Joanna Preston: Tasmanaut Poet
Ah dear. Here we are, almost finished January, and I’ve not managed to get my shit together long enough to post anything for ages. Forgive me, dear readers. Life has been getting rather thoroughly in the way. The day before my Very Understanding Husband was supposed to start his week of proper holiday time, he …
Continue reading "Start the year as you are likely to continue – late"
Just found out that Creative New Zealand have rejected my funding application for money to enable me to finish the new collection. Bah. And probably humbug too. I knew it was a bit of a long shot, but on the other hand I thought I ticked pretty well all of the relevant boxes. The hope …
Writing poems is like waiting for lightning to strike. But it's hard to order your life around that. – Stephen Dobyns from As the Poet Said … I was thinking about the business of inspiration. What a strange variation of it we seem to have as poets, and all the ways we complicate it. When I …
1. Build it, and they will come. Timetable it, and they might. Or not. Depends, really. 2. No matter how organised you think you are, you aren't. 3. Bulldog clips. 4. The class that you're sure will be really popular will take the full amount of time available to clear the minimum numbers threshold. 5. …
I know a lot of the posts I’ve done have been doom and gloom stories about the dire state of publishing; of poetry in particular, and literature in general. And I stand by my comments: things are very definitely not peachy. New Zealand writers make bugger-all, and poets negative bugger-all. And it’s the same all …
Continue reading "The Barbarians may have been Slightly Delayed"
A Dark Feathered Art 