A Day at the Applecross Senior High School

It's always nice to have a break from your usual weekly routine, spending a day at the Applecross Senior High School. It was a great alternative and exceptional time. I spent two separate hours with Year 11 students (also separate classes) and we worked on some poetry, mainly looking at metaphor. The task was to write about their family, eg. mother, father, and possibly two siblings. I used a workshop written by Canadian poet Patrick Lane who has his own wonderful images. However, one young boy wrote a very funny line;- "my brother is a rash, and is always irritating."

Class teacher is Veronica Lake, who painstakingly every year publishes a book of poetry with prize winners from all submitted high schools. This year the first prize winner blitzed the prize with a great poem titled, Wholly in the Deep.

Copies of this anthology can be bought from me by telephoning 0404666156, or through the Applecross Senior High School, Western Australia.

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Poem for the Day: Travel Mementos © Forthcoming in Poetry d'Amour 2014

Travel Mementos

               for Lucas North (1973-2013)

Wherever we went,

I brought one home,

a mug, teaspoon or book filled

with the memories of our travels.

Of all the fridge magnets

on the door, you said.

There's too many. What do you

want them for?

To recount where we’ve been, I said

what we did and saw.

I pointed to the Del Rio pelican

in the Hawkesbury scene.

Remember the kangaroos crowding

the golf course at dusk?

From the top of a kitchen shelf

I lifted a candle, dark as a pint of ale.

And look! These four magnets

mapped our circling through the mountains,

from Ocean Beach to Patonga, 

from Saratoga to Umina.

And here‘s the riverboat at Spencer,

our last stop before a treacherous climb,

those boggy edges slipping us

to my brother's Hunter Valley farm.

Left on your desk now, a curled notebook;

sodden rain caught us camping in November.

The bright glow of your frame survives, the

day you slipped an arm around the bronzed

Solomon Wiseman. A cap angled on his rigid

head, bringing the green back into your eyes.

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Graphic of the Day: A Laugh for Writers

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