2017 ~ Helen Hagemann

Sunday, December 31, 2017

An ARTErra Portugal Residency in April 2018!

Awarded an ARTErra residency in Lobão da Beira, Portugal - April 2018 ARTErra is a structured artistic place in Lobão da Beira, a village in PORTUGAL, near Tondela, district of Viseu. ARTErra is a private structure of incentive for artistic creation in a quiet and green small village, which aims to facilitate encounters between different artists and aesthetic...

Accepted into AIR LE PARC South of France

I have been awarded a writing residency at AIR LE PARC! Very excited that I can spend time in the countryside of Southern France with the idea of looking at a historic landscape, the wine region, the environment especially its unique architecture. http://www.airleparc.com/en/e-overAir.html My Project The project is titled “Random” (prose poetry) a work that...

Poem: A Bottlebrush is not a Brush

A Bottlebrush is not a Brush More beautiful than a brush that goes inside a bottle. A bottlebrush is a bush, a single hot colour but not a scorpion. Its spikes are fronds, little sticky stamens of pollen, not ordinary but splendidly made. Spring bounces them into houses to spread inside walls - unordered among an order of photographs on coffee tables; windows reflect...

Poem: Sunday

Sunday The faith was gone, but not the spirit. One Sunday I felt suffocated, among the darkened room of my home, the summer’s heat outside. I didn’t want to be with my friend anymore, so I moved my car, parked it under heavy trees along a lonely road. I walked back with the keys, a little deceptive. Everything changed when I opened my front door. The cautious atmosphere...

Poem: The Gift

The Gift Bought from a nursery, a plant of yellow everlastings, so papery they almost speak. Sometimes you buy a gift you do not want to give. Prior to its wrapping, it sits on your kitchen table, reminding you of garden shows, spring festivals, country roads and fields of flowers like an endless basket, a soothing tapestry. The gift’s previous life tingled with the...

Follow @ Tom Cox

Tom Cox is a writer I have been following recently on all social media platforms. I was first alerted to him by my daughter who insisted that here was a writer to look out for. He especially has a love of cats, and being a cat lover myself, I decided to follow him on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and also read his blog posts. Tom is a Nottinghamshire-born...

An Instagram Poem

Vase In some obscure town in Portugal the potter left his mark. When did he finish it? Where were the fields of yellow daisies? When the object went into the kiln, did he think of the blue sky he once laid under by a river with his lover? The potter had enthusiasm for its shape and contour; tall and robust, small neck like a woman. It appears to have something that...

Review of Flute of Milk by Susan Fealy

To be published in Plumwood Mountain Journal Flute of Milk by Susan Fealy Perth, WA: UWA Publishing, 2017.ISBN: 9781742589398 I recently visited a small country town in Western Australia and attended Saturday morning markets. I bought a small plastic tray for $3. A memento I assumed from the seller by visiting the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. It’s amazing when serendipity...

Poem: 50s Cars

Elvis Presley's Pink Caddy 50s Cars You saw them go by. Sometimes on the spare-tyre back carrier – an immobile army of kids. 50s cars moved through the town with chrome headlight bezels and concave grilles. Some were toothy tail-finned dream machines. The Oldsmobile, with flying colours, 202 horsepower engine, went like a Rocket. The powerful Pontiac proved...

Cups: A Prose Poem

Cups Beside the plastic, one by one, in order of country, are the cups. There have been more cups ruined emptying the dishwasher. Right now, the quantity of cups keeps increasing, squashed in, at the back of the cupboard. They’re like friends visiting one another. The Guernica cup (Picasso) from Madrid abuts the English Wren from Shrewsbury. Black as Guinness,...

The Lamp: Prose Poem (updated)

The Lamp First be a magnificent artist and then you can do whatever, but the art must be first. (Francisco de Goya) A young father buys a 70s Beetle fender that houses a chrome front light. The man radiates the glow of restoration, but barely...

Poem: Op Shop

Op-Shop In a quiet suburban street, ladies visit the aisles of secondhand clothes. Hands separate racks, touch other lives that have come before. The young girl, sitting on a bus, straightens her blue pleats, and just around the corner, as if time hasn’t passed, wears a black leather jacket with studs. Later, she buttons a pin-tuck shirt for the...

Cushions: Prose poem

Cushions Cylindrical cushions rest beneath the intent of breezes from circling fans. An Indian décor lifts them to ornate couches where the room is a long passage to prayer. The man in the turban carries tea to guests, while an image of the same man looks on. Both men know the same room; one will walk past three couches spread with purple, yellow and pink cushions,...

Rugs: Prose Poem

Rugs The streets seem less hostile, save for the mud. Nothing is left of the artist’s hut, all doors and walls are missing. In a state of exhaustion, he leaves his worthless home. The road to another town, a battle of wagons. The streets converge. There are more streets than he remembers. The man looks out and all he can see are colourful blues, ochre lines and carmine....

The Pinnacles + poem

The Pinnacles are a weird limestone forest situated near Cervantes, about two hours drive from my home. When you walk around them they have very unusual shapes, and are almost Gothic like a parade of old souls, esp. at dusk when we took these photographs. I don't think I would have liked to stay after dark! Many have characteristics of human beings. There's Darth...

Interview with a "Sureflap" Cat (for the frustrated owner!)

This is a tongue-in-cheek post. I thought it high time to reveal the trials, tribulations and struggles to get Cat Boss aka Shibby to come and go through her "Sureflap". What is a Sureflap? The SureFlap DualScan Microchip Cat Door is suitable for multi-pet households to control the access of your pets both into and out of the house. The...

Almost Human: Poem

Almost Human At night there's the limbering the extended stretch Off to bed at ten to her side, which is your side surrendered In the middle of the night an unexpected weight aligns the warmth of pillow A cat will enter your silence be silent, until a nasal breath enters your ear A partnership co-exists each one knowing some little thing about the other A cat...

Shibby & Buddy

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This is a tribute to my male cat, Buddy. Gone now for 2.5 years. It has taken me until now to write about him, as at the time, of course, I was very sad, but I had also lost my partner of 12 years. I realise now what a real treasure my boys were. Especially, Buddy. He protected the property with such zealous determination that eventually it got the better of him, winning...

Kangaroos at Donnolly River Mill

Kangaroos at Donnolly River Mill Sundown marks a gravel expanse, the warmth of ochre lines. Kangaroos gather round, and like a painting of an old town, the open space is their space. The backdrop is the old mill, almost down, an historic treasure not known, a timber mill hailing a gold mine, soon to be ground, not preserved, unkempt, not kept, renegated to its knees....

Artwork: Arts Centre Cafe by Daniela Selir (1994) Entering this competition as part of my writing practice. My story is a bit bleak, however the artist Daniela Selir would have known about the Fremantle Arts Centre as a historic women's lunatic asylum (1865-1901). A blue figure on the top right hand dormer window is not there by chance. And so I have capitalized on this,...

Creative Writing Lessons: Latest News

Reflexive Writing Lesson Workshop Ideas for Prose Workshops In the past I have uploaded first drafts of my writing, including poetry, flash fiction, short stories and novel chapters. I have had some success as a published poet, however, writing like most artistic pursuits does not attract an income. On my new blog, I have included "Creative Writing...