{"id":107,"date":"2014-01-28T10:31:24","date_gmt":"2014-01-28T10:31:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/?p=107"},"modified":"2014-01-28T10:31:24","modified_gmt":"2014-01-28T10:31:24","slug":"spring-reading-series-outcrop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/spring-reading-series-outcrop\/","title":{"rendered":"Spring Reading Series: Outcrop"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Spring Reading Series began on Wednesday 22nd<\/sup> January with three poets from the recent anthology <\/i>Outcrop: Radical Australian Poetry of Land<\/strong>.<\/b><\/p>\n

So, what was radical about it?<\/p>\n

\"Michael<\/a>

Michael Farrell; David Herd introducing<\/p><\/div>\n

Michael Farrell set an offbeat tone with his first poem, a continuous rendering of the line \u2018baa baa black sheep\u2019. Eyes on the page, he actually appeared to be reading. How many times had he said it? 30? 50? The audience stiffened, the air drew tight. A mischievous glint appeared in the poet\u2019s eye; he looked up for a second. Listeners gave a titter of relief. Then the line again, over and over, beyond discomfort and into hypnosis. 100 times? 400? As the glaze set in there was a sudden shift, a prompt line, and voices in the audience called out answering stanzas.<\/p>\n

Suddenly we knew where we were. Sort of.<\/p>\n

The sounds of a jazz band tuning up hovered in the room above. Farrell and the readers who followed embraced the challenge; foot-stamping glee club choruses were answered with sonorous lines and heightened voices. Farrell gave us phrases in backwards Latin, Spanish and Italian. The devil emerged on horseback in urban Sydney \u2018like Voss\u2019 from the desert. \u2018You can\u2019t drink paranoia\u2019, we were assured. The Earth said: \u2018let\u2019s get a coffee in that little Italian caf\u00e9 we know\u2026 the Sistine Chapel.\u2019 Ears caught fire. The glee club showaddywaddied<\/i> approval.<\/p>\n

Next up was Claire Potter, whose organic poems wreathed their way through the room.<\/p>\n

\"Claire<\/a>

Claire Potter<\/p><\/div>\n

Potter\u2019s stunning lines showed how assonance and alliteration can woo the ears of an audience, and the distant stride piano evaporated. Phrases such as \u2018a ribbon of tea coils into my cup\u2019 and \u2018a simmering of sound\u2019 hung in the air long after the reading was over. There was flora and fauna, a blending of \u2018plant into night, night into plant\u2019. \u2018So yes\u2019, Potter declared, in lines from her poem \u2018Misreading\u2019: \u2018I pushed her flat into the dirt of this difficult country; and it is true that I write as I read – mistaking wreaths for wraiths, spires for spines, girls for orchids.\u2019<\/p>\n

Laurie Duggan took the stage next. Now based in Kent, Duggan is a familiar face on the UK poetry circuit. He began with a section of a long poem in the anthology, \u2018They Can\u2019t Take That Away From Me\u2019. (Droll eye-roll to Gershwin fans and singing ceiling.) Written in his thirties, reading the poem was, Duggan said, like reading out his teenage diaries. Undaunted, he delivered a litany of interior details: crazed paintings, the green glaze of an overflowing ashtray, frozen figures in old<\/p>\n

\"Laurie<\/a>

Laurie Duggan<\/p><\/div>\n

photographs, broken typewriters. This was a very different landscape, and Duggan gave us every inch of it, a fl\u00e2neur collating threads of worn upholstery and old magazines. \u2018I would like to write poems like Edward Hopper paintings\u2019 he read, \u2018but the eye doesn\u2019t work like that\u2019. Duggan followed with a couple of newer poems not in the anthology, one of which name-checked John James at last year\u2019s Veg Box reading.<\/p>\n

So, what was radical about it? Australians in the audience had plenty to say. The poets seemed less concerned with radicality, although Farrell pointed out that \u2018radical\u2019 is a problematic term. \u2018Putting the land first is a difficult thing in a nation that is all about using<\/i> the land,\u2019 he claimed. And with a timely cymbal crash, the show was over.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Outcrop: Radical Australian Poetry of Land<\/i> is published by Black Rider Press.<\/p>\n

Next in the series<\/b>, Kent\u2019s own Frank O\u2019Hara: Simon Smith <\/b>reads from his new poetry collection 11781 W. Sunset Boulevard<\/i><\/b>, published this month by Shearsman. Wednesday 29th<\/sup> January, 6pm, Eliot SCR. <\/b><\/p>\n

See you there.<\/p>\n

Sonia<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Michael Farrell\u2019s books include Open Sesame, <\/i>published by Giramondo in 2013. He won the prestigious Peter Porter Poetry Prize in 2010. Farrell is currently Visiting Fellow in the Centre for Modern Poetry at the University of Kent.<\/p>\n

Claire Potter\u2019s collection Swallow<\/i> was published by Five Islands Press in October 2010.<\/p>\n

Laurie Duggan\u2019s latest book of poetry is The Pursuit of Happiness, <\/i>published by <\/i>Shearsman in 2012.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Spring Reading Series began on Wednesday 22nd January with three poets from the recent anthology Outcrop: Radical Australian Poetry of Land. So, what was radical about it? Michael Farrell set an offbeat tone with his first poem, a continuous rendering of the line \u2018baa baa black sheep\u2019. Eyes on the page, he actually appeared […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38085,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[49736,49735,21640,49740,49732,49734,49733,49738,1225,49739,48708,49737,48315,49728,49725,46589,49731,49727,74,49726],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38085"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=107"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":116,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/107\/revisions\/116"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/centreforcreativewriting\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}