This Saturday 15th February we have the wonderful poet Coral Carter to entertain us with the launch of her new book Backyard Listening, with launch speech by Liana Joy Christensen.
Coral Carter lives in Perth. She has spent many years living and working in isolated and outback communities of Australia was a guest at 2013 Queensland Poetry Festival and inaugural writer in residence for the Northern Territory Writers Centre 2013. Her poem summer sky blues was featured on the Perth cultural centre screen as a media exhibition during the summer of 2015.
Backyard Listening has received high praise:
When the bush speaks, Coral Carter listens. This collection has a mesmerising backyard hawk’s view of the world, mixing body with sound, imagery with nature. We hear her voice shout from the shadows, driving the senses down corrugated lines of language. Even on a day when nothing happens, everything happens. Her poetry leaves an indelible mark. Sit up and listen, hear what she hears, see what she sees. — Rose van Son
Backyard Listening is a very Australian collection in tone, theme and breadth, a physical and psychic feast deeply steeped in the Australian milieu encompassing the rural, urban, suburban and desert, delivered with muscular energy and unswerving directness. It is sharp, unsentimental, sometimes as harshly beautiful as the landscapes it inhabits, it is evocative, full of rich soundscapes and held throughout with a strong empathic core. This is a personal and communal journey through Australian histories and herstories, where the empathic voyeur in the Backyard Listening is there as witness. — Julie Watts
Please join us to celebrate poetry this Saturday afternoon 2pm - 4pm at the Moon Café, 323 William Street Northbridge with Coral Carter and her new book Backyard Listening + open-mike. Stick-around for after-gig celebrations.
This next few weeks, we have the following features + usual open mike:
15-Feb-20 Coral Carter, launch of her new book Backyard Listening. Launch speech by Liana Joy Christensen + open-mike.
Stick around for after-gig celebrations
22-Feb-20 David Stavanger (Qld) + Mattie Goedegebur (Holland) + open-mike
29-Feb-20 Letters to the Earth (Writing to a Planet in Crisis) + open-mike with readings from Allan Boyd, Allan Padgett, Jackson, Coral Carter, Ann Gilchrist
See details below - this Saturday date only occurs every 28years
7-Mar-20 Woman Scream, in celebration of International Woman’s Day WAPI event, invited open-mike only.
14-Mar-20 Mike Greenacre + open-mike …
All with open-mike, not to be missed …
There is a publication called ‘Letters to the Earth’ [ https://www.letterstotheearth.com/ ] which was published to highlight creative responses to climate change. It’s a wonderful book and Vivienne Glance is the spark for a similar initiative in Perth.
Perth Poetry Club will host a Letters to the Earth gig on Saturday 29th Feb 2pm-4pm. Selected readers will read their poems specially written for the occasion plus poems from Letters to Earth composed by wonderful poets/writers like Kate Tempest, Mary Oliver, Steve Wright.
Open mikers are encouraged to read their own poems on the subject, and there have been many of these read over the months at the Club, so let’s make a feature of it.
There will be regular open-mike as well.
Vivienne Glance says “I’d like to promote the creative responses to climate change and the recent bushfires, as I believe the arts have a great deal to offer when helping us with overwhelming issues such as these.”
The ultimate aim is to produce a chapbook with the ultimate aim that these chapbook poems would be read at Voicebox later in the year. What is your perception of climate change, the recent ongoing bushfires, and your response? Is the Earth in crisis? Is humanity in crisis? Do we owe the Earth an apology – out of love, loss, emergence/emergency, hope, action, the politics? The crisis might also be a personal internal one, and can the Earth help heal our lives? Is there room for any optimism?