Chris Arnold
Chris Arnold lives in Perth, on Whadjuk Noongar country. Chris was shortlisted for the 2022 Peter Porter Poetry Prize, and he’s currently completing a PhD in Creative Writing at the University of Western Australia. He specialises in electronic literature.
Hazel Smith’s ecliptical features an image of a Sieglinde Karl-Spence work of art, ‘Becoming’, a pair of ‘winged feet woven with allocasuarina needles’. It is a striking image, evocative of Mercury, with one foot resting on the other, as if the right foot’s instep is itchy. The idea of ‘itchy feet’ is something that ties ecliptical to Alison Flett’s Where We Are. Flett and Smith ... (read more)
The reader of Stasis Shuffle is immediately confronted with the collection’s naming convention. Titles of poems and sections are parenthesised, for example, ‘(best before)’, ‘(weevils)’, ‘(& then). More than simple stylisation, this convention suggests that every poem is a fragment, a meander through consciousness. The first poem, ‘(best before)’, begins ‘liberated / from the ... (read more)
the text read:Kissing you under an umbrella in rainmakes my list of favourite things;a lunch crowd streamed around us.we, dry in a cylinder,sealed with that old golf umbrella’snylon night sky far from city lights –I don’t recall why I didn’t walk you.maybe the rain put its hands in pockets,whistled east on Murray Street.you left behind the scent of magnolia,powder on a dark blue suit –ch ... (read more)
you opt for form over colourmakeup smudged lensespale bare planes by the lakes;a cygnet ellipsis in blackparenthetical necks;white sky reflected in high water.
we sit where I have stayedand watched an oak open and close –green again – the benchsuspended on ampersands.
Chris Arnold ... (read more)
excerpt from Ligature
he drops his shoulderslets out his breathfinds himself benchedbetween green wood slats anda black plastic platter of sushi,disposable sticks in his hand.ache on his right eye like a river stonethinking like five handsat the piano. city stratified in fronthis eye’s diametercurves the park – half-moons grassbefore his brain corrects,sets it back fla ... (read more)
excerpt from Ligature
her office kept coldshe shivers exhalesbut never the satisfactionof seeing her breath
a red-black plaid blanket wrapsher legs patternreminiscent of red dust picnics –she’d pick spinifex spearsand snap them againstthumbnails ... (read more)