Queensland poet Graham Nunn has had a chat with me at Another Lost Shark in the lead-up to the Riverbend reading on the 23th of this month. Have a looksee!
Poetry on the Deck
Date: Tuesday 23 June, 6pm
Location: Riverbend Books, 193 Oxford St. Bulimba
Milwaukee poetry journal, Burdock, launches its sixth issue this coming Thursday.
May 21st, 7.30pm
BYOB and food; some nibblies supplied
900 S. 5th Street, Walker’s Point, Milwaukee
(On 5th and Walker – enter on Walker, one block south of national.)
Featuring readings from contributors, including Milwaukee’s poet laureate Susan Firer, and international artist, emerging Australian poet Zenobia Frost. (Shameless self-promotion!!)
See http://www.teppichfresser.blogspot.com for more info.
I’m fairly sure yesterday was the best birthday ever.
I had a wonderful time with Nerissa (as Madrigal Maladies) at SpeedPoets earlier in the day. Big thanks to Graham & Jules and the lovely crowd at The Alibi Room.
The launch at !Metro Arts in the evening was an absolute dream event. Somewhere between 80 and 100 friends and family came along (we lost count!), the book supply nearly sold out and the punctuative cupcakes were gone in a snap.
Thank you to:
I had a great time, I couldn’t be happier with the book, and I hope you all enjoy The Voyage (and are amused by my inscriptions, if you had your copy signed).
I’m pleasantly tired today, and intend to spend the rest of the afternoon in my pyjamas, probably watching The Hunger.
With love,
Zenobia
Sunday May 3
SpeedPoets is back for Round 3 of 2009! Be there as Brisbane’s longest running spoken word/poetry event takes over The Alibi Room (720 Brunswick St. New Farm) on Sunday May 3 from 2:00pm – 5:00pm. The May event features the delicate beauty of Ichabod’s Crane: http://www.myspace.com/ichabodscranemusic. This Brisbane ensemble conjures the sounds of horses being ridden on sand and snake tails speeding beneath gumboots…music to be shipwrecked to!
And to celebrate the pending launch of her debut collection ‘Voyage’, Zenobia Frost will perform a short feature set with a special appearance from Madrigal Maladies, her collaboration with Nerissa Rowan, and if that’s not enough for you, winner of The Dream Ain’t Broken Chapbook Competition, Nicola Scholes will also perform a short feature set, showcasing poems from her forthcoming collection.
As always there will also be live sounds from the SpeedPoets poetic riff generator Sheish Money, giveaways, free zines and two rounds of Open Mic. Entry is a gold coin… This is a gig not to be missed!
SpeedPoets, Sunday May 3 @ The Alibi Room, 720 Brunswick St. New Farm. 2:00pm – 5:00pm.
then get along to…
The launch of The Voyage, a poetry chapbook concerning the adventures of Zenobia Frost, with illuminations by Bettina Walsh.
Time: 7:00pm
!Metro Arts Basement
109 Edward Street, Brisbane
Featuring James Sherlock and Rob Morris
$5 entry / free drinks and nibblies
https://zenobiafrost.wordpress.com/
Presented by SweetWater Press
I have a groovy little book in my hot little hands.
Jeffrey Harpeng says, on the blurb, “The poetry of The Voyage has both the resignation of the sage, and the wit and passion of the articulate romantic. Frost hopes lovingly against all odds and oddities.” (Thanks, Jeff!) And, of course, Bettina’s art brings the chapbook to life.
I’m looking forward to seeing you all on Sunday for a rather magnificent little party. I shall be baking all weekend; expect there to be sprinkles in my hair. Again.
Don’t forget James Sherlock will be providing jazz grooves and Rob Morris will be bringing further tales from the rock-n-roll after-life. Not to be missed!
With affection,
Zenobia
x o x
The Voyage
book launch
7pm, 3rd May
!Metro Arts, 109 Edward St, Brisbane
Well, I had fun at the start of this week; Graham Nunn over at Another Lost Shark asked me to captain a Guided by Poets thread (like poets’ tag) that got all the way to Chicago via Berlin. My poem there, Bathing with Gaiman, appears to have been read by Neil himself, which more or less made my decade. I tagged mr oCean (Berlin, Sublimination), after whom came Michael Haeflinger (Dayton, Love Poem for the Everyday), Hose Olivarez (Cambridge, April 10, 1999), and finally Nate Marshall (Chicago, the genesis). Thanks to these awesome poets. :D
So, I promised you a tasty sonnet. This should be published in A Prominent Journal, but its author is kindly letting me pop it up here. Lila is a talented poet whom I’ve been honoured to get to know over the last few weeks.
Persephone
Within a chamber dry and bare as bone,
Amid the wistful shades of passion spent
And memories bereft of merriment,
Above the sea of sighs, there broods a throne.
The goddess there enthroned is deaf and numb;
Her eyes are marbles, blank and dim and dull,
Her face a rot-white mask stretched on her skull.
Her mouth, as stone, is cold and still and dumb.
But some faint redolence of warmth is there,
Though grim her mind as glacier blue and bleak—
A half-a-dream of poppies on her cheek,
A memory of sunlight on her hair—
As dawning laughter thaws her chilly blood
The blossom of her heart begins to bud.
Lila Black is muddling though her twenties as a student, teacher, and writer of fairy-stories for an amused but impecunious audience of children. She travels so much between the USA and the UK that everyone has forgotten which one she came from in the first place. This autumn she plans to finish her MA degree in publishing and then take a few months to catch her breath and do some serious agent-hunting before applying for her PhD. On ordinary days she translates Greek tragedies into English and ruminates about them; on reckless days she writes poetry. Here is a picture of her kissing Milton:
As close to a media release as we’ll get:
The Voyage, the debut collection from local poet, Zenobia Frost, will be launched by SweetWater Press on the 3rd of May. Zenobia has won prizes for the poems written during her school years, and more recently has had work published in Going Down Swinging, Small Packages, Stylus, Mascara and Voiceworks. This first collection somehow combines undertones of both The Ancient Mariner and The Hunting of the Snark, while remaining determinedly in her own voice.
The volume is illuminated by Bettina Walsh’s lively drawings.
Zenobia has been described by fans as “a poetic adventurer, hat fetishist and protector of apostrophes who works with the Queensland Poetry Festival and coordinates The Ruby Fizz Society, a light-hearted opportunity to indulge in fine food, fine arts and high-class frivolity”.
Guitarist James Sherlock will be providing jazz grooves, cupcakes will be sprouting up everywhere, and libations will be quaffed during the evening, beginning at 7.00pm, in the !Metro Arts Basement, 109 Edward Street, Brisbane.
NEXT MONTH’S CONTRAVERSE IS THE END OF AN ERA!
That’s right. The 15th of May will be the VERY LAST CONTRAVERSE. To usher out our reading,
we are bringing in some feature-poet new blood. RHYS ROGERS will help mop up our tears (hopefully
of laughter) and MC Brent Downes will be encouraging antics as usual.
AND IN OTHER NEWS:
Not all is lost!
Synaptic Graffiti are looking for NEW SUBMISSIONS for “In Living Memory”, a new multimedia poetry project.
Find out more here:
http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendId=387605083&blogId=481904221
Please pass this notice on to anyone you think would like to participate in either the last two Contraverses’ or “In Living Memory”.
Well, the launch is shaping up, and the response insofar has been very positive, which is making me all warm and fuzzy. Thank you.
More shameless self-promotion in the lead-up to May 3rd. I’m posting a portion of my interview with Graham Nunn at Another Lost Shark (thanks G!), in which I blather on about whatever it is my chapbook’s about…
SweetWater Press is due to release your debut collection. Tell us about its evolution.
A university manuscript-writing project gave me an excuse to compile a chapbook, so I’ve been working on the collection for a year or so. It’s a quiet little thing, but I quite like the way it’s come to life. It’s funny that you chose the word ‘evolution’, because the chapbook, The Voyage, began as an excuse to bring together all of my oceanic love poems, but somehow it grew legs and crawled onto land with a series of poems about bugs, reptiles, people and finally houses. (However, if we follow the book’s idea of the ‘natural flow’ of evolution to its conclusion, then a tall gin and tonic is the height of civilisation. Maybe I’m onto something?)
The Voyage will be launched on May 3rd (7pm, !Metro Arts Basement), before I set off on a voyage of my own (with a box of books!) to enjoy the Midwest-American summer.
You can read the rest of the interview here.
Want More?
Stylus Poetry Journal: Issue 31, October 2008
http://styluspoetryjournal.com/main/master.asp?id=874
Mascara Poetry: Issue 4
http://www.mascarapoetry.com/
I hope you’re having a lovely Easter long-weekend, and I hope you’re as stuffed full of chocolate as I am.
Zenobia
x o x
The Voyage
a poetry chapbook concerning the adventures of
Zenobia Frost
with illuminations by
Bettina Walsh
launches at 7pm, May 3rd
$5 entry / free drinks and nibblies
Presented by SweetWater Press
Zenobia Frost 