Last week was a big one for me. I was selected by Peter Goldsworthy to be one of five to represent the current state of contemporary poetry in South Australia on Day Four of Adelaide Writers Week as part of the 2018 Adelaide Festival. I was joined by a diversely talented group: Alison Flett, Rachael Mead, Nelson “Dialect” Hedditch and Manal Younus before a capacity audience of well over 1000.

Adelaide Writers Week is always an interesting time with authors and poets from all over the world, fascinating and challenging panel discussions and readings from the writers’ own mouths. But this year was even better for me, meeting and having conversations with admired writers at the launch/ meet & greet/ private and farewell parties where I got to talk to David Malouf, Michael Farris Smith, Alexander McCall Smith, Stephen Dando-Collins, Mem Fox, Rebekah Clarkson and Catherine Chidgey. Thanks to my fellow poets and Peter Goldsworthy for curating the event and allowing us to present our work to a wider audience.

(Photos: Martin Christmas, Heather Taylor Johnson, Helve Doecke, Rob Walker)

with Stephen Dando-Collins and his wife Louise.

Kate Llewellyn

Alexander McCall Smith

Two new poems in Adelaide’s Independent online newspaper In Daily yesterday: Yorke Peninsula and Dawn, Old Echuca Wharf.

READ HERE

I’ve also remixed some excellent music by Speck to make an audio recording of the Echuca poem HERE 

and a remix of teru’s work with the YP one HERE.

“For my late friend” was published in Short and Twisted (Celapene Press) last year.

for my late friend

i’m weary of the euphemisms

friends keep saying you’ve passed

like it was a test

meanwhile most of you went up in flames

and we’re all breathing in your molecules

on a daily basis

our conversations       and your smiles

exist only                         in my synapses.

you were always punctual

so why do they keep calling you late?

let’s face it        you’re never going

to get here

Two audio versions of My late friend:

For my late friend

rob walker: spoken word / production

music: Gurdonark

Late friend

Stefan Kartenberg – bass and beats

Admiral Bob – beats, guitar and rhodes

billraydrums – drums

Andrew Wainwright – piano, strings and horn

Aussens@iter – guitar

robwalkerpoet – spoken word

speck – production

As always, thanks fellow collaborators and ccmixter.org

Thanks to Justin Lowe for selecting my poem Free in Philadelphia for his poetry website Bluepepper. I began this one in 2016 after splitting my eyebrow following a visit to historic Independence Hall where the Founding Fathers signed the Declaration of Independence. Nothing like turning pain into poetry…

READ HERE

There’s also a musical version of the poem (my spoken word, Aussens@iter’s killer guitar) HERE

(image from Wikipedia)

I’m happy to be published in Pure Slush Vol. 15. It’s a short story – set in the future and titled The Question – about a middle-aged man having a midlife crisis. Thanks to editor Matt Potter for once again selecting my work. Happy to see work by local writing friends Martin Christmas and Alex Robertson too!

(The Question was awarded ‘Commended’ in the  2016 Trudy Graham/Julie Lewis Literary Award for Prose. This is its first publication.)

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