at Gilbert's yesterday. I wrote a draft ekphrastic poem for an upcoming exhibition at the University of Wollongong Creative Arts Faculty gallery. I won't post the poem, just in case it is good enough to be published as part of the exhibition. But, let me share with you how I went about responding to Gela Samsonidse's artwork. He begins his art works with words and through his work explores the aesthetics of the word, rubbing the words back out. The piece that I have responded to is a charcoal and graphite rendering. I have tried to draw the words, emotions and concepts back out of his image, commenting on the sound of the words and how that relates to the meaning those words hold.

I also, had two people come in to workshop their poetry with me yesterday which was lovely. It was very enjoyable talking with some fellow writers, Berlio and her husband Ron, as well as Gregory Tome.

Yesterday I read a selection of Libby Hathorn's poetry from Talks with my Sakteboard (these can be found on a great blog 'An Australian Poem a Day'). This selection is written for children and is a great read. She uses rhyme and draws upon the everyday life of a school student to craft something, or multiple somethings, that is witty, clever and fun.

Finally, I began writing a poem on the theme of 'The Winter of our Discontent' for the second UOW literary Society Zine. I began by doing a twitter search of this quote and I rate the top tweet as: "now 'really' is the winter of our discontent made glorious summer by cheesecake and fork" by @PresumptuousBug.