Fascinating conversation between Benjamin Dodds and Natasha Mitchell about Lucy the chimpanzee and Ben’s new poetry collection, Airplane Baby Banana Blanket, which reimagines Lucy’s extraordinary true story. You can listen to this Radio National Science Friction episode here.

You can register for the October 28, 2020 Zoom launch of Airplane Baby Banana Blanket here.

My cento ‘Shy Riot’ appears in Marrickville Pause’s History issue alongside writing by Claire Albrecht, Gayelene Carbis, Jennifer Compton, Jocelyn Deane, Dave Drayton, Joel Ephraims, Liam Ferney, Chris Holdaway, Mitchell Ryan and Jaya Savige. Thanks to editor Jake Goetz.

You can read the issue here.

VERY excited about launching dear friend Benjamin Dodds’s second poetry collection Airplane Baby Banana Blanket on October 28, 7:30–9pm. Special guest Judith Beveridge will read selected poems from both Airplane Baby Banana Blanket and her own work. Join us by registering here (a Zoom link will be sent prior to the launch).

Airplane Baby Banana Blanket is out October 1 through Recent Work Press.

Airplane Baby Banana Blanket is as strange as it is compelling. Dodds raises essential questions about human responsibility. His vernacular immediacy and musical freshness charge every page, his narrative and lyrical strategies are exemplary. Long after I finished it, this book’s contrapuntal tensions made it unforgettable. —Judith Beveridge

Lost to history are the countless species we have hurtled into space,​ experimented with, or severed from their own kin and instincts. Viscerally, Dodds gives them back their agency in the most lyrical and poignant of ways. Lucy [Temerlin, Airplane Baby Banana Blanket’s protagonist] will never leave you. —Natasha Mitchell

Delighted to have a poem, ‘Off-World Ghazal’, shortlisted for the 2020 Montreal International Poetry Prize! Thanks to the Competition Jury, including Jordan Abel, CA Conrad, Gillian Sze, Marilène Phipps. Winner announced mid-September.

Happy to have a poem about surviving trauma in The Moth Magazine’s Autumn 2020 issue, alongside writing by Tusiata Avia, Sharon Black, Guy Gunaratne and Roger Robinson.

Thanks to guest editor David Stavanger for selecting ‘Sestina: Rape’ (dedicated to the memory of Anita Cobby, with a nod to Jonah Winter and A.E. Stallings) and to Moth editor Rebecca O’Connor for terrific edits. The issue’s out early September, but you can pre-order now.

Delighted to have an Elizabeth Bishop-tinged poem, ‘Hamlet without the Prince’, in The Anthology of Australian Prose Poetry, alongside writing by Jordie Albiston, joanne burns, Gary Catalano, Anna Couani, Alex Skovron, Samuel Wagan Watson, Ania Walwicz and many more.

The anthology’s edited by Cassandra Atherton and Paul Hetherington, published by Melbourne University Press and released on September 29, 2020, but you can pre-order your copy here.

Thanks to Sara Saleh and Melinda Smith for including my poem ‘The morning fog (A Golden Shovel after Kate Bush)’ in Australian Poetry Anthology Volume 8 alongside poems by K Reed-Gilbert, Matt Hetherington, Shane Strange, Thom Sullivan, Cassandra Atherton, Rose Hunter, Rae White, Eunice Andrada, Penelope Layland, Jarad Bruinstroop, Anisa Nandaula, Tricia Dearborn and Alex Skovron et al.

Charmaine Papertalk Green (Nganajungu Yagu, Cordite Books, 2019) and I are guest co-editing Rabbit Issue 32: The FORM Issue, which seeks nonfiction poetry in any shape or form, which may be informed by, but not limited to, ideas relating to the body/bodies, configurations, structure, documents, appearance, architecture, ceremony, language, landforms, movement, philosophy and/or visibility.

What is nonfiction poetry? You can read founding editor Jessica L. Wilkinson’s ‘What is Nonfiction Poetry? Reflecting on Rabbit’s 30 issues’ here.

Submissions for Issue 32: The FORM Issue close midnight September 30, 2020.  

Thanks to guest editor Holly Isemonger for including my poem ‘Rockhampton (a sestina):’ in The Suburban Review Issue #18: REGIONAL VOICES alongside poetry, fiction, nonfiction, comics, illustrations and art by Faith Eadie, Nick Whittock, Lachlan Brown, Dan Hogan, Joshua Santospirito, Susie Anderson, Claire Collie, Tony Thorne, Brenton E McKenna and Stephani Beck.

You can order a copy here.

Happy to have hopped into Rabbit 30: The Long Poem (II), edited by Jessica Wilkinson.

My poem ‘C (note)’, a cento about length, longing, oblongs and so on, appears alongside poems by Adam Aitken, Jarad Bruinstroop, Anne Elvey, Toby Fitch, Lou Garcia-Dolnik, Gavin Yuan Gao, Claire Gaskin, Anna Jacobson, Scott-Patrick Mitchell, Anders Villani and Ania Walwicz, among others.

The issue’s for sale here.