I have a new poem up at Subbed In’s Ibis House! It’s about um … being trans and sexting/sexing other trans people. *blushes*
**Read ‘levitate me, lover’ here**
If you like the piece you can also tip me some money, which would be really lovely.
Tag: poetry
New poem in Vulture Bones
Have a read of my new poem about a cursed suburban rental in the latest Vulture Bones, a speculative fiction magazine for trans and enby voices.
You can also read the full Issue 4 of Vulture Bones on their website.
New poem in Australian Poetry Journal
My poem ‘Dirty talk’ (from my book Milk Teeth) is published in the latest Australian Poetry Journal Volume 8.2 – ‘spoken’, which features new works by more than 60 Australian poets, with poetry guest-edited by spoken-word poets Andrew Galan and David Stavanger. Following the ‘spoken’ selection is a separate section of 19 poems edited by Toby Fitch. This Big Bent series is an exploration of gender and language queering.
Grab yourself a copy of the latest APJ.
Both sections are also accompanied by sound-recordings, which is very cool! You can find the recordings at australianpoetry.org.
Milk Teeth shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry
Incredibly happy to announce Milk Teeth has been shortlisted for the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for Poetry!!!
Big big congrats to fellow shortlisted poets Eunice Andrada for Flood Damages and Kate Lilley for Tilt! And to all the other shortlisted folks, including fellow University of Queensland Press authors Melissa Lucashenko for Too Much Lip and Tony Birch for Common People. You can view the full shortlist and highly commended works here.
The winners of the main awards (fiction, non-fiction, drama, poetry, writing for young adults, and the biennial Prize for Indigenous Writing) each receive $25,000. The winners of theses categories go on to contest the overall Victorian Prize for Literature, worth an additional $100,000. Wow!
Winners will be announced on Thursday 31 January 2019.
You can participate in the awards by voting for your favourite work published in 2018. The winner of the People’s Choice Award will be named alongside the general category winners, and will receive $2,000.
You can also have a read of the VPLA judges’ report, which states: “Milk Teeth is a crisp and tactile first collection. It challenges pre-existing categories: gender, interior and exterior landscapes, the way we assume language is fixed.”
If all this chat about Milk Teeth has convinced you to buy a copy, here’s a list of places you can grab one.
New poetry, pals!
Yesterday I had a lovely chat about Milk Teeth with Sadie Ward on All Things Queer RTRFM 92.1. We spoke about themes of navigating the world as a non-binary person and breaking down barriers.
**You can listen back to the interview on the RTRFM website.**
I also have a poem in the latest issue of Cordite alongside some of my fave poets, including Candy Royalle, Toby Fitch, Michael Farrell, Emily Crocker, Ray Briggs, Zenobia Frost, Angela Gardner, Elizabeth Duck-Chong, Bec Jessen, Jill Jones, Madison Godfrey, Fiona Hile, and so many many more.
**Have a read of my poem ‘I’ve got something to say’.**
Also: this poem is part of a new collection I’m working on, which explores non-binary people and space: the space we take up, the space we don’t, the space we’re denied, the space we reclaim. And just between you and me, more poems from this work in progress will be published soon!
[Photo by Steve Johnson on Unsplash]
October round-up
It’s been quite a busy, exciting month since I came back from National Young Writers’ Festival. Two of my poems from Milk Teeth ‘Plants my exes gave me’ & ‘Dear Excited to Meet Me’ were published in the latest (and sadly final) Woolf Pack #11.
I also had a great radio interview last night on 2SER’s It’s a Gay Area, and have another interview next week. Tune into All Things Queer @ RTRFM, Perth on Wednesday 31 October 2018 at 11.10am (AWST)/1.10pm (AEST) to hear me chat about how I’m using my work as a vehicle to break down barriers and encourage conversations about gender and identity.
Finally, I’m super pumped to be a part of this year’s Digital Writers’ Festival. I’ll be participating in Poem Phone, riffing on John Giorno’s iconic 1969 artwork, this is a Dial-a-Poem for the internet age.
Spooky poems for you 👻
I have two spooky poems up at Baby Teeth Journal – they are reprints of ‘Mother’s milk’ and ‘the ghost in your air con’.
And if you like what you read, these poems are from my book Milk Teeth.
Review of Milk Teeth by Tony Messenger
Big thanks to Tony Messenger for this wonderful review of Milk Teeth PLUS bonus interview!
“Milk Teeth” is another engaging, thought provoking collection, with decay and body parts becoming glistening, with the human place in the natural world being questioned, but at the same time it can be playful, and humorous, using symbols, codes, social media posts, emails and a raft of textual techniques (for example how the poems are placed on the page) to engage, unsettle and ultimately reaffirm.
New poem @ Small Town Rejects
My spooky-sexy poem ‘under \ over’ is up at Small Town Rejects! It’s a weird little piece about an adult curing their childhood fear of the monster under their bed … by engaging the monster in sexy kinky sex. Enjoy!
‘under \ over’ is also a response poem to Shastra Deo’s ‘There Is a Cure’ (The Agonist, UQP, 2017).
‘Do more, do better’ – new poetry @ Cordite!
The wonderful Cordite Publishing Inc. commissioned Keira Edwards-Huolohan and I for an art-poetry-essay project! The process of working on this commission was collaborative, cathartic and invigorating.
‘Do more, do better’ is a poem in four parts that explores transgender discrimination through a hypothetical augmented reality (AR) mobile app. There are accompanying inked and embroidered art pieces, which reiterate key themes within the poem, and a critical statement, which analyses the poem and artwork while asking ‘the reader as well as the wider community if they are doing enough for trans people and others in marginalised communities’.
TRIGGER WARNINGS for the pieces: transphobia, including mentions of misgendering, slurs, violence, death, self-harm.
Read the poem ‘Do more, do better’.
A big thank you to Kent MacCarter and Rosalind McFarlane at Cordite for their encouragement and commission of this project. It was an absolute joy to work with you both!
