October 2008 ~ Helen Hagemann

Sunday, October 26, 2008

Poem for the Day

Ode to the Post(wom)anIt is always the postman delivering news,outstretching arms to that most noticeablepoint - letterbox at land's edge. Friend andlifelong reminder of correspondences. And althoughthose dreaded bills equate to the missing zero at the bank,there's harmony in a house with gas, light globes glowing dust.Little envelopes and packages move forwardlike gifts: birthday parcels, a postcard from Turkey,stamps to re-cycle if they've missed...

Helen Hagemann's Poetics - The Female Voice

Problems for WomenWhen it comes to our writing tradition, it has relatively only been, (& referring to Virginia Woolf 's A Room of One's Own), a matter of eighty years since women have been allowed a sense of equality as writers. We are allowed into university libraries, we no longer hold back in relation to our female psyche. We have established the objectivism of the female through political correctness, and no subject matter is diminished...

Poem for the Day

Masks My daughter carries her life in a suitcase. Life would be cosier, for her - if she never left home. Today she returns like a tryst softening her edges. Perth is home. It will bathe her in stars, & by day, her skin will be treated to sun. Her heels will feel the pacy city grown, more cars, more trains, but no trams dividing roads. Not that she didn't like Melbourne. No! Melbs was cool, trendy, more nightclubs & bands. But the men, oh the...

The Western & Sydney Rock Oysters

Pacific & Indian Ocean OystersAround Australia there are basically three common oysters available. The most popular being the Sydney rock oyster which grows on the eastern seaboard in temperate waters. They are low in cholesterol and high in omega-3, calcium, iron and zinc. The fun is really in the prising, gathering and eating these delicious shellfish. All my life, I have fished from the many bays, inlets & now islands of my home in the...

Australian Book Review

Australian Book Review, October 2008City of LiteratureThe United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has named Melbourne as its second City of Literature, Edinburgh became the first in 2004. The Victorian government announced the bid in late 2006 and committed $9 million in the 2007-2008 budget to support the Melbourne Writers' Festival and establish the Centre for Books and Ideas at the State Library of Victoria. The...