Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all my friends, followers, readers, sneak peekers! More poetry to arrive in 2012. I am currently working on an e-book for you to read about my sojourn & writer's residency in Ireland (produced by ISSUU). The e-book will contain poetry, photography and art. Stay tuned! Recently we found a stray kitten (only 5 weeks old) and...

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Poem for the Day - My Tao Name

My Tao Name    What do you think of my name, Joyous Lake,  I asked my daughter over the phone,  when I had finished deleting   another sex site on my Twitter account.  A loud burst of laughter followed. It  descended down the line, over the waterfowl  paddling the lilies and into the rivers beyond.  Further still from the poems I had created with the  Chinese I-Ching, an ancient...

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Poem for the Day - Fireworks

  Fireworks They slumber in their corners, In soft light, till the wind lifts Till a first spark propels them away. Into the new century or year They rise half blown, exploding sombreros, Wide-brimmed hats, ribbons of colour. Fireworks, caught in the moment, Pulled into voluminous splays Of fire, handwriting the night. Adorned by the...

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Poem for the Day - Repainting the Scream

Repainting the Scream How pretty fine it is to be born under a blue sky.  To watch garden roses unfolding  their 'double delight'. The ones  crimping out their pink skirts,  giggling in the wind ─   their cream undies showing.  How terrible, then, an expression on a face,  standing on a bridge, swirl of dark...

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The Attitude of Cups, MPU Anthology - Out now!

This is the front cover of the latest anthology from the Melbourne Poets Union of poetry about tea, wine & coffee (however, I'm still waiting for the book to be listed in bookstores for real cover). Nevertheless it's a beautifully presented work by many well known Melbourne poets, and I'm proud to have a poem in there called "Left Over Wine". Here's part of the poem...

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Saturday Poetry Workshops at the Grove (Cottesloe) for 2012

Saturday Poetry Workshops were successful at the Grove Library in 2011 and OOTA will again offer this after-hours course in 2012. Tutor, yours truly, Helen Hagemann. It will consist of fortnightly Saturday Poetry Workshops for casual participants. Each Workshop will introduce contemporary poetry for those poets wanting to write contemporary poetry. Participation in the Workshops will cover the study of poems, discussion and several writing exercises....

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My Irish Pics, Annaghmakerrig & Dublin

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Poem for the Day - Her Blue Dress (artwork by Janice Mason Steeves, Canada)

Her Blue Dress                       for Janice You will want to knowthe seasonhow a gown can slip itself over nose and cheekand be visible from arthow Emily Dickinson stood by a window pressing her pink hipsthrough a passage of timelifting a blue taffeta dressover...

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Cartoon for the Day - I Love this Irish One!

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Three Poems in Eureka Street!

Three poems published today in Eureka Street. Must be the luck of Ireland still on my shoulders. Thank you Mr. Tyrone Guthrie for bequeathing your house to artists. What a wonderful place it was, the people more so. I now have lots of Irish friends and others too, from all over the world! The Tyrone Guthrie Centre You can read the poems at Eureka Street Poems are also...

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Helen is Back from the Land of the Leprechauns!

The Return of Saturday Poetry & A Possible Hands-Up Count This is a hands-up count to those of you who are interested in attending Term 1 of the fortnightly Saturday Poetry class at the Grove Library in 2012. The library is once again very supportive of OOTA and is requesting a confirmation from me regarding the booking. (Apparently the Flax room is in high demand for 2012!). It would be great to secure our original space – that lovely quiet...

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Poem for the Day - Bull's-Eye (revised at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Ireland)

Bull’s-eye The whole house turned wild took a deep breath with the noise of it like snapped wood It was before the dartboard before father fixed a flywire door before anyone thought of a startled death My young brother too sick of dying from archaic flow of arrows from Robin Hood’s deathly yowl from behind the staghorn wall where a graceful thrust of sword pinched him to the floor took the sharpest tool from the shed and with a garrulous burst...

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Poem for the Day - Camping (revised at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Newbliss, Ireland)

Camping We pack after Christmas, a band of pilgrims heading out on the open road. This is the best time of year when nights are full of stars and clouds have slung their guy-ropes across another town. Cruising Walpole, trees cast their long shadows like mesh across insects and streams. We explore pioneer camps, axe handles in old markings, phantom footprints of an agreeable time. We have the night sky all to ourselves. It warms us like saplings...

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Poem for the Day - Kewpie Doll (revised at Annaghmakerrig, Ireland)

Kewpie Doll             And nothing that moves on land or sea            Will seem so beautiful to me – Equestrienne, Rachel Field Little doll, carried home from carnivalé, rustles her Giselle skirt in the wind. She is as old as Ray Lawler's Summer of the 17th Doll. Her faded lipstick pouts an "O" as the mouths of girls, words forming seduction...

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Pics from Ireland, at Annaghmakerrig, Carrickmacross & Ballybay

I just love the names of these northern Irish towns. e.g Cootehill, Clones, Rockcorry. I'm in thick pastoral country, a rich green canopy of trees, cows and emerald fields. The roads are like winding narrow pathways. Suddenly you come into a town, like a time-warp, Irish architecture as solid as its stonework frontage. Immemorial, its land and its culture dating back...

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Video poem for the Day - Wild in the Dry Grass

Wild in the Dry Grass by Helen Hagemann from H2 Design on Vimeo. This poem also runs at the end of the video (best viewed small) Wild in the Dry Grass in wide brim hats they rise from the crest of earth  meet discreetly cousins in white coats like lovers man & woman the soil, a container  to look briefly into as if they had eyes as if they had lips to share under umbrella or table before the blue heat of day curls...

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Melbourne Poets Union 'The Attitude of Cups' launch at Collected Works

Melbourne Poets Union's anthology The Attitude of Cups (about tea, wine & coffee) will be launched at Collected Works on Saturday, 15th November. Left Over Wine is a poem first published by Walter Ruhlmann in English/French @ mgversion2>datura and will be in the publication. I'm absolutely pleased to be in the book with such notable poets as: Ron Pretty, Jennifer...

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Poem for the Day - On Entering the Strands of Trees

On Entering the Strands of Trees from evangelyne on Vimeo. On Entering the Strands of Trees You walk towards a landscaped field which raises your heart level. You leave behind bad news, broken geraniums. The park is freshly mown and the winter so green it's no longer a rogue patch of kindling and leaves, February heat, and you’re avoiding the mobile phone while listening to Natalie Merchant. The grass trees are damsons twitching amongst...

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Heading to Annaghmakerrig too in September!

Anuna : Whispers of Paradise from Anuna on Vimeo. Michael McGlynn produced this video of his time at The Tyrone Guthrie Centre, Annaghmakerrig, Newbliss, Ireland. I'm hoping to film the same lake, grounds & also the house soon in September. Magic! You can find out about Michael on his websi...

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Poem for the Day - Odd Blocks by Kay Ryan

Odd Blocks by Kay Ryan Every Swiss-village calendar instructs as to how stone gathers the landscape around it, how glacier-scattered thousand-ton monuments to randomness become fixed points in finding home. Order is always starting over. And why not also in the self, the odd blocks, all lost and left, become first facts toward which later a little town looks back? From "The Best of It" by Kay Ryan. A good poet to read for her quirkiness,...

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Poem for the Day - First Burn by Tracy Ryan

First Burn by Tracy Ryan All day she has pitched dry grass, Hardyesque, perched on the stack, helping to raze the block in a race against shire deadlines: fire risk. Only her colours are wrong — curls a stark hedge in English autumn, young fragile skin dead-of-winter white. But she will work to feel she's useful, wanting to fit in, all my cautions thrown to the easterly, hot from the desert. I've done all I can — this is the point,...

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Poem for the Day - Some Ordinary Flower

Some Ordinary Flower If the body could float, of course you might ride motionless on the breeze, skydive aerial arms slowly down this ravine feel the fuzzled damp of foam lightly touch rock some ordinary flo...

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Clip of the Day - A Wild Experience

Copyright - All Rights Reserved (c) 2011. "Music by Simone Hageman...

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Poem for the Day - Between Wheat Fields : a cinquain

Between wheat fields river, rich, belly-up, dunks a wild duck at noon, and tree shadows dissipate the dive ri...

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Poem for the Day - A Perfect Perch : a cinquain

A Perfect Perch July with faint, bush sounds like leaves crisping below, a heron sits in winter's sun seduce...

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Two Poems published in French/English in mg2_68: Indian Ocean Voices

Just published by mgversion2 at ISSUU, Calaméo and Lulu.com. You can purchase mgv2_68: Indian Ocean Voices @ LULU There are photographs and an article on Western Australia by moi. Page 103. Here's the beginnings of "Paperbark Owl & No-Ghost Mountain" in French - ooh la la, mais oui, merci beaucoup to Walter Ruhlmann. La chouette du paperbark - Paperbark Owl Ta vision n'est qu'un ciel du soir cramoisi après une journée de sommeil dans...

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Par écrit: poetry of the feminine - e-book by Helen Hagemann

Open publication - Free publishing - More from Evangel...

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Latest Westerly Journal 56.1 out now!

This issue is officially announced on Westerly's website. The cover is impressive - once again - so is the list of contributors. I find myself published alongside so many "ladies", poets I know, have met or been on poetry webs with. Congrats to Annamaria, Caitlin, Renee and Janet! Check out the latest journal here...

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Poem for the Day - from the Mawson Poems

The Aurora A Summer Visit to Caroline Cove December 1911 Caroline Cove, and away from the strong westerly’s, the Aurora anchored its length and breadth in a plateau-like interior. In a channel no more than eighty yards wide, Captain Davis knew what to focus on. He was a man who knew the reefs from earlier days. Although anchorage quickly changes identity, we...

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Clip of the Day: Russian Newsreader in Fits of Laughter

Acknowledgement: A big thank you to Carol Novak of Madhatter's Review http://www.madhattersreview.com/ http://carolnovack.blogspot.c...

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Australian Poetry Library

Australian Poetry Library A great resource for poets, students, teachers. Needs filling in some. http://www.poetrylibrary.edu.au/ Poetry Library Acknowledgement: Thanks to Andrew Burke at High Spir...

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Helen Hagemann's new e-book "The Joyous Lake"

Open publication - Free publishing at ISSUU - More Australian You can view my new e-book at http://members.iinet.net.au/~helen.hagemann and also at http://issuu.com/evangelyne/docs/par_ecrit/ ...

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Poem for the Day - Good Wine is a Familiar Creature

Good Wine is a Familiar Creature                    When the sun goes down we meet                   for an evening meal. We bring three bottles of wine, one champagne              their depth soon to be released    ...

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Poem for the Day - a haiku

at the Perth airport a comfortable-trouser family a row of tracky dacks Acknowledgements to Joanna Preston for her prompt on "comfortable trousers". http://jopre.wordpress.com...

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Happy Mother's Day to all those mothers in control!

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Poem for the Day - The Ship inside the Cavern

      A glimpse of the Aurora from within the cavern in the wall of the shelf-ice of the Mertz Glacier Tongue, Commonwealth Bay, Adelie Land, Australasian Antarctic Expedition, December 1913. Photo by Frank Hurley. The Ship inside the Cavern The Aurora is caught in a clamped iced year, an amphitheatre of walls, a large...

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Poetic Graphic for the Day

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Poem for the Day - Penguins in Frost

Penguins in Frost Ice cased Adelie penguins  after a blizzard at Cape Denison photo by Frank Hurley, National Library of Australia. White glossed, unbearably chilled these penguins are piqued in glare nothing moves except shadows the music of the ice as it drips on fur and face. The north wind sings, unbuttons their coats. Their statuesque flippers defrost as...

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Poem for the Day - Bon Voyage

Bon Voyage The day we buried grandma the day of five funerals a day when fun hid itself behind the trees with the bees yes, that day of dark cloud, mounds and rounds of soft grey earth I wanted to say to the lowering, to the box in the ground to the white lilies going down Where Gran? Where to n...

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Poetic Graphic for the Day

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Poem for the Day - The Green Wall

The Green Wall From my window I see a green wall. A quiet space with only the sounds of shoes passing by. In Sendai, one thousand two hundred people have lost their shoes. They float by windows like tiny boats sailing on a splintered sea. In the time I've been visiting this grove I've never noticed the green wall never known the faces of the shoes passing by. I've never known so many people losing their shoes in one day's drowning holocaust....

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Poem for the Day - Sand Dunes

Sand Dunes Close to the ocean lying on a slope we hugged towels into sand. At the back, in the holiday house we rented, my mother distributed fairy bread. A tiny pebbled meal. On the beach, we ran green with salt and spray. Half way up the dunes under a sackful of clouds we bombed our candied mouths into the dune’s caress. Three kids stomping to the tune of the grand old Duke of York marched to the top of the hill. We were neither up, nor...

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Poetic Graphic for the Day - Poetry Slam

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Poem for the Day - The Monroes

The Monroes Back in the 50s I grew up with the Monroes. There were so many children in the family you lost count. I remember Billy, the eldest, Bobby, Jane and Susy, then there were two sets of twins. Later, more babies, a boy, a girl, another girl as in Cheaper by the Dozen. Most of all, I remember Rex, and their bare feet swinging on the front gate. How different they were in glamour to the buxom lady in Some Like it Hot. They didn't own shoes....

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Ways to the Metaphor

Back in 2010, I conducted a workshop called "Ways to the Metaphor". I used a model by Patrick Lane, a Canadian Poet, (partner to Lorna Crozier). The Metaphor Model by Patrick Lane You want you to compare each member of your family. If you have five brothers and sisters of course that is too many, but make a choice & stick to your smaller family of mother, father and at least two siblings. eg. My oldest brother is a wasp, cleaning his body...

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Metaphors!

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Poem for the Day - One Size Fits All

One Size Fits All You know when you bring your garment home it isn't going to fit. It fits your youngest daughter of which you have one. You take it back to the store. Ask for a blouse, extra large. They have one, in grey. You want to write to China. Tell them your measurements, that you have never bathed in the Yangtze, worked in the paddy fields or owned a ricksh...

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W.S. Merwin, US Poet Laureate 2010-2011

Friday, January 21, 2011(Acknowledgement - from Ron Silliman's Blog) A conversation with W.S. Merwin with David Lynn & David Baker of the Kenyon ReviewThe House and the Garden: The Emergence of a DreamLabels: W.S. Merwin Link - ...

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