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Michael Farrell

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | 'The Distances' by Michael Farrell

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States of Poetry Victoria - Series One

Like a teacup in a snowstorm I
Find you and break you. A sentry reptile, I advise you
To return quietly to the campfire. You mistakenly took
My interest in theology for a strategy

States of Poetry 2016 - Victoria | About Michael Farrell

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States of Poetry Victoria - Series One


M Farrell mediumMichael Farrell was born in Bombala, NSW and has lived in Melbourne since 1990 (Fitzroy since 2008). His ...

Cocky's Joy by Michael Farrell

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June-July 2015, no. 372
David McCooey reviews 'Cocky's Joy' by Michael Farrell

As popular culture has long understood (hello Priscilla, hello Muriel), there is something queer about Australia. Michael Farrell’s latest collection of poems, Cocky’s Joy, rewrites Australia as a site of almost-inherent queerness. ‘Cocky’ is antipodean slang for a farmer, but the term’s evocation here is surely a camp subversion of traditional, mas ...

'Pope Pinocchio's Angels' a new poem by Michael Farrell

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March 2015, no. 369

Angels are made from banksia. They are grown in Prague, are
Exported in all directions, and turn grey in air. They
Only fly in places where the ground is hard. If
You try to count them they turn into numbers. If
You try to call them they turn into names. They
Are not decorative at parties but illustrative, of Guernica, for example

... (read more)

Michael Farrell is Poet of the Month

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March 2015, no. 369
Michael Farrell is Poet of the Month

I’m inclined to say poems are triggered, or ‘arrive’, rather than they’re the fruit of inspiration. The poem does have to be written, which is in itself craft. The best poems may need a little tinkering, but on the whole I’d rather not labour away at a sow’s ear. (Though I should say I value a real sow’s ear above a silk purse.)

... (read more)

'Kangaroo Scientists of the Nineteenth Century', a new poem by Michael Farrell

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December 2013–January 2014, no. 357

In their crucibles they attempt a new kind of tea
every day, usually through a combination of
Methods, such as the fox method, the hydrangea
method and the sunlight method this is a colour-

... (read more)

open sesame by Michael Farrell

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October 2012, no. 345
Peter Kenneally reviews 'open sesame' by Michael Farrell

Michael Farrell was the 2012 winner of the Peter Porter Poetry Prize, awarded by this magazine. open sesame is his latest collection of poetry, and an earlier version of it won the inaugural Barrett Reid Award for a radical poetry manuscript, in 2008. It has 123 pages.

... (read more)

'The Grandfather', a new poem by Michael Farrell

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September 2012, no. 344
'The Grandfather', a new poem by Michael Farrell. ... (read more)

'Beautiful Mother', a new poem by Michael Farrell

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March 2012, no. 339

You’ve always associated the two terms together
partly due to your reading of Schiller; partly due
to your watching of Kimba. Kimba sublimates
his mother in the water. You’ve always thought

... (read more)

The Circus by Ken Bolton

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May 2010, no. 321
The Circus

Mid-career reinvention is an exciting thing. Ken Bolton’s poem ‘Outdoor Pig-Keeping, 1954 & My Other Books on Farming Pigs’, in Black Inc.’s The Best Australian Poems 2009, was the most surprising poem in the book. Where were the friends, artists and cafés? Where were the small ironies? A larger irony was at work. Bolton’s new book, The Circus, is something else again: a wry, sly and affectionate long poem nothing like Frank O’Hara – generally seen as Bolton’s guiding influence – and not much like Bolton’s Australian peers either. While much of Bolton’s poetry relies on a bemused first-person narration, relentlessly questioning what a poem or even a thought can do, The Circus is narrated in a shifting third person. It makes quite a difference.

... (read more)
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