My poem ‘Killing Bill or whatever the hell his name is (‘Battle Without Honor or Humanity’)’ has been published in Cordite 56.0 EXPLODE, guest-edited by Dan Disney.

This issue also includes poetry from Lachlan Brown, Matt Hetherington, Rose Hunter, Vanessa Page, and Les Wicks.

You can read Dan’s editorial and all the poems, plus essays (including Ann-Marie Priest’s ‘Sharon Olds, Gwen Harwood and Dorothy Hewett: Truth, Lies, Poetry’), reviews and translations, here.

Thrilled to be reading with brilliant poets Lisa Brockwell, Grant Caldwell and Arielle Cottingham at Melbourne’s La Mama Poetica on Tuesday 22nd November. Love to see you there. Huge thanks to Amanda Anastasi, LMP’s curator.

Read more about this gig and purchase tickets here.

Glasshouses was launched on Saturday 27th August at The Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts as part of Queensland Poetry Festival 2016. 

The event was hosted by University of Queensland Press’ Poetry Editor Felicity Plunkett and MC’d by UQP Project Editor Ian See. Matt Hetherington launched Glasshouses; Nathan Shepherdson read ‘Stern Man’, a Glasshouses poem which remixes the proem from Nigel Featherstone’s Remnants (Nigel wrote about Remnants and ‘Stern Man’ here). My thanks to Felicity, Ian, Matt and Nathan, to my publisher Madonna Duffy, and to everyone who attended. 

A couple of QPF highlights: Felicity Plunkett’s illuminating interview with Tracy K Smith, who talked about patience, space, and having a room of one’s own; Shastra Deo winning the 2016 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize for The Agonist, forthcoming from UQP in 2017 (Shastra read from her manuscript, I can’t wait to read her collection). 

My thanks to QPF’s Co-Directors David Stavanger and Annie Te Whiu, my family and my friends. 

Glasshouses is available from: Amazon, Angus & Robertson, Avid Reader, Barnes & Noble, Blio, BookDepository, Booktopia, Boomerang Books, Collins Booksellers, eBooks.com, Fishpond, Folio Books, Gleebooks, Google (Play), Kinokuniya, Kobo, Matilda Bookshop, Penguin Random House, QBD, Readings, Riverbend Books, Robinsons Bookshop, The Bookshop Darlinghurst, The Brunswick Street Bookstore, The Hobart Bookshop, The Nile, and University of Queensland Press.  

Recently I had the pleasure of speaking with Melbourne poet and editor Alice Allan on the Poetry Says podcast.

We chatted about Australian poet and librettist Gwen Harwood, Sylvia Plath’s ‘Ariel’, writing centos, and Glasshouses.

We also talked about ‘Tenons’, my cento which appeared in a recent issue of Cordite Poetry Review.

You can listen to our conversation here.

You can subscribe to Poetry Says on iTunes, and you can follow Alice on Twitter.

Queensland Poetry Festival is just around the corner: 25th-28th August.

I’m very happy to announce that Glasshouses will be launched at QPF by friend, writer and music-maker Matt Hetherington on Saturday 27th August, 2.30-3.15pm in the Judith Wright Centre’s Shopfront. A free event, hosted by UQP’s Felicity Plunkett. Book signing afterwards.

I’m also appearing (with Bronwyn Lea, Chloe Wilson, Brett Dionysius, Stuart Cooke, Ellen van Neerven, MC Wire, Brentley Frazer, Melissa Lucashenko and Matt Hetherington) at The Big Read on Friday 26th August, 3.30-4.30pm in the Judith Wright Centre’s Performance Space. Another free event, hosted by Toby Fitch.

Would love to see you at one or both.

Kudos to QPF’s Co-Directors Annie Te Whiu and David Stavanger for forging an extraordinary line-up that includes Tracy K. Smith, Jeet Thayil, Ivan Coyote, Tishani Doshi, Jack Woon, Janet Marie Rogers, Lionel Fogarty, Sam Wagan Watson, Felicity Plunkett, Justin Clemens, Jordie Albiston, Sarah Holland-Batt, Gina Williams, Jessica L. Wilkinson, Manna Marvel, Anthony Lawrence, Zenobia Frost, Eleanor Jackson, Natalie Harkin, Alison Whittaker, Mindy Gill, Ella Jeffery, Anna Jacobson and India Poulton.

Full QPF 2016 program here.

 

I’m really happy to be able to share these endorsements for Glasshouses. All three have been crafted by writers whose work I admire very much.

From Sjón, award-winning Icelandic novelist, poet, playwright, and lyricist (Sjón has collaborated a number of times with Björk, one of my favourite artists):

‘Man moves in a world made of things, beings and events.
And things, beings and events move in the mind of man.
Living in this half-transparent state triggers poetic reactions,
strong and beautiful poems like the ones you’ll find in Stuart Barnes’ Glasshouses.’

From Jessica L Wilkinson, award-winning Australian poet and editor:

‘Glasshouses is the brilliant nest for Stuart Barnes’ meticulous bowerbird poetics; as readers we become the curious mate, charmed by his architectural wisdom. A vision trained on a vast expanse of literary and cultural phenomena permits the crafting of intelligent centos, transformations and interventions in modern living. These are political, compelling poems, assembled with heart; they will never harden to stone.’

And from the Judges of the 2015 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize:

‘A beautiful and sophisticated collection of poems. Drawing on a number of complex techniques … the manuscript presents a deeply poetic sensibility at work.’

I’m happy that five poems, all forthcoming in Glasshouses (UQP, August 2016), have been published at Australian Book Review as part of States of Poetry, ‘a major new project highlighting the quality and diversity of contemporary Australian poetry’.

Queensland’s Editor is the lovely and talented poet and critic Felicity Plunkett (I highly recommend her debut collection Vanishing Point, which won the 2008 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize). You can read Felicity’s thoughtful introduction to States of Poetry – Queensland here.

There’s vibrant writing from fellow Queensland poets MTC Cronin, Lionel Fogarty, Sarah Holland-Batt, Ellen van Neerven (whose debut poetry collection Comfort Food is out now through UQP) and Nathan Shepherdson.

Also online are the poems from ACT, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and New South Wales.

In other news, I’m currently reading Jordie Albiston’s extraordinary Jack & Mollie (& Her) (also out now through UQP). Poet, novelist and critic Geoff Page had this to say about Jack & Mollie (& Her): ‘Jordie Albiston’s new ‘long poem’ or ‘verse novel’ (call it what you will) is triumphantly experimental in both technique and content.’ Huzzah! Read Geoff’s ABR review in full here [$].

Chuffed to have a poem in Mascara Literary Review, edited by Michelle Cahill.

‘The Moon and the Mason Jars’ (for my dear friend Ruth Whebell) will also be published in my first collection, Glasshouses (UQP, August 2016).

While you’re at Mascara, check out Rose Hunter’s poem ‘el edén’. I’m currently reading Rose’s chapbook descansos (dancing girl press, 2015). In her foam:e review of descansos poet and winner of the 2006 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize Angela Gardner wrote ‘[this collection] maintains its focus in a way that allows the reader’s mind to follow many paths without losing direction. The subject is serious and the gaze unflinching and honest. [Rose’s] ability to make language and image strange, ensures we look deeper.’

I’m eagerly awaiting Rose’s next book of poetry, glass (Five Islands Press, 2017).

I’m really pleased to have my poem ‘Fingal’ (which first appeared in Poetry Ireland Review 103) included in Poetry & Place Anthology 2015, edited by Ashley Capes and Brooke Linford.

This varied anthology also includes writing from Ivy Alvarez, Benjamin Dodds, Anne Elvey, Stu Hatton, Mark William Jackson, Jill Jones, Chris Lynch, Nathanael O’Reilly, Brenda Saunders, SB Wright and Les Wicks et al.

Poetry & Place Anthology 2015 is available in print and as e-book from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Fishpond, and Angus & Robertson Bookworld.

I’m thrilled to have a poem in Meanjin Winter 2016 — my first appearance in one of Australia’s most forward-looking literary journals.

‘Ebon Cans’ (anagram of ‘Bone Scan’) is, in part, about Australian poet and librettist Gwen Harwood, and will also appear in my first collection, Glasshouses (UQP, August 2016).

In this issue there’s other new poetry from Eileen Chong and Sarah Holland-Batt, and new fiction from Alice Bishop and Ben Walter.