Boo and I have been ambling our way through the How Writers Write Poetry online MOOC. The course is presented by Christopher Merrill and Camille Rankine, via the University of Iowa. This week’s lesson was on ‘the line and the page’ and the assignments were to write a prose poem, … Continue reading
I just wanted to share this gorgeous little snippet Maija Lindbergs wrote in class today, when we were messing about with viewpoint and grammatical POV. Maija is a final-year student of Creative Media, and she’s AWESOME, as you’re about to find out … POV: Third Person Viewpoint Character: Owlbit Owlbit was a … Continue reading
The girl in this poem does not love you She’s just a girl, after all one syllable, four letters barely a phoneme, she’s just a noun, common as a lettuce or a paperclip. The woman who wrote it on the other hand is a wreath of bones and blood wrapped round … Continue reading
This semester, I’m teaching a writing course called Fairytales & Other Forms. Every week, we read a fairytale in various variants, and the writers in the course are asked to write their own (new!) version. The students are second year undergraduates, who are totally amazing. Every week they surprise and … Continue reading
— In honour of World Poetry Day We are on the way to the meeting when one of the poets calls and asks us to pick up beer on the way. Although we are on the phone for a while (the fields of the Lockyer Valley flashing past us, fading … Continue reading
I did shoplift something once, when I was a teenager. I went to K-Mart with my best friend and (deliberately) dropped the stolen goods into a milkshake I had purchased especially for that purpose. I don’t remember what the item was that I stole. Intended to steal. In the end, … Continue reading
I don’t know why I remember that argument with my mother so precisely. We have fought many times, over the years, with increasing frequency. I keep waiting for things to ease off. To reach that moment I have heard about when she sees me as a woman, and I see … Continue reading
Today’s guest post is by Elizabeth Kasmer. I met Liz a few years ago, when she first started working on the manuscript of a beautiful Young Adult manuscript called ‘Aurora’. I’m still waiting (impatiently!) for her to finish the novel and find a publisher, but in the meantime I’m delighted to … Continue reading
Some afternoons I would sit on the back deck and do nothing for so long that the light would fall out of the world. There is a moment, unfixable, between day and night, when you still believe you can see the wrens darting about. But then the light is truly gone, … Continue reading
Over the weeks leading up to my mother’s death, I went out into the orchard each night and trained myself to see in the dark. This was at her insistence. A training I at first refused. Initially, the only things I could see were shadows. I navigated by scent and memory. This is the … Continue reading