Thanks to Mana Junkie for a very slick remix of my poem Crying at the poetry reading which was originally published in Red River Review (US) and subsequently nominated by its editor Michelle Hartman for a Pushcart Prize.
Mana Junkie was the composer, performer and arranger of this professional production.

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The amazingly beautiful Deep Chant by Calling Sister Midnight mixed with my piece “Watching a World War II video in a Japanese classroom.” (see  ccMixter for details. Hear it below.)

Just got an email from Mike Ladd to say that the Max-Mo CD was voted #90 in 3D radio’s Top 101! Hope we can cope with the fame and adulation! Actually it’s pretty impressive for spoken word/ impro music to rate at all, so good on you arty-farty Adelaide. (You don’t have to buy the CD – you can hear it all free on Max_Mo’s MySpace page.)

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Happy Australia Day.

Opus opium – Clearing the Caravan Park Soundtrack by robwalkerpoet

Here’s a new remix of my poem Clearing the Caravan Park by Chuck Berglund. Chuck (who composes and records as opus opium, out of Florida, USA) has a signature style of ambient music which works well with my poem, I think. Thanks for giving my work the opus opium-treatment, Chuck.

Wired_Ant

A great remix of my poem Clearing the caravan park as No rent low enough by Wired_Ant (from Germany) on ccMixter. I think the composition is remarkably sympathetic to the tone of my words.

Wired Ant – No rent low enough by robwalkerpoet

Clearing the caravan park

                   wanderers thought they’d found
a small measure of permanence,
a compact suburbia.

                           brief lives behind plywood,
aluminium and canvas. A few weeks stay
blew out to years.

                           now the land’s being developed.
the itinerants reminded of who they are
have pulled up sticks and blown.

                          trees logged and sectioned
where they lay, snakes truncated,
spade-sliced.

                              and everywhere small
piles,                                  the detritus
of lives.

jigsaw gyprock, plywood, distorted PVC pipe,
potplants all swept into haphazard mole-hills
by a dozer’s blade.

                      small squares of concrete aprons
pads for a cabin or footsteps
to keep mud out of the van.

                          every small concrete square
a demarcation                    of one
life.

                          where he had a quiet beer. where
they had sex. where
she wondered how she’d raise the kid alone.

                            now a giant hand’s wiped the pieces
from the chessboard.
only squares remain.

                            you could call it life’s rich tapestry only
no-one here was rich, the social fabric’s
fraying                              the warp is in our values.

                            best to clear out the people,
fell the necessary trees. quick!
before the greenies get organised!

then wait.

today all is silence.

                            the treelopper’s machinery
(plant without trace of irony)
stands idle.

                             dust blows in willy-willies,
exploring places once covered.

it’s all for the best.
it will only improve the suburb.
lift the values.

                               the landless are moved on, reminded
that their place              is to have no place
and disappear                                                like dust.

rob walker.  2011