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Nuns, Punks, and Iggy Pop dressed as 007

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The other day I was passing through Queen St Mall and observed the following:

  • A young boy in a home-made cardboard top hat with a big orange flower attached on a spring.
  • A man who, from the neck up, looked like Iggy Pop on a bad day but, from the neck down, looked like James Bond in a perfect black formal suit and bow-tie.
  • A punk asking a flock of querulous nuns in blue questions about Jesus.

This is irrelevant. I think all low-fat milk tastes like it’s gone off. I am having treacle cake and a glass of milk for brunch.

If you like poems, you can find something called I Dreamt You Were Dead and It Was Grand (A Love Poem) by me, over at Black Rider Press (come along with the Black Riders, etc.). Even if you don’t like poems, it will still be there. Even if you don’t like treacle cake, I will still be eating it.

No one in my house likes treacle. I would like to find someone else who likes treacle, and give them a hug. But I won’t give them any of my treacle. It’s English, don’t you know.

In other news, I’ll be doing performing at a poetry event called ‘Not Aloud in the Library’ at the Brisbane Square Library on the 16th of April. I will be reading other people’s erotica. Fuzzy-tingle times are not allowed aloud in the library, unless you are one of my housemates. Darkwing Dubs will also be performing, along with burlesque and circus acts.

In other other news, that same weekend I’ll be a busy bee at the state library on the 18th, doing a poetry workshop as part of Express Media’s Mini Publication Ride. It’s so awesome to have an Express Media thing happening up here in Queensland. If you don’t know them and their publication, Voiceworks, you ought to. Anyhoo, this is a four-week series of workshops. They will be on short stories (Chris Somerville), poetry (me), opinion (Benjamin Law) and zine making (Tiara the Merch Girl) – and if you do all four you’ll have your own zine at the end of it. You can book here if you want to come, which you really ought to. If you don’t, I’ll still be eating treacle cake, though I might be sick of it by then and have moved onto a different kind of cake.

Happy Easter. Avoid invoking the fertility gods today unless you really want to. Eat a lot of chocolate, though. Food babies are safer.

Palatal Liquid sought to cure Voiceless Fricative

/ Zenobia Frost / 2 Comments

Newsliness: I’m in Famous Reporter! See below.

Welcome to the second summer of the year. Well, my second—the first was the bipolar (seriously—0 degrees to 30 in a couple of days?!) Wisconsin summer way back in May/June. I’ve been dreading the Australian variety because that means Sweating and Christmas Decorations and…well, that’s about it, isn’t it?

Anyway, it’s here. This morning the front lawn had exploded into dandelions. A red dragonfly approximately the size of France flew by. Nesting birds have spent the last three weeks using my skull as target practice.

I have put my togs on. Not being I like swimming, or because I’m going near any kind of body of water, but because it seems like the only appropriate uniform for the sort of day when I’m going to be doing a lot of overdue housework—and homework—and my little Queenslander maintains a steady temperature of Surface of the Sun.

But! I do have reason to celebrate. I have a huge bucket of finest gelati (nectarine, lemon, cardamom) and I have finished the linguistics class I should have dropped out of months ago. The only thing I got out of it was a variety of phonological puns (see blog title)—they were good. Beyond that, good riddance.

And today I have a date (another one! she came back!) with Simone de Beauvoir. Taking the phone off the hook, kids.

Last but certainly not least, Ralph Wessman at Famous Reporter has published a chat we had regarding poetry and Stuff and Things. You can read it here. In it I claim that dead poets are copying me, amongst other things. And, re-reading it now, I realise I had (another) Gillam fangirl moment in the interview, too. Ah well, it happens.

Bucketsfull of amazing poets can be found in Issue 40, including Geoff Page (squee!), Graham Nunn, Max Ryan, Nathan Curnow, Ross Donlon, Kent MacCarter, Cameron Hindrum, Sarah Day, and Anthony Lawrence. But you’ll have to buy the journal to get all the goods—and you should.

There’s also a poem from yours truly in the print version. (You might have seen it before if you’ve got my chapbook, but I think it’s twice as nice to see it in Famous Reporter.)

Stalking the Moon

We sail under the moon
and it sails through the sky
oblivious—or not wanting
us to know that it has noticed us.
We neither lag nor gain, passing under
the arched backs of bridges
(lazily curious or curiously lazy
in our skyfishing).

We lace backwards and forwards
across the waist of the river,
tying ourselves to the city in case
the moon should dive
(we’ll be a steady net to catch it)
or turn and lift us up
(looking into its face would surely be
too like a mirror)
and swing our steamboat from its anchor
like a censer in a dark cathedral.

The moon only looks over its shoulder
and hurries when morning comes
(with torchlight strong enough
to scan a row of beds for stragglers)
to urge its late body, full with travels,
into a slow descent.

And there is no doubt that the sun
is gaining on us, too.

  (Still, we follow.)

Good luck with summer, guys. Haul out the barbeque, roll out the slip ‘n’ slide and put ice in the kiddy pool. Then send me photos of you in your cossie and silliest apron, in the backyard, covered in suds and eating a burger. Don’t forget your hat; plovers and sunshine want your brains.

Er, signing off.

—Z

Zenobia Frost Stars in Hitchcock Remake

/ Zenobia Frost / 1 Comment

No, seriously. The Birds are coming to get me. None of my housemates or friends-who-live-nearby ever encounter nesting birds around my suburb, yet every time I step out of the house, birds scream and swoop: plovers, magpies, minors, even crows. This afternoon three plovers left a tree across the road and swooped me while I was still on my front steps. A few weeks ago, several species of bird (including a pair of wild budgies) teamed up on me at the cemetery when I was trying to leave.

Considering that all cats like me (seriously, even cats who supposedly hate the world will put up with me), I’m not entirely surprised that birds seem to have a vendetta against me. Kittehs and birdies aren’t exactly best friends. Still, it’s weird. Weird to the point of freaking me out. Does anyone know anything about bizarre bird-curses?

On a happier note, the very kind Dr Jon over at the livejournals had some lovely things to say about my Queen Zen poem, and its connection to (and origins in) some strange and wonderful products over at the Black Phoenix Alchemy Labs.

Adventure!

/ Zenobia Frost / 2 Comments

melbpasstonguesWe — that is, Rob Morris, Kristin Hannaford and Belinda Jeffrey (tour coordinator extraordinaire) — set off on a poetry tour of Sydney, Melbourne and Launceston back at the end of September. The trip couldn’t have gone better, but here are my highlights:

  • Stumbling across a little red door that opened onto the Cafe Lounge, which led to a strange series of events in which I received a free bottle of champagne, which I enjoyed on the balcony of a mansion – trespassing, having climbed up and over the hotel roof – in Launceston with Nathan Curnow, Sarah Day and Ross Donlon, and later Kristin and Belinda.
  • Exploring Sydney with my buddy Clare, whom we in Brisvegas wish we could see more of.
  • Getting revved up at Passionate Tongues in Melbourne, and chilling out at the lovely Spinning Room the next night.
  • Visiting every vintage shop in Australia with Rob, who is a real groover. Losing Rob. Finding that every vintage shop attendant understood what I meant when I asked, “Have you seen a madly poetic sort of chap in a jacket?” (“Yes. He went next door.”)
  • Having a glorious afternoon in Melbourne’s laneways with my old friend Ange from high school, now a med student. Ange and I found (and I purchased) an utterly splendid walking cane (with elephant head), whom I named Oscar. And then we met a witch.
  • Accidently using Oscar to get into the short queue at the Dali exhibition at night (which was, in itself, spectacular).
  • Haemorhaging cash at Route 66.
  • Exploring the park and meeting the monkeys (one of whom I swear was eating chewing gum) in Launceston.
  • Meet all the lovely, lovely people at the Tasmanian Poetry Festival. Hanging out with Nathan, Ross, Sarah and Kevin Gillam. I learnt so much from them and from my tour mates.
  • Selling books! And improving my performance, I hope. I felt like I was.
  • Getting checked over for explosives on every single domestic flight. I must look like a firework, or something. Maybe it’s the hat.

You can read Belinda Jeffrey’s account of our tour here.

Dolly, Mr Boots, and Other Good Things

/ Zenobia Frost / 4 Comments

Mr BootsI am listening to Lion Island. They are the perfect soundtrack to a lazy Sunday on which I’ve got nothing much done, but feel quite, quite content. They launched their debut EP at Ric’s bar on Friday night, and it’s a cracker. They’ve come so far so quickly, and they deserve it. I’m biased, I know — my sisterthing plays trumpet (“and when she’s not playing the trumpet,” says one reviewer, “she’s playing the smile”), but they’re really, really worth a listen. And when you’ve finished listening, you can pop along to the uncharTED website (they’ve been short-listed for an amazing award), and vote them all the way to the Big Day Out.

There’s been lots going on in the world of Zen. I moved out of home just over a month ago, and my new place is a haven on the hill, overlooking Brisbane. It fits me perfectly, and my housemates — both fuzzy and unfuzzy — are quite lovely. The humans in the house bake a lot, so it always smells good, and the cats in the house are eccentric and aristocratic.

I went on tour a few weeks ago, courtesy of Arts Queensland, the Qld Writers Centre and the Qld Poetry Festival. It was wild. Adventure stories to come. In a minute. Promise.

My new place is a short walk from Toowong Cemetery, and I’ve become a bit obsessed with it and its 127 000 quiet inhabitDollyants. I’ve started planning out a rather large project: a book of poems in which history and whimsy overlap, and we meet the cemetery’s earliest dead. There are so many gravestones there that can only barely be read, now, and I want to write their stories before they disappear. In the 1970s, the council removed about a thousand old memorials – I fear this might happen again, to make way for the newly deceased. Thus, my quest begins! I am on the hunt for stories about Brisbanites buried between 1971 and 1950, in particular.

The hill — all 250 acres of land there — was first used as a graveyard, the history books say, in 1871 (Colonel Samuel Blackall in January, baby Ann Hill in November, and then another four), and wasn’t officially opened until 1876, and yet I’ve found graves dating back to 1863 (Malynn tomb, pictured) in some of the most overgrown parts of the cemetery. If anyone has any clues as to why this might be, please let me know. (This site says the cemetery was established, as Brisbane General Cemetery, in 1866, but that’s still three years after my earliest grave-find.)

Malynn GraveI anticipate I’ll be spending a lot of time at the John Oxley and State libraries in coming months, and I’ll definitely be getting hold of ‘Friends of Toowong Cemetery’, who apparently conduct free tours. I go gravewalking a couple of times a week; anyone who’d like to come along on adventures is welcome. It’s easy to walk for two or three hours in there and never pass the same gravestone twice. It’s a veritable museum.

Hoop pines rise
from the jaws of skeletons:
a final word.

Aboard the Poetry Tour Bus

/ Zenobia Frost / 3 Comments

Hurrah! I’m very excited to have been chosen to join Robert Morris and Kristin Hannaford on a week-long poetry tour at the end of September. The Queensland Writers Centre and Queensland Poetry Festival are sending us to Sydney, Melbourne and Launceston. Can’t wait!

I’ve never really seen much of Australia before—I’ve certainly never been to Tasmania—so I’m looking forward to exploring. I’m sure that Rob and I will find quality vintage-hunting time along the way. More news to come as tickets (and gigs) are booked.

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to book your tickets for the QPF opening night event, A Tangle of Possibilities, featuring AF Harrold (UK), Elizabeth Bachinsky (Canada), Neil Murray & the 2009 Arts Queensland Poet-in-Residence Hinemoana Baker (the festival begins with a lady with fine taste in hats? Perfect!). And I’ll be MCing!

It’s all happening this coming weekend, Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd of August, and it’ll be a blast. Tickets are now on sale from Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts or by calling the box office on: (07) 3872 9000.

Full/Phone/Door: $20
Concession: $15
Groups of 5 or more: $15

With help from The Little Oxford Dictionary, 1941

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sky

noun
1. the vault of heaven
2. the firmament

lark

noun
1. species of small bird, including the skylark
2. frolic, spree; an amusing incident

skylark

noun
1. Alauda arvensis, a small species of bird—plain in colouring, and not at all like its verbly cousin. The male has broad wings and two or three minutes of song in him; females prefer the male that can sing and hover the longest.

intransitive verb
1. (of sailing) to run up and down the rigging of a ship in sport
2. to gambol; to frolic; to indulge in horseplay; to indulge in lark
3. to play tricks or practical jokes

“Skylarking presents a hazard in the workplace.”
—Australian Occupational Health and Safety Legislation, 1998

The Cure and A Strange Whirring Noise

/ Zenobia Frost / 5 Comments

It occurs to me that I’ve posted a lot of advertisements lately, but not many zenrambles, and zenrambles at the very least amuse the Zen.

So yes, I’m listening to The Cure and A Strange Whirring Noise, both of which are coming out of my computer, but one of which doesn’t belong. I wonder how long it will be until this PC pops. Technology hates me. My typewriter never gives me this kind of trouble, but my typewriter isn’t, well, networked.

The Cure best-of/singles collection, The Cure Galore, I bought while wandering round the city this evening enjoying the rain. I like their clean sound. There’s nothing wishy-washy about The Cure. I also think Robert Smith looked a lot darker than his music sounds, which makes me think of Edward Scissorhands.

Edward Scissorhands was made by an American filmmaker. By startling coincidence, I recently travelled to the States. (How’s that for a subtle segue?) I wasn’t going to see Tim Burton, though (we don’t talk much anymore); I was going to see three people: a dear friend in Milwaukee, Fonzie, and Neil Gaiman.

I found all three, and I didn’t even have to go very far.

I stayed with my friend’s family in Milwaukee, and in the first week headed downtown to find the Fonz. Wisconsin buses are like Brisbane buses, and we had to thump the bus stop with the enthusiasm of Fonzie himself to make the bus materialise. We weren’t sure where to get off, either, but again, the Fonz guided us, and—though we pressed the buzzer more or less at random—the bus stopped directly opposite His Coolness. And here he is, standing immortal, Milwaukee’s own bronze Fonz:

Fonzie Milwaukee

Fonzie’s luck stayed with us throughout the day. Later, I found a book dated 1768 in a second-hand book warehouse (like Black Books x 1000000), previously owned by Lady Douglas, Scottish painter. She was 18 at the time the book was published. The book itself, Orlando Innamorato (Orlando in Love), is deliciously bound and ancient and smells wonderful.

Leon's

Back to the 50s. I became quite addicted to cheesy 50s-themed soda fountains, milkbars and diners in the US, and I’m very sad that they don’t abound in Australia. Leon’s, a drive-in frozen custard (oh my! tasty stuff) joint, is said to be the place  that the Happy Days diner was based on. Though I couldn’t see the link, they did do ambrosail sundaes.

But I digress. Neil Gaiman (and how he escaped me!). For my last weekend, we caught the bus down to Chicago and stayed in a hostel in the city’s centre. After getting thoroughly lost (I’ll read the map in future, thanks), we realised our hostel was just down the road from the Printer’s Row literary festival. Nice coincidence. Not only that, Neil, whom I was intending to hunt down somehow, happened to be giving a speech there.

Unfortunately for me, Neil is smart and the event was booked out, so I wasn’t able to talk to him about whether it would be okay for me to take a bubble bath with Amanda Palmer at his house. But I was this close.

Oh, this blog is getting long. My giddy aunt. I should leave it here, and sleep. I was going to tell you about American supermarkets, walking tours of haunted and non-existent Chicago neighbourhoods, Woodland Pattern Books, Riverbend Books, Jeff Harpeng’s glorious poems, my annoying poetry-writing habits, gloves, rat pizzas, pirates, and hat juggling—but these must wait for another time. Let it be said that life is good: the flu is finally clearing up; debts are being paid off; after an uncomfortably long hiatus, I’m writing things again; the Brisbane rental market looks like it might soon be affordable; and I’m making marvellous (and charmingly unrealistic) plans, as per usual.

Spring in the North Woods, Wisconsin

Burdock VI Launch

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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.

Groovy News and One Tasty Sonnet

/ Zenobia Frost / 7 Comments

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:

lila-kisses-milton