I’ve recently learnt that my unpublished poetry manuscript has been short-listed for the John Knight Memorial Poetry Prize for 2013.

My congratulations to the winner Vanessa Kirkpatrick, of Katoomba.  Her first collection of poetry To Catch the Light will be published by Fence Post Press and Erudite Scribe and launched at the Queensland Poetry Festival in August.

The judging panel Jeffrey Harpeng, Andrew Leggett, Duncan Richardson said

“We were very pleased to receive 60 entries in this first year of the manuscript competition, many of them of very high quality.  After considerable deliberation, we arrived at a shortlist of four manuscripts.  To Catch the Light impressed with its consistency of voice, and its capacity to reveal new depth and greater pleasure on repeated reading.  The other shortlisted finalists were Rob Walker, Vanessa Page and Jeff Klooger.”

So despite not winning, I’m very pleased to find myself in this list of four poets in a nation-wide competition.

I first saw π.o. (pronounced Pio) at the salt on the tongue Australian Poetry Festival at Goolwa in April, 2010. Then we spoke at the Rabbit launch in Melbourne.

π.o.  generously gave me a copy of the magazine/ journal he edits called Unusual Work and invited me to submit. I was really impressed with the experimental/ alternative work in it and the fact that it was an unashamedly old-school print publication. (They avoid the internet and don’t even accept email submissions – something else unusual.)

In subsequent months π.o. accepted two of my poems; Accents (a poem about my fascination with diacritical marks) and If I were a subjunctive clause (a love song for a grammar teacher based loosely on a 60s folk song and written when I was in Japan in 2012.) I’ve performed it as a song live with ukulele at a couple of poetry gigs in Adelaide. There’s an audio version  on ccmixter.

You can only see the print version in Issue #14 (ISSN 1832-5009) of UNUSUAL WORK. Please consider subscribing. Small presses are keeping poetry alive. It’s available for a mere A$10 a copy from
collective effort press

PO Box 2430
GPO Melbourne
Vic, Australia 3001.

I share publication with Graeme Drendel, Peter Murphy, Kevin Gillam, Gemma White, Arjun Von Craemmerer, Zeb Durant, ACR, Sean O’Callaghan, Sue Elennell, Jeltje, Albert Rotstein, Ross Jackson, Jan Napier, Sjaak de Jong, Les Wicks, Sandy Caldow, Thalia, Marty Hiatt, Robbie Coburn and π.o. himself. There are two more poems – Same and Remember) erroneously attributed to me. I’d be happy to take credit for them but it means that some other poet out there isn’t being acknowledged for her/his great work.

My remixed semi-detached with additional music by Javolenus has been uploaded to ccmixter.

The eye continues to heal.

Thanks to Kara Square for selecting it for the MindMapThat Music Map Podcast Eclectic Collection. And thanks for the Get Well wishes.

Hear it below (click on the title.)

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semi-detached (remixed) by robwalkerpoet