Sunday, July 28, 2013



Return to Idyll, Avon Valley

You’d forgotten the dimpled hills, stumped houses, tomahawks cleaved in wood. At the end of journey from Reid Highway to Toodyay Road, a gravel drive drops slightly, dividing homestead from orchard. Wheels rock to a stop and memory returns, old troubadours since past, someone’s seduction. The gardens girdle the lush paddocks on three sides. Cockatoos rise up from the flat of the land, a farmer bends for breath, and wood-smoke rises over boundary and fence beyond the fire's first lick. Artistry and quiet have brought you here; time sprawling as a fox might slink lengthwise across a road. The house is an L-shaped bungalow of twelve rooms, the aesthetics of slow-flame, an old reminder of cottage craft, teddies and lavender. Windows override dining tables warmed with sun. Clouds mesh with treetops overhead and the land runs grazed with sheep and lama. How easy it is to go back to this house in winter, the old clearness of Maple leaves, waiting for ripeness on the trees. A spiny gecko runs the brickwork, lengthening his stride as he goes. Lonely? Hardly, while you settle into rocker, occupy each sunroom. You decide to walk later, knowing the neighbour’s dog will unwind its chain, a herd of Suffolks will rise from their folded legs. Horses might gather close to the fence, wait for a proffered hand. What happens is a pattern, the next day, a visit to the battlement of a bridge, pre-war style, engineered never to cleave. Ten years it’s been since you circled the labyrinth, its pathway of stones. You were meant to be solemn and silent, but you heard nothing. Yet, the same rumbling in the mud harkens, a catchment dam where you drizzled chicken pellets, later plunging marron into boiling pots, coming together and parting the flesh. Soon you settle in with a glass of wine, feed dry timber into a combustion stove. Remember the rude laughter of a drunken past. Did you suffer for your art? You think not! The pantry’s the same. So is the kettle for tea, bookshelves with music and philosophy. Lawrence’s jetty he captured for Tidal Town. Reflections croak in the distance, each afternoon a blueprint of the day before. If you’re lucky a blue wren will veer from a hedge, a lama will raise her long neck close to your deck, reticent to shorten the grass. Butcher birds will ring out the bells in their throats, as you relax back into the deckchair of this idyll, comforted by a transitional sky and the granite hills of the Avon Valley.




Pics (c) Copyright 2013




Saturday, July 27, 2013

Wednesday, July 3, 2013



The Peter Porter Poetry Prize 2014 is now open, with prize money worth a total of $6500. This year we will be accepting online submissions for the first time and we encourage poets to  enter online. Also for the first time this year, we will be accepting international entries.
Click here to enter online.
We will also be accepting hard copy entries using this entry form.
The Peter Porter Poetry Prize is one of Australia’s most lucrative and respected awards for poetry, and guarantees winners wide exposure through publication in ABR.

First prize: $4000

Closing date: 20 November 2013

Bounty

Bounty
Prose Poetry

The Five Lives of Ms Bennett

The Five Lives of Ms Bennett
A Family Saga

The Ozone Cafe

The Ozone Cafe
White Collar Crime

The Last Asbestos Town

The Last Asbestos Town
Available from Amazon

Evangelyne

Evangelyne
Published by Australian Poetry Centre, Melbourne

of Arc & Shadow

of Arc & Shadow
Published by Sunline Press, WA

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MBA (Wrtg) ECowan

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Perth, Western Australia, Australia
Helen Hagemann holds an MA in Writing from Edith Cowan University, has three poetry books: Evangelyne & Other Poems published by Australian Poetry, Melbourne (2009) and of Arc & Shadow published by Sunline Press, Perth (2013). Bounty: prose poetry is published by Oz.one Publishing in 2024. She has three novels published The Last Asbestos Town (2020), The Ozone Café (2021) and The Five Lives of Ms Bennett a result of her Masters degree at ECU (2006), is published by Oz.one Publishing (2023).

Helen Hagemann MBA (Wrtg): ECowan

Helen Hagemann MBA (Wrtg): ECowan
Author & Poet

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