Friday, 9 September is CELEBRATE Australian poetry day in National Poetry Week.
Celebrate the joy of Australian poetry however you embrace it. This day should probably involve cake!
– @AusPoetry www.australianpoetry.org.au
How will you be celebrating today ?
In a celebratory frame of mind, I would like to nominate, and reward, my favourite moment from National Poetry Week so far:
- Poetic props (and virtual chocolate coated cake pops) to the anonymous teacher who got dozens of students so excited about National Poetry Week that he was actually mobbed in the school canteen. Awesome work ! For the full story check out Australian Poetry’s Facebook Page, or the National Poetry Week Facebook Page.
I have another acrostic poem for you today – just a bit of enjoyable doggerel. The tone only turned out to be quietly celebratory though. The poem gives thanks in a way for the fact that poetry survives amidst all other distractions; that the still, small voice is there always if we care to listen. And it honours those who are willing to do the work of listening, however hard it gets.
(with apologies to WH Auden)
Cut off the box, and flush the mobile phone
Erect the tallest palings you can lift alone
Let nothing enter that you cannot touch
Except the talk of neighbours – and then, not much.
Be blind and blank to all electric waves
Revist beds and temples, campfires, graves
Allow your mind to follow like a bird
Try hefting the true weight of every word
Eventually the poem will be heard
So – today is the last themed day in National Poetry Week. The Week itself continues until Sunday September 11, but I will not be blogging here on the weekend as I have two developmentally challenged children to wrangle and a social life to pursue. So I guess for me this is goodbye #NPW2011. It has been quite a lot of fun. Right here on this blog we’ve been writing acrostic poems, stockpiling Australian poetry books against the coming bookshop apocalypse, touring the Australian Poetry Library and contemplating Seagull Poetics, among other things. Hope you had fun too. Let’s make it bigger and better next year !
Melinda Smith's Mull and Fiddle 