The Darwin Poems has been shortlisted for the 2009 ALS Gold Medal for an outstanding work of literature from the previous year.
The list in alphabetical order is:
Emily Ballou, The Darwin Poems
Steven Carroll, The Lost Life
Eva Hornung, Dog Boy
Cate Kennedy, The World Beneath
David Malouf, Ransom
Author Archive > Em
Australian Literary Society Gold Medal
Darwin as poet 2
I’ve been writing an essay on Darwin and metaphor and came across this entry from the ‘N’ notebook [Metaphysics and Expression] of 1838-39 (the line breaks are my own and the ellipses refer to a long break of text about Darwin’s children):
“Hope is the expectant eye.
looking to distant object, brightened
& moistened by emotion,–…
Expression of affection
is [...]
A lost chance Darwin poem
I was just searching out an answer to a question posed by Dr. Paul White of the Darwin Correspondence Project in relation to the death of Charles Darwin and never remembering where I find anything, I returned to The Complete Works of Charles Darwin Online and to Emma’s diary for the year 1882 and discovered [...]
“While You Were Sleeping”
I finally saw the episode of ABC TV’s Bush Slam at Corryong, Victoria that I recorded last March, and discovered that my poem was edited by a third in the course of post-production. As I’ve had such nice comments from people about the poem, I thought I’d post it here in its entirety (though you can [...]
Ryan Van Winkle’s ‘The Apartment’
I promised a couple of months ago, to post Ryan Van Winkle’s poem and this is how slow I am! I blame my transcontinental lifestyle and flying between Australia and the UK twice in six weeks. But I am settled into the new year now, and although newly married and not personally struggling with cohabitation, [...]
Poets on ABC TV
In March, I participated in the ABC Australian TV series Bush Slam, an arts/travel/poetry program, hosted by HG Nelson, which follows poets to various small Australian towns and asks them to write a poem about the people and place over three days. I went to Corryong in Victoria, a town set near the Snowy Mountains, [...]
Ryan Van Winkle meets Darwin and My Donkey
There’s an interview with me up at the Scottish Poetry Library’s website, conducted by one wonderfully named-wonderfully funny Ryan Van Winkle, on all things Darwin, plus the life of an ex-pat (we were both once-upon-a-time American). I saw Ryan read last night at The Arches in Glasgow at Discombobulate and it’s like Allen Ginsberg come [...]
The Darwin Poems wins poetry prize
I just found out that I won the Wesley Michel Wright Prize for Poetry for The Darwin Poems. This prize is awarded by the University of Melbourne, Australia and it was chosen from a field of 152 books. Thank you University of Melbourne!
Interview on the Darwin Correspondence Project Website
I was interviewed this year by Dr. Paul White of the Darwin Correspondence Project for their website. Conducted in Cambridge, on the way back from the Sydney Writers’ Festival. You can listen to the interview on the website and also read the transcript (thanks to Sam Kuper).
I will also be reading next Wednesday Oct 28th [...]
Darwin and Dickinson on Radio
I’ve just done a radio interview with Maggie Ball. Go to this link at Compulsive Reader.com to hear it. I read a couple of poems as well: ‘The Donkey, August, 1817′ and ‘Handel, January 1836′.
There’s also an upcoming ABC radio program (ABC’s The Book Show) recorded during the Melbourne Writers’ Festival of a session I participated in [...]
