I’ve been shocked to learn through Heather Taylor-Johnson that Stephen Lawrence has died suddenly in Adelaide. Steve was an accomplished writer in many forms. He’s been a speechwriter, media/ publications / project officer for the SA government, poet and editor. It was Stephen who selected my sparrow in an airport manuscript for Friendly Street’s New Poets Ten – my first collection –  and he continued to take an interest in my writing career. I admired his intelligence and enjoyed his quiet courtesy and self-deprecating sense of humour.

My condolences to Steve’s wife Celine and two children. Stephen will be sadly missed by many.

Max_Mo’s newest member, Adelaide poet and writer Jude Aquilina, tells the story about a future government’s programme to control obesity…

I’ve been experimenting with “loops of strings” – mostly cello – to build a track I called “forlorn.” It seemed to work well with my poem watching my blind cat so I’ve mixed it myself. (You can hear other mixes of the same poem by Speck and Victor Frias on ccmixter.org) Thanks to Helen Money and ljova for the interesting string samples.

This was largely a “found poem” copied from the small-print of a household insurance policy more than eleven years ago. Mixed with Psykick’s “Sufi Dance”, it’s apocalyptic! Appeared originally on ccmixter.org where I described it as “Philip Glass-meets-The-Prodigy.” Amazing, morphing trance-like rhythms over an energetic pulsing 6/8 heartbeat. Thanks, Psykick.

I’m thrilled that two of my poems seeing it all clearly and meta poem have been accepted for Issue 4 of Rabbit.
Rabbit is a new Melbourne-based quarterly journal solely publishing “non-fiction poetry” and poetry-related reviews and interviews. It’s exciting to be a part of this quality Australian international literary journal.