Poets Corner

Thought I would do a blog on my radio show.  I host a radio show once a month on 3CR.  It is part of the Brain Waves Program, and is called Poets Corner.  Brainwaves is a show about and for people with mental illness.  We hear stories of recovery, stories of struggle, funny stories, and sad stories.  The show  is sponsored by the Mental Illness Fellowship of Victoria.  Poets Corner is the poetry branch of the show.  We interview people with mental illness who are poets, about their life and work.  We hear their poems, and hear about their struggles.  We have interviewed Stu Hatton, Initially No, Maree Cowan amongst others.  My co-host is the poet and artist Graeme Doyle.  We really have a great re pore   We met during our training sessions, and got along famously. In fact, these training sessions, which were recorded as demos, have been nominated for the training award at the awards night for the Australian Association of Community Radio.  Let's see if we win!

If you would like to listen to podcasts of Poets Corner you can click here to go to the 3CR website, or you can find them on itunes!

Ceremony for Mental Health Week

On Sunday I had the great pleasure of being involved in a ceremony to mark the end of mental health week.  The ceremony was run by the Mental Illness Fellowship of Victoria, and I read a poem.  I got some great feedback about my performance, and I got to wear my top hat!  The poem was on relationships, and it was one of my better poems I think.  We had a civil celebrant conduct the ceremony, and Heidi Everett played music throughout the performance.  The Mental Illness Fellowship of Victoria do some fine work, and there contribution to awareness of mental health issues is extraordinary   I had the great pleasure to work on their helpline for a year, which was a great experience.

Here is to breaking down the stigma of mental illness!

Feature at West Word

On Sunday I had the good fortune of being the feature poet at West Word poetry in Footscray at the Dancing Dog Cafe.  The event had a real intimate feel. I read from my Diary of a Schizophrenic, and from a Schizophrenic on Artaud. It was also the first time I had the opportunity to read an extended set of my poetry to an audience.  This felt really great. I was able to for the first time see many of the tropes and obsessions I have in my poetry.  I could see that I love words like 'silence', 'dreams', 'places', 'clouds', 'rain' and a whole host of other notions and concepts that concern me deeply.  I could see how my form of oneiric poetry really has a strength of its own.  I love to capture the dream-like in my poetry, and bend associations, and fragment things, just like in a dream.

My next feature spot will be at the Dan O'Connell hotel on the 10th of November at 2pm. Hope to see you there!

Diary of a Schizophrenic on Youtube

We have recently posted a new video of me reading from my first book, Diary of a Schizophrenic, on Youtube.  The diary was kept during my first psychotic episode in 1998.  It has a real literary feel, and talks about writers such as William Blake, T.S. Eliot, Ludwig Wittgenstein and Homer.  The section I read from is later in the book when I have recovered from my episode, and discusses T.S. Eliot's work 'Tradition and the Individual Talent'.

You can watch the video here on Youtube!

Hope you enjoy!

Poem

Though I would simply post a poem for this blog. Its called 'Silence will have its way'.  Enjoy!

Silence will have its way

     [singing in the trees before first light]

                         

I know

                    that what this ritual

will give     to the remains of the day

          can still the hunter in his tracks

             what is now the silence     between heartbeats

was once the dew on  the ground during a twilight interlude

                         of dancing Naiads and their dreaming

life lived in the moment     between rings of a tower bell

   can placate the wind during its solemn journey

                   (it now picks up pieces of broken glass

and scatters them to where the light of tomorrow will not go)

                     what is left of this adventure

                               is written

        in the hearing     of an ancient rainbow’s restful sleep

                   as it lets the sea breathe a new breath

                          (I truly believe I have felt

              in the lashing of a wave on the rocks

                                the rain of all there is)

and when the stars have given up their claim on the dawn’s memories

                 the hope       that cradles our longing

                             will gather itself

                 as it has never done before

                             and what the clouds will never know

            is that the footsteps of yesterday’s travels

                   will only be enough

      to string       the bow of the last violin

that has ever grasped the air of our furthest wandering

                       [before then

                  silence will have its way]

Collected Online Works

Thought I would go through and list my collected online works for your enjoyment.

I will start with my books.  Diary of a Schizophrenic was my first book, and was launched at the 2010 Melbourne Writers Festival.  It was a diary I kept in 1998 during my first psychotic episode.  You can buy the book here on Amazon.

My second book, A Schizophrenic on Artaud, was launched at Readings in Carlton.  It is a poetic exploration of the life and work of the French author Antonin Artaud.  You can buy the work here on Amazon.

Next to my poems.  I have had quite a few poems published in online journals.  The first, a few poems I had published in Mascara Literary Review.  Then Stylus, Divan, and verb-ate-him. My poem in Westerly will be out online in the next year or so, but you can view the details here.

I was at the Emerging Writers Festival this year, and the ABC were filming.  You can view the panel I was on here at the Big Ideas website. I was also on channel 31 reading from my second book on a show called Red Lobster.  You can watch here.

After the launch of my first book at the Melbourne Writers Festival, I was on Radio National's program All in the Mind.  You can listen here.

I also host a radio show on 3CR called Poet's Corner, as part of the Brainwaves show.  You can download podcasts here.

I had an article published in an online academic journal in the UK called Consciousness Literature and the Arts on the ballet dancer Nijinsky. You can read the article here.  I also had a paper on Foucault published in an academic journal called Cogito.  You can view the details here.

I gave a paper on Wittgenstein and Schizophrenia at the University of Sydney.  You can view the abstract here.

There is footage of me reading from my Artaud book on youtube which you can watch here.

The details of my Masters degree and PhD can be found on Trove here.

Hope this is to your enjoyment! Stay tuned for more publications!

Poem in Divan Poetry Journal

I have had the good fortune to have a poem out in the new Divan Poetry Journal.  It's called 'Where Memories Form'. It's a poem I like to think of as being one of my oneiric poems (meaning dream-like). You can read the poem here. Hope you enjoy!