September 2011 ~ Helen Hagemann

Thursday, September 22, 2011

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 in their heads.
She has lost her wand, her diamond ring
but not her good luck charm.

At the windowpane she raises her suppliant wings
and reaching for the stars
taps her ballet shoes against glass.
Fairy wings dispersing dust, as if she is back there

circling the Ringmaster’s voice
body upside down, pointing toes in the air
         - a girl in pink on a milk-white horse
           cantering over a sawdust course.

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 to the Late Stone Age. No big shopping complexes here, just traditional shop fronts, with pubs along the street, just a few paces with your feet and you have a bar, then another bar, and a bar & grocery shop!

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 them into the soft crest

from which they came
---

Music: The Queen by Taylor Hayward. Listen to Hayward's piano renditions
@ http://taylorhayward.org/

This is one of many and new collaborations of photography, poetry and music, self-produced. Pics downloaded firstly from a Sony Cybershot HX9V digital point & shoot, then uploaded to Windows Movie Maker, and finally transferred toVimeo - early days!

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 Harrison, Kevin Brophy, Alex Skovron, Mike Ladd, Ivy Alvarez, Peter Bakowski, Ross Donlon & two other WA poets Rachael Petridis & Frances Macaulay Forde. Carmel Macdonald Grahame (my old ECU tutor) is in the book & hopefully will be at the launch, so I can say hello. All this is worth a trip to Melbourne & to visit my daughter!