Whichever way you spin it, today was a good day. As an earlier post stated, it was the first day of my Poets Residency at Adelaide City Library. For three hours I was paid to be a poet, paid to interact with the public and talk poeting, and paid to write poems.

Today I am spoiled for choice (I wrote several title poems today). Today is also the day of my first truly solid poem.

I chose, as the clever among you may have worked out, to use the 2016 Miles Franklin Longlist titles as the basis for my Title Poem today. The longlist was announced yesterday and the titles are all glorious. I defy anyone not to write a good poem using them. However, to be fair, I was the most lax/playful/non-rule-bound today of any Word Game so far this NaPoWriMo. & so …

Australian pastoral

the hands that work the earth
know the natural way of things

of the never coming rain
of the hope we farm

this burnt black rock
so far from the white city

the river’s a ghost, the creek salt
where fish no longer leap

these dirty hands know
the world will go on, without us

…

..
So yeah! Pleased with that. That is pretty much an archetypal roi jones kinda poem.

Tomorrow will be a new game for a new week.

Here for those interested, is the full list. Look forward to reading them…

Tony Birch for Ghost River (UQP)
Stephen Daisley for Coming Rain (Text)
Peggy Frew for Hope Farm (Scribe)
Myfanwy Jones for Leap (Allen & Unwin)
Mireille Juchau for The World Without Us (Bloomsbury)
Stephen Orr for The Hands: an Australian pastoral (Wakefield Press)
A.S. Patric for Black Rock White City (Transit Lounge)
Lucy Treloar for Salt Creek (Pan Macmillan)
Charlotte Wood for The Natural Way of Things (Allen & Unwin)

& a link to a Sydney Morning Herald article about the announcement.