Joanna Preston: Tasmanaut Poet
The poet judges not as a judge judges, but as the sun falling around a helpless thing. – Walt Whitman Here we are, finally. The winners, losers and place-getters have been chosen, and the list dispatched to the competition secretary. Now I just have to finish polishing my judge’s report, and clean the blu-tack marks …
Continue reading "The Sun and Helpless Things – the end of judgement"
A justice with grave justices shall sit; He praise their wisdom, they admire his wit. – John Gay, from ‘The Birth of the Squire’. After the best part of five days deep immersion in the top 32 contenders for the 2011 NZPS Haiku Competition, I've finally got my order sorted. Well, almost. I now know …
Continue reading "In pursuit of wit and wisdom – the final decisions"
Yet another night of Terra anything-but-Firma. I was brushing my teeth at the time, and discovered for myself why toothbrushes are the favourite materials for prisoners to turn into weapons. Everything was ok at first, but I had a wee session of sobbing into my pillow when I finally convinced myself to head upstairs to …
Hooray, I'm coming back to Dunedin for a Reading! (And working very hard to resist the urge to play around with the rhyming possibilities of the phrase …) Details below and in the sidebar, and you are most welcome to print off a copy of the poster for your own use, whatever that might be: …
There is in each of us a stream of tendency, whether you choose to call it philosophy or not, which gives coherence and direction to thought and action. Judges cannot escape that current any more than other mortals. ... We may try to see things as objectively as we please. None the less, we can …
Continue reading "Eyes and clean slates – a shortlist is born"
A Dark Feathered Art 