Journal Entries
time fleets, poems hide
Posted May 27, 2003
well, a month [and my birthday yesterday] have passed and little real work has been done on the body of work...
but i did join a workshop group - closet poets - at the local writer's centre. i read a couple of pieces and they were well received, but i had to nip off early, so didn't get a lot of time for real feedback. i did attend the launch of one of the members' volume of poems, launched by the irish ambassador to australia, as the poet is an irish national.
and i have got a new job, working as a program officer in the local govt. arts department. one of my areas of responsibility is literature, so that's a bonus!
i have been vainly trying to write a poem about 'passion'... and have been finding it very difficult to translate the feeling of the emotion into words without sounding either trite or overwrought; worse, it is not really fitting in to how i see the whole 'exegisis' set of poems. once i settle down into the new job (started last thursday, so only had four days there yet) i think i shall make more time to get the pen in the hand and the brain in gear. such is hope...
otherwise, canberra in autumn is a most wonderful place. the light is superb, the air clean and crisp without any real iciness yet and in the new job i walk the two k's to work and back - fabulous!
ooh, and i had best alter the top of my page. as of yesterday it makes me a liar - i am now a 39 yr old.... : ( but going to sydeny to eat at THE most fabulous modern nouvelle japanese restaurant on saturday, so that should inspire the 'passion'! yum!
watch this space - if you care to...
astro : )
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Latest reply: May 27, 2003
slow progress
Posted Apr 27, 2003
if anyone other than me is following this i would be most surprised... however, onanism aside, i push on.
the book slows down as a recent three or four week bout of fairly debilitating labrynthitis (ooh, sounds exciting: it is a viral infection of the balance canals in the ear, with corollary effects similar to glandular fever... noice, eh?) where the brain chugged away and i was home to record, when cogent enough, some results i have resumed duties at work and have been shagged after, rather limiting the time to write.
nonetheless, i have written a few more lines, starting a new 'exegisis' poem and have found that the local writers society is having a week's seminar program soon, including 'what poetry editors are looking for', which is rather a propos, i shouldn't think. anyway, it will be a chance to get among them and see if i cant find a like-minded soul or three to get some more valid feedback on the stuff i have at the moment.
got my notification back from this site's 'thingites' and have a new moniker - aardvark mutineer: keeper of the heraldic ants - which i shall append to my title, just to keep things fluid.
other than that, i have been rather slack, though have had a few good dreams of late that augurs well for some new fodder soon... where's that pen..?
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Latest reply: Apr 27, 2003
the poetry continues... the process of writing
Posted Apr 1, 2003
well, i can report that it is no april fool's joke that i have completed - to first finished draft stage - three 'exegesis' poems and have worked on compiling some of the other finished/drafts i might consider, coming up in the process with a better working title, to reflect the likely makeup of the volume now i have considered the notion some more.
'exegesis: excursions into stuff' will comprise three now, not two, parts, being exegesis, excursions (thos actually written or commenced o/s) and other stuff as it may be. and i have decided i will not go too far back and salvage unused stuff from more than about six months before i went away.
i have had a few days off work and have writen, or thought, between bouts of sleeping and generally feeling lethargic - a tragic condition for a writer already prone to prevaricate and procrastinate - but had coffee in the canberra autumn sun yesterday with a friend/editor and she liked the gathering of this new whole and has spurred me on.
actually better get out of the guide and back into my own universe for a while. if i ever work out how to post entries and attach files or whatever i might make some available. whatever....
astro : )
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Latest reply: Apr 1, 2003
poetry book
Posted Mar 26, 2003
my first entry on this site, which i found out about only through the unfortunate confluence of events that led to me reading adams' posthumously released volume - should like to have met the man.
anyway, this is a note to self about the book of poems i am trying to put together, loosely thus far entitled 'exegeses and other human frailties'. the book will have two sections: one a collection of poems under the collective title 'exegeses' and a second ... well, work that one out yourself!
the exegeses poems are coming along but i need to maintain links between them and for them to reflect what i see reality as. one thematic device i have put into some minimal effect in some of the drafts is to havce the topic of the next poem the last word of its predecessor - ie, 'life' has "fate" as its last word, so the next in the series will be 'fate'. i also have love, loneliness, morality, people, food, journeying & sport/theatre (i am none too sure which way this one will jump, so i am hedging my bets with the title at the moment).
the second lot were started when i was travelling for six months in 2002 and i have continued to write some productive stuff which has received encouraging responses from my close social set whose opinions i might value in this matter...
what i really need to do is to stop procastinating, but that is easier written in a journal note to self, as i am doing, than getting on with the business of actually writing the stuff...
i was wondering what other writers actually do to combat this... i find that i write spasmodically and that it can occur at any moment - so if i am at work and feel words, i am too constrained and this process frustrates me. i then get overwhelmed with the looming sense of not actually being able to write and i wonder if i have anything to offer...
bit of a pessimistic opener! it will get better, i'm sure. perhaps i should at least write in here weekly and report progress.
well, so far i have three 'x' poems begun and some ideas lurking around the periphery of the pen for some of the others, and i rekkun i should probably have ten, maybe twelve poems to make the section work as a whole. about two pages of 12pt arial for both 'love' and 'life', the former of which has a certain final sound to what is there, with a teasing end that will easily bear addenda... in the other collection, i think i have maybe six or eight that are pretty close to finished - certainly four or five i would consider about finished, at leat before the collection is together and i can see which direction any polishing shine needs to take.
wish me luck!
astro xx : )
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Latest reply: Mar 26, 2003
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Astroboy 69 (aka aardvark mutineer: keeper of heraldic ants)
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