I could certainly do with with a couple of hundred thousand dollars, half a million….. better….. a million…..? That would really allow me to celebrate poetry in a big way.
Small poetry
Has
IMPACT
small words whack!
Over the last nearly three years I have been working on one of the most important cultural heritage/art/literature projects in modern Australia. In the 24th of March 2020, at the beginning of the Australian COVID19 lockdown I opened the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame in Guyra’s Arcadia Theatre.
https://www.australianpoetryhalloffame.com.au/
It hasn’t been easy. It was always going to be a challenge and a lot of work but I always knew it was going to work. Now we hold a weekly poetry open mic, Wednesday Words and I also do a VidCast or PoetCast every Tuesday which you can see on the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame YouTube channel. I have nurtured and inspired new poets. I have inspired the adult children of dead poets to publish deceased elders poetry.
Plus there is the day to day running of the Australian poetry Hall of Fame which includes pretty much everything. Then I still find time to write poetry and create art, meditate, do yoga, swim, and have time to myself (actually I have little time to myself and when I do, it’s really valued)
So here I am on a Saturday night writing a blog post that I began 6 months ago. One of the wonderful things that has happened in the past week was that I regained control of my hacked facebook account. This meant that I could copy and paste my entire anthology of 2022 poetry into one document. It turns out that I also managed to write over 52 thousand words of poetry on 2022 so I am going to share a few of the poems below. The first is “The Colour of Poetry” and “I spoke with a thousand dead poets”
If poetry were a colour,
it would be a multifaceted rainbow
Red sunsets of beauty and anger,
Pristine white as falling snow
Orange of the desert plains,
Yellow like the sunflowers
Changing hues of fiery flames
Grey clouds bringing showers
Magenta like a summer rose
Ochre like the land and sand
Peacock tails when they pose
Emerald green forest stand
Azure blue as a clear sky
Turquoise of a tropical sea
Eucalyptus blueish green
Changing coloured maple tree
Pink of the cherry blossoms
Pinkish orange of a peach
Tea stains on tea cup bottoms
A golden sandy beach
The browns of nightingales
Soft purple lavender hues
Blues of the blue whales
Wisteria and burnt bamboo
Pastel green and also mint
The liquid black of writing ink
Don’t forget baby pink
Poetry is a rainbow to make you think.
The next poem was inspired by all the dead poets. There are times where I am working so late that I just unroll my yoga mat in the Poetry Hall of Fame, lay down with a blanket and fall asleep surrounded by all the poet portraits that I have drawn for the “hall of fame”, the result is the following poem:
I spoke with a plethora of deceased poets
You know! Poets that are dead
I asked a question of a thousand poets
And this is what they all said
We support you but we are not alive
You need to do what you must do
Tell the world about us and you’ll thrive
A thousand dead poets said this is true
I thanked the dead poets for their poetry
And the people like me inspired
By planting a seed and growing a poet tree
Poets words remain after they’ve retired
A thousand dead poets surround me
Their poetry archived and preserved
Packets of seeds to grow poet trees
A thousand future poets I have served.
Every April there is a Facebook poetry group called “The Dirty Thirty” and the challenge is to write one poem per day for the month of April and also write to the prompt. I always find it really interesting to see what other poets come up with. The following is one that I wrote for day six of the dirty thirty 2022, I’m not too sure what the prompt was but this is what happened.
Planting a Poet Tree
Poet trees have good wood
Planting the seeds of future poets is the goal
Watching the poet trees grow
I ran a forestry nursery
1998 planting one seed at a time
20 years later I can show you the forests
Seeds need opportunity for growth and ideal conditions
Seeds plus Soil plus Moisture equals trees
Hence a forestry nursery results in forests.
The Earth becomes greener and little birds have a forest home
Poet trees need opportunity for growth
People plus inspiration plus opportunity to read /write/ perform poetry.
Hence the Australian Poetry Hall of Fame in Guyra results in more poet tree forests
Hence #thedirtythirty results in more poet tree forests.
And Poet trees have good wood.
Nuff said
Almost. Just one more thing. “Don’t Get a Cat”
You can support me to keep on producing poetry and content or just Buy Me a Coffee
You can also buy my books Love in Nimbin or Lust in Nimbin or Poetry to End Prohibition
You can also buy the iconic Thundercloud DISOBEY image on T-Shirts and more at the webstore
Thundercloud Repairian 