outrovert (2010)

there is much to keep silent about

*

that serial mic-in-mouth dream:

hardbodies mass,

your book-smarts
amount to nothing

*

the morning mopes,

hardly good smoking weather

*

a status bar worms
cross-screen
to little purpose

*

timepoor breakfast
eaten off a mirror

*

fast-acting cap
slows the room
to baseline

*

you practise rolling dice

but there’s no
need to undress
that billboard girl

(she only ever loves a warrior)

Below: image by Maureen Flynn-Burhoe

Cordite #32 - Zombie 2.0

Edited by Ivy Alvarez, Zombie 2.0 "features forty new poems by the undead including Gareth Jenkins, Derek Rawson, Jane Jervis-Read, Ashley Capes, Arlene Ang and Valerie Fox, Grant Balfour, Jen Jewel Brown, Nigel Holt, Jayne Pupek, suzanne jones, Tricia Dearborn, Fiona Wright, Mathew Abbott, Emilie Zoey Baker, Christine Swint, Michael Farrell, Lara Williams, Duncan Hose, Esther Johnson, Cameron Fuller, David Stavanger, Fleur Beaupert, Barbara De Franceschi, Sam Twyford-Moore, Janine Whyte, Scott Thouard, Sage Leslie, Jen Arthur and Gregory Horne. Not to mention feature articles, illustrations and audio."

What I've read so far has been very cool.

I put together a couple of things for the issue which didn't make the cut, but I thought they were worth sharing here. See the last two posts, 'slippages / undead' and 'Night of the Living Dead (Abject remix)'.

slippages / undead (2010)

of how things stand:
butcher’s window display,
blood residue on pseudo-grass

*

bystander effect: knowing only
the known body, warding spells,
the craven info

*

the skin is not
on the map, acts like
it doesn’t want to be here

*

the text-fatigued
the soundproofed
the portable ghost-head

*

camouflage for dread:
rare pills (small gods)
chase blood to the tongue

*

riot police
slur syllables
behind the shield-wall

*

the forced door, systems
breached, direct sun
upon a data crypt

*

scared to show the volume
you carry (some sacred relic),
you will nest it in your hands


Image: 'Dead Undead' by skippytpe (click to enlarge).

Night of the Living Dead (Abject remix) (2010)

how best to be dead?

glowing through night
______, family homes

(the lock
_______justified)

another camp
______-advertisement mother

as taboos devour a
_______-man of simulated
___________employment

you have to laugh
_______-at veiled instincts

, moot TV killing

, the lack of real options
_____in a cemetery spillage
____________________situation

Process Notes: This is a remix I did of my poem Night of the Living Dead. I pasted the text of the original poem into Wordle, then relied solely on words used in the original to construct the remix. Just a bit of fun really.

foam:e 7

foam:e issue 7 is now live. This issue, edited by Louise Waller, features poems by Michael Aiken, Stuart Barnes, Hugh Behm-Steinberg, Iain Britton, Chris Brown, Sam Byfield, Julie Chevalier, Jennifer Chrystie, Stuart Cooke, Mark Cunningham, Alison Eastley, Angela Gardner, Patrick Green, Stu Hatton, Matt Hetherington, Jill Jones, Peycho Kanev, KJ, Natalie Knight, Kent MacCarter, Clyde McGill, Siofra McSherry, Adam Moorad, Kristine Ong Muslim, Jal Nicholl, Mark O'Flynn, Sergio Ortiz, Lyn Reeves, Ian Seed, Nathan Shepherdson, Paul Squires, Yassen Vasilev, Vlanes, Les Wicks, Jena Woodhouse, Enda Coyle-Green, Cherry Smyth and Enda Wyley, plus reviews by Derek Motion and Angela Gardner.

sleeper (2010)

what’s said offair re
dud pills you’re not
who they pay you to
be hushing undertow
of riffage tho on alert
for nonimitations as if
deviants make the best
witchhunters could
you be any more uni
formed & those prods
sting real bad mate
just ask the casual
ties those cartoon
wackies never out
grown a tad under
dressed for a funeral
the poster boys of neo
tony can only bet on
walkovers tribes of
bacteria colonising
less polite hosts &
re spraypainting the
18th jed the greens
keeper says he really
has no other option


Notes: neotony is “the retention, by adults in a species, of traits previously seen only in juveniles” (from Wikipedia).

The greens of golf courses are sometimes spray-painted with ‘turf colourants’. This practice has been observed in Australia.

so little and so much

"Why poetry? Its materials are so constant, simple, elusive, specific. It costs so little and so much. It preoccupies a life, yet can only find one in living."

- Robert Creeley, from the Preface to his Selected Poems, 1989.

Below: Creeley in 1970.

recurring poem #9

Peter Porter : 'Your Attention Please'

(Notes on the poem can also be read here).

Image: "XX-11 IVY MIKE, was fired on Enewetak on October 31, 1952. It was an experimental thermonuclear device." (From Wikimedia Commons)

Poets @ Watsonia this Tuesday 9 March

A last-minute gig alert... this one came out of the blue.

This Tuesday (the 9th of March) I'll be featuring along with Lisa Gorton at Watsonia Library. 7pm for 7.30pm start (or thereabouts).

I expect to read for about 10-15 minutes, mainly material from my manuscript How to be Hungry, probably including two or three poems which I've never performed before.

Would be great to see you there...

real money makes things more interesting (2010)

“lucky at cards?” (he laughed
(as if it were simply a matter
of overcoming superstition (yet
he believed (he held)
a poorly constructed hand (&
had a ‘feeling for
the measure of things’ (doesn’t
know now what he knew
then.)))))
_______“gentlemen,
as of now, every card
is wild.”

Below: 'The Jokers of the Pack' (click image to enlarge) by incurable_hippie.

New blog URL

Folks, I've now changed the URL (i.e. the address) of this blog to www.stuhatton.net

The old address (wordyness.blogspot.com) will redirect to the new address.

Still, you might like to update your bookmark/blogroll/etc.

I'm currently testing out the feed settings. Everything appears to be functioning as normal, but please let me know if you experience any problems.

upcoming & recent

This Friday I'll be heading along to the monthly reading at Caffe Sospeso. I enjoyed the last installment, which featured David Gilbey and Randall Stephens, plus there was plenty of quality in the open mic. This Friday features Derek Motion versus Nathan Curnow; the theme is domestic rock 'n' roll. Hmmm... if I read in the open mic I might have to tweak that to 'undomesticated' rock 'n' roll. Maybe.

I also went to see Matt Hetherington's feature at the Dan a few weeks ago. Great stuff from Matt... a really diverse set... at times enigmatic, often hilarious... unexpected, vivid... showing no fear of honesty.

Something I couldn't make it to, unfortunately, was the Melbourne launch of Out of the Box: Contemporary Australian Gay and Lesbian Poets, edited by Michael Farrell and Jill Jones. It's a brilliant anthology - highly recommended.

Looking ahead... on Saturday March 13 I'll be at the Format Festival in Adelaide, featuring on a panel re: non-paper publishing as part of the 'Academy of Words'. Chances are I'll be talking about blogs and the online publication of poetry, and the discussion may also swerve into spoken word as a form of publishing.

And one to put in the diary: on Wednesday April 14 (6-8pm) I'll be at Readings Carlton for the launch of Miscellaneous Voices: Australian Blog Writing, which is to be published by Miscellaneous Press. This anthology, edited by Karen Andrews, will feature work by "James Bradley, Lisa Dempster, Angela Meyer, Jennifer Mills, A. S. Patric, Penni Russon, and many others." I'm one of the many others: my poem 'café date' will be in there, and I'll be giving a reading of it at the launch.

it is not a song (2010)

seek evil

(if only to verify
____________its existence)

the cure for curiosity

____-______-or

“fate is what
_________has already happened”

____________this scattering

__(scratch upon the sky)

(try to be afraid)

Planning Your Journey (2010)

“... not to scale ... effective Sept 09.” - seen on a Melbourne transport map

What the map excludes.

Claims of realtime, its hypergraphia.

Three-way street?

“Either it was lying before, or it’s lying now.”

Unrecognisable home.

Stripping layers of detail.

A formal garden – itself a map.

That every part of this is mortal.

psychopathologies (2010)

you may
be another:

on-screen
your reflection

homuncular,
an alien

*

clocktime mocks
a drift to war

this insomniac
data hunger

overfocus &
air hockey

*

whose handwriting
is this?

'meditation
is boring'

(thanks
for the intel)

*

without permission
without pretext

floating the
outer data

(memory talks
too much)

*

backslapping
as gloved insult?

reading a dictionary
of symptoms

begin to doubt
your presence in the house

qarrtsiluni: Health

The Health issue of qarrtsiluni (edited by Susan Elbe and Kelly Madigan Erlandson) is gradually taking shape. Poems, prose, images and collaborations will continue to be added through to April.

My remix of Nathan Moore's 'Sharps' is now visible, along with a link to the original poem. Plus you can listen to streaming audio of my reading of the remix. Once again, cheers to Chris Andrews for helping out with the recording of that. To the best of my knowledge, all poems/prose pieces in the issue will be accompanied by audio, which is very cool.

For all you trainspotters, composition notes and more info about the remix can be read here.

I have to say that for me, qarrtsiluni is one of the best, and most innovative, online literary magazines out there, so it's a real buzz to be included. Thanks to all the qarrtsiluni editors. Most of all, thanks to Nathan, whose poem was (and remains) an inspiration.

no longer controlling

"One of the motives for being an artist is to recreate a condition where you're actually out of your depth, where you're uncertain, no longer controlling yourself, yet you're generating something, like surfing as opposed to digging a tunnel. Tunnel-digging activity is necessary, but what artists like, if they still like what they're doing, is the surfing."

- Brian Eno

Below: from Eno's 77 million paintings (image by mafalda; click on image to enlarge)

madswirl

Three of my (darker-variety) poems are now visible over at madswirl. Plus a funny pic of yours truly.

Thanks to the ever-cool madswirl eds for having me aboard. The site is well worth checking out.

Otoliths 16

I recommend checking out the latest edition of Mark Young's Otoliths, which features work by Thomas Fink, Satu Kaikkonen, Nate Pritts, Jane A. Lewty, Craig Foltz, Michael Basinski, Stephen C. Middleton, Márton Koppány, Arpine Konyalian Grenier, Raymond Farr, Jeff Crouch & Sheila E. Murphy, Joel Chace, Caleb Puckett, Philip Byron Oakes, Ed Baker, Tom Beckett interviewing William Allegrezza, William Allegrezza, dan raphael, Alyson Torns, Jeff Harrison, Grzegorz Wróblewski, Michele Leggott, PD Mallamo, Ray Craig, Mark Cunningham, Cecelia Chapman, David-Baptiste Chirot, Vernon Frazer, Helen White & Jeff Crouch, James Yeary, Robert Lee Brewer, Michael Brandonisio, J. D. Nelson, Scott Metz, Geof Huth, Corey Wakeling, John M. Bennett & Thomas M. Cassidy, Sheila E. Murphy & John M. Bennett, John M. Bennett, Rebecca Mertz, Felino Soriano, Cath Vidler, David Wolach, Carlyle Baker, Stu Hatton, Jenny Enochsson, Robert Gauldie, Rebecca Eddy, Joe Balaz, Bobbi Lurie, Andrew Topel & Márton Koppány, Hugh Tribbey, John Martone, J. Gordon Faylor, Evan Harrison, A. J. Patrick Liszkiewicz, Bob Heman, Guillermo Castro, & sean burn.

Four of my 'Sevens' are in there. I just posted the latest Seven below.

Seven #18 (2009)

microclimates within the mall

muzak / ’toons / migraine

enter the store, expect service
to envelop you

pushy, nasal intimidation / dis-
proportionate response

such indoor behaviour

amor fati (2009)

begin anywhere

working backwards from
this low
(for example)

(no matter how dumped
you ...)

(how misty
you ...)

expect
some through-thought will arrive

a shuttle/shifter, e.g.:

‘let’s go somewhere
crowded, I feel
like a lot of people’

*

dropper,
drop through the city

nameless,
nearing completion

‘nothing I would
or would not change’

in this weave/fabric


Below: 'Fate of Zero'; computer-graphical study by Georg-Johan Lay (click image to enlarge).

Review: 'Dead End Road' by Richard Wink

My review of Richard Wink's collection Dead End Road is now online over at Sein und Werden.

This is the first poetry collection I've reviewed for a journal, and I hope to do more of this kind of thing in the future.

happiness or art

"The modest domestic circumstances of Tolstoy, the lack of comfort in Rodin's rooms - it all points to the same thing: that one must make up one's mind: either this or that. Either happiness or art. On doit trouver le bonheur dans son art [one must find happiness in one's art]: that too, more or less, is what Rodin said. And it is all so clear, so clear. The great artists have all let their lives become overgrown like an old path and have borne everything in their art. Their lives have become atrophied, like an organ they no longer use."

- Rainer Maria Rilke, in a letter to Clara Rilke, Sept 5, 1902.

Image: Modersohn-Becker's portrait of Rainer Maria Rilke.

impair (2010)

this head
---of shitty lyrics

will never believe
---the sky again

this deadhouse
---is vorpal

words frag up,
---walls fuzz

luck = picking up
---a discard

snorting failure
---through $5 bill

how to edge
---lost & safe?

this entertainment hunt’s
---not it

clair (2009)

the eye that sees clearly
is closed

not dutifully
scanning the news

leaving open-eyed sleep
to the fish

on a sunday slow
with patience

forgetting the freezeframe
dream or wish

loving the birds’
illiterate flight

this barefoot
dance

these tiny
inaccuracies

girl with abstract hair (2009)

sitting purple/pink
__the girl with the abstract hair
prepped for the brushoff

___she drags the sentence
____through his teeth

‘don’t get salty about it’

___‘who’s the friend with benefits?’

_______-she opting not to compute

_________(desire her all you like,)

a dead boy (2009)

(after Jack Spicer)

the river is lost

the flowers dry
and fulvous

shards of cold glass in the bed
for which you are now too tall

the brown bird in the tree
is made of paper

the tree is made of paper
and green glass

another insufficient song
slips under the earth

here where you are sleeping

departing (2009)

post-dawn
___red sun___pinks the hills
_-out the passenger window__winery country
____-signposted gourmet tours

columns of vapour_-rising_-over pools
_-& the Swan too_-as we bridge over it

this early_-only airport traffic
___rows of dormant yellow earthmovers
___________bobcats for hire

these lives we will never lead
____-laid out dead before us


Below: NASA satellite image of the Swan River, Western Australia (click on image to enlarge)

to have no sense of how

"She [Gertrude Stein] says it is a good thing to have no sense of how it is done in the things that amuse you. You should have one absorbing occupation and as for the other things in life for full enjoyment you should only contemplate results. In this way you are bound to feel more about it than those who know a little of how it is done.

"She is passionately addicted to what the french call métier and contends that one can only have one métier as one can only have one language. Her métier is writing and her language is english."

- Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas

Below: Picasso's portrait of Stein.

virus (2009)

(for Kat / props to Laurent Garnier)

techno is a virus throbbing
______munt-fodder glob stacker
_____tractions bluffer venom jugger
____null compressor den richter
___scales disturbor bots nicer
__loosed repeater stunblaster iris
_airlocks flooded spectrum gridshifts
glasstooth grinder misfitter stealth
_exhibit unexpected spectre pulse-flare
__omicron-wasp fluid accelerator blissed-on
___spitter madcap courtships culted brink
____cursives the roid belt unelected void
_____shapers strewn planetfall peak icebreak
______nano-roboscopic lifter phantasma
_______grabby bloater carbonate blunted
________mined dark-end quicksilver bloodline
_________spewer cloned samsara salad flak

one more dialect

"Thought, which science has expelled from its place at the top of the spiral of evolution, reappears at the bottom of it: the physical structure of atoms and their particles is a mathematical structure, a relation. What is equally extraordinary is that this structure can be reduced to a system of signs - and is therefore a language. The power of speech is a particular manifestation of natural communication; human language is one more dialect in the linguistic system of the universe. We might add: the cosmos is a language of languages."

- Octavio Paz, 'The Verbal Pact and Correspondence', from Alternating Current.

November gigs

On Saturday the 21st I took part in heat 2 of the Melbourne Believer Slam at Westgate Baptist Centre in Yarraville.

A welcoming ceremony was performed by Aboriginal elder Reg Blow. His didge playing was awe-inspiring, and the ceremony created an atmosphere of solidarity amongst the participants, rather than competitiveness.

I'd never read poems in a church before. I'm not too fond of having to follow a bunch of rules when performing (it can throw me off in terms of focus), but the poems I read ('For Edwin' and 'Vipassana') were well-received, I thought. And I could understand why the rules had to be in place, given the context and audience.

Aside from religious/spiritual poetry, there were some great protest poems performed on the night, including the most powerful Hurricane Katrina poem I've heard. There were plenty of laughs to be had too though, which is pretty much guaranteed when you have the likes of Ezra Bix, Amanda le Bas de Plumentot and Cameron Semmons gracing the stage.

Thanks to Geoff Fox for inviting me along - I had a great night.

*

On Friday the 27th I was at the launch of Unusual Work #8. As ever, there was a bit of everything... poetry was the driving force, but UW launches are unpredictable, mixed-media affairs. I read 'free of the fear of freedom' (extended performance remix) and 'Found Poem #3' - the latter is featured in UW #8. Anna Fern & co were terrific... loved her haiku double act with Maurice Mcnamara... and Sean O'Callaghan's videopoems (with live delivery) just keep getting more and more mindblowing.

Track down a copy of UW if you haven't already - it's available from Polyester, Readings Carlton, and other non-shit bookstores.

Thanks to TTO for organising another off-the-wall launch, and for allowing me to be part of it.

post- (2009)

late morning
___meditation w/ hangover

night spent
___smoking the dead

a pearl
___melted in wine

to risk
___the beautiful

(it lands as
___paracetamol)

now look yourself up:
___deedless

words asleep, time-
___waste / narrowcast

eyes stung
___(fingertip smokestain)

a woman knocks, her
___body a shop

synthetic flies
___leave graffiti

you’re eating &
___sleeping off cellburst

that dead-
___cell ache

Scratch (2nd cut) (2009)

(Kristen Bissaillon's remix of 'scratches', as part of our remix exchange.)


‘Burb a vicious experiment. Tentative tenements in the crossword. Garage and grocery doors snub birdsong, as if a separate species of closure.

One politic line bleeds into the next. Nobody arrives in the narrative, receives the inevitable, takes endearment right in the kisser.

One monkish audience bleeds into the next (shy collectors, sniped upskirt). The anonymous branch turns to speak.

Vaseline version of self. Airbrush a vacuum; nature has an opinion. Bitten cheek desires to drink.

Congeal, collide, pass in the night. Some structure has been imposed. Flies backward out of sight, out of sightedness. Lapse retired, retried. A twisted wire restraint.

Everything omen bears repeating. Flourishing collections incarnate again, it may yet prove interesting.

Desire authors the uncertain dear. Pill dies becoming.


(I previously posted a remix of Kristen's 'Cartouche'.)

thumbnails (2009)

emptying days
the soundtrack
wiped fly-zip
stuck open a
softer way to
die the shrink-
wrapped garden
pearly under sun
slick cyclists
packed in slip-
stream legwork
seemed foreign
as to seek more
difficult pleasures
than who you’d love
to scalp sunburnt
from treading vice-
like circles hatless
stripped of skillset
neither the blood
hat nor the funny
one keeping no
favourites there
has to be another
knockout pixel
high says who

tame (2009)

Frequent the small places. Boycott of giants. Armadas of battleships unable to turn. How many m³ of grey? Crime scene cluster: bank, supermarket, exchange. Do not buy my child a gun.

Go bush. Firetraps on the fringes. Generalised iffiness. Loose network cables the cause? Distraction industries. The simian cornered. Optimal yield. Hoard apps, plugins. Planned waste, inbuilt obsolescence. Planet E: renovator’s dream. Foreclosure vultures. Revolving door policies.

Unplug these futures. Are we ‘headed’? Facer, tone up your voice. Read the insane. Artist seeks larger mirror. Caffeine for possibilities. Adjusting the gain. Eating whatever falls from the sky. Insects fly through rain, never struck by a drop.


Below: Simian 40 virus (image by Phoebus87).

power ballad (2009)

day's dawning, skin's crawling
__pure morning

- Placebo, 'Pure Morning'


who is ever still,
__here in the live feed?

(could go every way)

peering at decisions,
__drinks list

she pierces the yolk-bubble,
__dribbles yellow

everyone loves to be ignored,
__nonchalant or chalant,
____swooping on ignorance

days when you don’t want your name
__associated

the future’s correct,
__be so sure

fiction wins

'augmented reality'
__a letdown
____(teleprompter ≠ teleporter)

night opens to speed
__farms out fragments
____raided by addicts

placebo’s pure morning
__a tweaker anthem,
____meth’s power ballad

crystal methamphetamine,
__a naked eraser

Cartouche (Sands of the Desert Remix) (2009)

A remix of Kristen Bissaillon's poem 'Cartouche'


Hard to get off the roads. Abdicate, bypass. Hyper-
naming homeworld. Even Voyager I ferries
hieroglyphs. Turntables link sun

and sun. Departing the heliosphere. Lose
your face for days: an antidote. Words no longer
family. Become aerial, chaos-bait. Palpate

frequencies, patterns heard in pattern-
less. What sun scries. Return to nothing
but the impossible. Heat

travelled. Desert compass an
encumbrance, tarnished silver reflector.
Here the tomb-wastes, ground and sky of

once-flowing city. Remnants of
Ozymandias’s amusement. Shadow-
found. Drifts of laughter coiling sands.


Below: Cartouches for Ramesses II (aka Ozymandias) at Luxor Temple, Egypt.

The Words We Found

I was at the launch of The Words We Found last night. This anthology presents the best writing and artwork from 21 years of Voiceworks magazine. Happy 21st, Voiceworks!


Lisa Dempster has excelled herself as editor, putting together an eclectic mix of raw, vibrant stuff.

Here's the list of contributors: Christos Tsiolkas (foreword), Lisa Dempster, Johannes Jakob, Bel Schenk, John Marsden, Bryce Wolfgang Joiner, Ella Holcombe, Justin Lim, Paul Hardacre, Justin Woolley, Christopher Jacobin, Mandy Ord, Jessica Au, Chloe Walker, alicia sometimes, Arlene TextaQueen, Mel Campbell, David Blumenstein, Christopher Currie, Albee Ontop, Stu Hatton, Jack Heath, Jade O'Donohue, Alice Swing, Vanessa Berry, Romy Ash, Lili Wilkinson, Andre Dao, Tai Snaith, Geoff Lemon, Cameron T, Mel Stringer, Lisa Pham, Liam Pieper, Lahmann B. Smith, Alison Hall, Greg Foyster, Steve Smart, Ula Majewski, Briohny Doyle, Anna Krien, Ronnie Scott, Thuy On, David Mence, Peter Savieri, Mia Timpano, Sofia Stefanovic, Tallace Bisset, Justin Heazlewood, Zoe Barron, Eirian Chapman and Simon Cox.

The poem of mine that's in there, A Billboard Said 'Yes', was first published in 1998(!), when Adam Ford was editor. I got to meet Adam last night, so it was as if circles were completing themselves. I remember writing the poem while 'working' in a video store. Those were the days, haha!

Kudos to everyone who's been involved in making Voiceworks what it is, i.e. essential.

music may be older than language (2009)

Recursions. Glitching stars tap out the spectrum.
Trees bend fractal. Ventriloquist froglife. Dub-
pond & thicket. Spiralling through. Halt at the
fire to be its student.

Fire lifts, farewells. Night masquerade: some
of the women stand winged; men wear their
animal. Plant ingesters. Shamanic bass. En-
theogen shaving story-layers.

Cosmologies, soteriologies. The death
side. n, n dimethyltryptamine hyper-
space. Discarnate remedy. Pharma-
kon. (Dis)enchanter.

An audience with. Far space, upper
time. House of the elders. Inter-
section. Coming to. Drums
begin.