gm food

Ambient corn

born at mince

be torn manic

Bent in macro.

Can it be norm?

Can men orbit?

I can’t rob men

met in carbon,

recombinant.

© rob walker 2010

Another one of my anagrammatic poems. It was accepted for the forthcoming Divan 8 at the beginning of 2010 but there seems to be a funding problem so I’m sure Earl won’t mind if I air it on my own website before it passes its use-by date.

While I don’t have any particularly doctrinaire views for or against genetically modified food, the subject has long interested me. The ethical possibilities of this science-in-infancy are obvious, from the Light side of drought-resistant plant genes to feed the world to the Dark side of companies owning exclusive rights. GM animals with synthetic versions of natural microbes in their rumens soon available!

Meanwhile I went through a stage of being obsessed with anagrams. The relatively new word ‘recombinant’ interests me (see vocabulary of the beach), so I explored its permutations. Serendipity! Ambient corn, bent in macro and met in carbon seemed prophetic. The rest just fell into place…

photo credit: picedit.blogspot.com

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After being fortunate enough to have won the Newcastle Poetry Prize (New Media) with Ben last year, I was very pleased to accept the Hunter Writers’ Centre invitation to judge the 2010 entries. Congratulations to the winners James Stuart and Laura Gulbin (I just read this on the HWC site – when I judged the entries a few months back they were submitted to me without the names of the creators).
James and Laura’s submission Sudden Rain, Tilba Tilba was exquisite. I’m not sure whether my judge’s comments were read at the announcement & launch, but I include them here for anyone’s interest:

This truly is mixed media. Like watching a close-up of hand-made Chinese paper on an old projector with the new millennium bonus of interactivity. Transparent water colours on a tactile surface; interesting use of textures and choice of typography. Some of the text animation is perhaps a little contrived, but transitions between screens and animated graphic elements are technically slick and aesthetically beautiful.
The counterpoint of Chinese characters and an Australian environment, the visual construction and deconstruction of the landscape and the effective and well executed soundscape add other layers to the meaning of the poem itself – a poem which could stand alone on its own merits but now has other strata of sumptuous complexity.
Sudden rain is much more substantial and polished than its rivals. It’s clear that much more work has gone into this than the alternate entries.
It has the best use of illustration, sound, texture, animation, transitions and layout and is the most successful in pulling all of these aspects together to create an immersive experience.
I especially appreciate that there are conflicting elements which don’t attempt to reach a conclusion – richly varied, complex and contradictory – much like Life.

Rob Walker
www.robwalkerpoet.com
NPP New Media Winner 2009 and 2007

Congratulations James and Laura on a well-deserved win.

(Access it HERE which links to Laura’s website. Experiment with the text and the cursor!)

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Thanks to all our friends, family & poetry and music-lovers for coming out on a wet Friday night to see Max_Mo’s last performance before Derek heads off to London and Amelia goes over to the Netherlands for a few months. I might be biased, but I think the Higher Ground gig was a personal best for both the musos and the poets. Thanks too for the great audio mix and Ray’s professional video of the whole proceedings. If you missed the gig, there’ll be more in the future. Meanwhile, check out both sound and vision at MySpace.

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Steve Matters (Max_Mo composer, multi-instrumentalist & live bassist) has posted a great video for my Tupperware poem on MySpace. Max_mo will be performing live at Adelaide’s Higher Ground (Light Square) on Fri Oct 22 from 7pm. This is the REAL live show to replace the August one we had to cancel due to the Grand Breaking of Steve’s leg. Wish us good luck – but PLEASE don’t say break a leg…

See the Tupperware vid HERE.

And while you’re there, check out Mike Ladd’s INTIMATE TALK.

My micropoem beyond black & white has found a home at Cordite Poetry Review’s #33 Creative Commons where you can not only read the diverse work of
DAVID HOWARD
ALEX FLOOD
BELLA LI
DANIEL EAST
PENELOPE AIRA
DAVID JEFFERY
ANNE GORRICK
LAWRENCE UPTON
JANE GIBIAN
MARIA ZAJKOWSKI
JOHN GRAHAM
MARK O’FLYNN
DOUG COX
SEBASTIAN GURCIULLO
STUART COOKE
TIM HEFFERNAN
MICHAEL FARRELL
SUSAN McMICHAEL
MARIA TAKOLANDER
KEITH MOUL
EDWARD REILLY
PETER LACH-NEWINSKY
ASHLEY CAPES
NATHAN SHEPHERDSON
ROB WALKER
ANTHONY DIMATTEO
ANIS SHIVANI
STUART BARNES
DEREK MOTION
PASCALLE BURTON
& ADRIAN WIGGINS, but also enjoy the remixes (Cordite 33.1) of the works by others.   Go to Creative Commons.

Go to Beyond black and white. Go to The Remixes.

Cheers to Guest Editor Alison Croggon for selecting my poem in the first place and thanks to Susan McMichael, Rebecca Landon and Oritsegbemi Emmanuel Jakpa for wonderful remixes of my work!

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