A Dark Feathered Art

to the website and blog of Joanna Preston,
Tasmanaut poet, editor, and freelance creative writing tutor.

A sample of poems from my first two books, and one from the collection-in-progress.

Please contact me first if you want to copy them or print them out or use them in some way – I will almost always say yes, but there are some situations where I will not. If nothing else, I’d love to know where the poems are finding their readers.

Enjoy!

Hysteria

says the magazine he looks up from, 
claims one passenger on average every 
couple of hundred flights. My fears 
are stowed in the overhead locker,
clenched in zippered teeth. 

Jet fuel is twenty-percent lighter than water, 
and burns at eight hundred degrees, 
the magazine man tells me, and laughs, 
smelling of barbecue sauce.
There’s a stain the shape of Africa on his tie,
which tells me that no woman loves him.
Long-distance commercial passenger flights
typically cruise at nine hundred k’s,
three-quarters the speed of a bullet.

Victorian ladies pursed pins in their lips 
when travelling through railway tunnels
to guard against strangers trying 
to kiss them in the dark.
The grass beside the runway is sparse
and straggly, like his hair. 

Taxiing now. It feels like late summer
afternoons in the old ute, 
bumping along the river flat
with a bale of hay in the back.
He’s speaking again, but I keep 
my eyes on the road ahead.

published in Landfall

Galanthus in rain

Soft rain bends the necks of winter flowers –
penitents in white veils and green blouses,
meek beneath the copper beech that towers
like a magistrate. And all my powers
of persuasion cannot alter how this
grim gallows-verdict falls: you are now hers.
Shapeless as salt water, thirty hours
since you left. Who knew we were such cowards?
– good wine set aside until it sours.
The house fills with rain. And I allow this.

published in tumble, (OUP, 2021)

Lydia of the Lace Doilies 

Of course, she always had hordes of lovers—

so whenever I saw her, fat and placid
termite-queen of the nursing home

I imagined her naked, lying
on a bed of animal fur,
small
moustachioed men, smelling
of horses and sweat and woodsmoke

taking turns to lose themselves
in her plump white breasts,
her eyes closed, her full-blown
rose lips
parting and unparting.

published in The Summer King, (OUP, 2009)

Other People’s Poems – Close Readings, Analyses and Poem Commentaries

To paraphrase Owen Marshall: if you want to know the time, look at the clock’s face. If you want to know how a clock works, you have to take the back off. And that’s what close reading is – taking the time to try and work out what a poem is doing, and how. Drinking it in. Learnings its secrets. Wandering around the poem’s rooms and rumaging through its drawers.

Continue reading “Commentaries”

Welcome to The Poetry Class

Since 2010 I’ve been running poetry workshops as a freelance creative writing tutor. Below is a basic outline of what to expect in each type of workshop – a sample of the things I regularly offer. Join the Poetry Class mailing list, and be first to hear when new classes open.

To see what classes are currently being offered, click here.
To enrol in a current class, click here.
To be added to the Poetry Class mailing list, click here.
To learn more about the sorts of poetry classes I offer in general, read on.

I am available to run poetry or general creative writing classes for writers’ groups, festivals, and private individuals, and can tailor a workshop to your specific needs.
Continue reading “Workshops”