Book Launch

Come celebrate the launch/arrival/release of In Hand, Amanda Joy's book of poetry. 7:30pm, December 17th at The Fringe Gallery, 94 Bawdan street, Willagee.



To be launched by Dr Andrew Burke, with readings from ze book by the dapper & strange, Black Rider himself, Jeremy Balius and the sky snapping, word mistress of Recoil, Coral Carter and music by the wildly delicious Kissin' Cousins! Bring your dancing slippers... and a poem to share!


Some blurbs ..s.... s

Amanda Joy's In Hand is a sustained love letter, a farewell signature in a handwritten flourish. It is a celebration of the body, of loss and acceptance, family, water and landscape. These poems work their spells in language cast under pressure into a sublime, lyrical whole. ~Anthony Lawrence


The poetry of Amanda Joy stretches out to touch the reader both physically and spiritually. Her words penetrate to the heart and soul of relationships, opening to the naked eye not only those we have with lovers, friends and strangers, but that which we have with the natural world that surrounds us. Then deeper still, to the relationship between our own thoughts, needs and desires.
In Hand has a devotional quality. Each poem an experience, to be carried with us and contemplated throughout the day; each poem a flower of mystery, whose petals await their revelatory blossoming.
~Ray Sapienza, Moongaze Publishing, editor of Fragile Arts Press, author of Tumbled Streams


‘In Hand’, by Australian writer Amanda Joy, offers much in a diverse selection of poems. These are poems of love, desire, longing and language as experienced in these and other states. The common trope these days of the body as language is nevertheless used in many vivid and quite extraordinary poems.
Any reader who engages with Joy's poems will find many such subtle constructions, courage to confront the real, or the mysterious, and the general adventure of life and language. Knowledge and sometimes some ‘difficulty’ in this writing, thus enhances a life lived - but a life revealed in subtle ideas, and vivid images and sharp details, and as language, lived intensely. ~Richard Taylor, Conversations With a Stone


Amanda Joy's writing conveys perfect fragility as she tells of a world where beauty is temporary and to be held reverently for the moment it exists
~ Victoria Fotios, Sunday Morning Spiders

Coral Carter & Deanne Leber, Poetry Reading 31st October 2010

Home cure for obsession

I have tried

alcohol gluttony starvation
nicotine sugar chocolate earth tea
herbal pills sleeping waking walking
pacing laughing crying
cognitive therapy
flagellation drugs masturbation
prayer prostration meditation
writing painting screaming ashes
sackcloth self harm hypnotherapy
oxygen deprivation
begging sobbing pleading
electric shock isolation
talking listening

Dr Phil

a nice cup of tea

any suggestions?

~Coral Carter











Baby Blue – For Ezekiel

It is as though my heart grew arms and legs
and was swaddled by a blue blanket
some winged angel
plucking you from your cloud
placing you in my arms

I’m still surprised that you spilt from my thighs
and how your father had the sense to mop the floor
so the cat doesn’t drink it he explained
as the last tear trickled down my toes
before stirrups and epidurals missed their spot

I grew into pain that day

It is time I pulled you into a poem
but no matter how I try to wrap my alphabet
around your aaaaahs your eeeees
your gentle coooos
nothing expresses love as you do

I know the science
take one sperm and one egg
and kazamm!
the big bang!
a universe begins!
But there is no equation
no explanation of enzymes or stars
or cells dividing that can capture
all of you

There is no me and you
I cannot see where I end
and you begin
in my belly
on my belly

You have just come
from speaking with angels
by the time you can tell us your banter
the meanings will have gone

I used to think that the universe
could best express itself in words
until you came along
my baby blue
my son

~Deanne Leber

Neil J Pattinson & Belowsky, Poetry Reading 26th September 2010

Yo Yo Willy

So Much Poetry Pass’s U By
***********************************************************
Their Waz Faece’z
at the Bus Stop
this Morning.
Fuck it Stank!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
& Damn –
I Had to Thieve a Glance –
Their Waz nothing in it.

So Much Poetry Pass’s Us By
***********************************************************
On the Way – Stroll Mode.
A Willy float’z Down,
Like a “Walkin the Dog”, Yo Yo –
Flit’z & Sputter’z,
(2 Catch a Bug)
Full on Clown’z Thoze Bird’z.
Noticed he Had a Brown, Feathered, Dizfigurement.
(In A Wing)
Thought it Twaz Fucked Up –
But, They’z a Freak A Nature –
Juzt Like Me?

So Much Poetry Pass’s EM By
***********************************************************
So, I’m Down In the Storm Drain –
(It poss’s as A Cackling Creek, from Winter Rain’z)
Clear’n out the Can’z & Bottle’z.
The Daily Migration, of 4 x 4’z Meander By –
(It’z Saturday)
There’z that Well Drezzed Derelict, Down in the Gutter A’Gen.

So Much Poetry Pass’s We By
***********************************************************
There’z A Lady, the Other Day.
(Croatian, European dissent?)
Juzt take’z the Pull Tab’z.
& Dizpozez With the Rest of the Can?
So Much Energy Expended –
4 What?
Dizabled & Grief Mutilated, Individual’s
in far Flung Kingdom’z.
Surely if We Invested Here, in Viable Humane Being’z.
Were in a Better Pozition to Spread a virus,
Of the Humanitarian Variety –
Global of the Warming – Fuzzy Nature.
But What The FUCK Would I Know?

So Much Poetry Pass’s

********
********
********
~Neil J Pattinson















Guru #1

43 21
life of a working class guru
has just begun

not easy to become guru’d
how many hours does a guru work?
5 guru hours = a 40 hour week
but does a guru get 8 hours sleep?
what wheat does a guru eat?

so go find yourself a guru
its not cryptic code
cuz hey, now you can google your guru
or go straight to www.guru.com
or wait for that guru
to materialize
don’t be surprised
cuz a guru
always comes in disguise

there it goes down 5th avenue
simon
wow, check that smile
that ain’t no average smile
that’s the smile of a
real
living, loving guru
free and on the loose

a london guru
a new york guru
an LA guru
PR guru
ad guru
media guru
finance guru
guru at the Chateau
cuz a guru ain’t restricted
to a himalayan cave
the guru has broken free
from weird freaky sheets
it’s armani suits
with a perfect guru fit
prada shoes
bvlgari jewels

no lama guru
no ghandi guru
no maharishi guru
no hendrix guru
no lennon guru
no marley guru
no dead gurus
only living, loving gurus

no longer do gurus
tell to the time from the sun
it’s rolex
and every guru has one

number plate is simple
it’s GURU#1

at the airport
you got club lounge
exec lounge
and of course
the guru lounge
a place where gurus can connect
and subscribe to guru weekly

some fly coach
some fly first class
i fly the only way i know
that’s guru class

and catch it tonight
on CNN
as Anderson Cooper
investigates
the sweet life
of the guru
and asks the question
"is there a hidden guru
lying dormant,
dormant within you?"

is there
a guru
ready to jump out
create
meditate
speculate
negotiate
communicate

tonight
all will be answered
as Anderson investigates
in a two hour special
not to be missed
you
me
and the mysteries
of the contemporary guru

and now also available
on youtube
so find that tag
tag goo
tag goo goo
tag goo goo goo
tag goo goo goo goo goo
tag goo goo
tag goo

cuz if there’s a guru online
it just could be
a true
living, loving guru
who sees your
designs
blueprints
scripts
mega sounds
perfect comic timing
and he’s ready to meet
offline
out on main street
ready to be your
very own
living, loving guru
and make it happen

or get ready
to download a guru
and stick in on your AMEX
stick it on your pod
yes, it’s steve jobs
the one and only
living
iGuru
iGuru
iGuru

~Belowsky