Lesley Lebkowicz
Lesley Lebkowicz has been publishing poetry since the early 1980s. Her last book, The Petrov Poems (Pitt Street Poetry), won a Canberra Critics’ Circle award, was shortlisted for the 2014 ACT Book of the Year, and won the 2014 ACT Writing and Publishing Award (Poetry). She has also published a collection of short fiction Washing my Mother’s Hair, and a translation of the earliest Buddhist verse cycle, in collaboration with Pali scholars. She has spent many years in silent retreat and founded the Canberra Insight Meditation Group. 2017 saw her first exhibition of ceramics. Another is planned for 2018 as is the publication of her next book Kvetch (Pitt Street Poetry).
(first stanza after Rosemary Dobson’s Over the Frontier)
The pot I imagine is always better than the one I make.
But after all these years my hands are learning how to work clay against the turning wheel how to have it climb its own ... (read more)
1 They know the subtler shades of green and where each one belongs;2 and some reds: ochre, orange and something aching towards crimson – all in a single patch;3 they grow patiently&nbs ... (read more)
The gentle hills north of Taralgaunfold as though
everything were possible. Treesgrow. Their crowns shift in the small wind
showing off new leaf tips: pink, green, a hintof blue. The cows in the paddocks are big
and brown. They browse and stareinto space. One lays her head on her friend’s
shoulder. Their calves lollop aroundgetting the hang of things. A bull is fenced
in. He stands still. A ... (read more)
Five ducks are standingon a narrow strip of concrete
designed to ease boats into the water.They have their backs to me;
even so, at the sound of my steps,they slide into the lake.
A moorhen rises up andonto the concrete.
She raises the dark wedge of her tailand shits a neat soft gleaming pile
then steps towards mesmall yellow beak leading the way
like a dainty beacon. I yearnfor things to be ... (read more)