Apart from Beatrice

July 14, 2024 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | DANTE, Poetry |

Dante Society (SA), Adelaide, 7 July 2024 The afternoon was an homage to ‘The Eternal Feminine,’ and Beatrice hardly got a mention. The Honourable Jing Lee MLC (below, centre) gave a pleasant ‘welcome to all countries’ in emphasis of the upside of multiculturalism, and then we heard from a number of authors from the Ascolta Women Inc. Collective (a creative writing workshop formed in 2020 under the shadow of Covid), to launch their latest anthology, Stories from La Terra, and they read out a few excerpts. Gaspara Stampa (1523-1554) (see main image in B/W) had an unhappy love affair with…

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Scatterbrain

May 29, 2024 | Posted by Guest Reviewer | Poetry, WRITING & LITERATURE |

By E. H. Visiak (1878-1972) He goes wool-gathering ‘neath the stars; He hath a screw loose: Scatterbrain. He hath a window loose that jars Open to heaven, and falls shut again.

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The Old Stoic’s Lethargy

January 6, 2023 | Posted by Peter Jakobsen | LIFE, PETER'S WRITING, Poetry, POLITICS |

POEM FOR THE YEAR (with apologies to W. H. Auden) This earth in 2023 Is not the planet fit for me, A world, I need, to give me hope Opposed to the end of a rope. *** My Eden landscapes and their climes Are great constructs from rational times, When reason meant, at least, induction, Not dogma posed as deduction. *** The plastic bags we gather to be Transformed as if by alchemy: I chose to send them whence they came, The ground, from fossil fuels by name. *** I’m now required to approve Blighted wind farms that rarely move:…

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STONEHENGE STATS

December 18, 2022 | Posted by Lesley Jakobsen | HISTORY, LESLEY'S WRITING, LIFE, Poetry |

Here are Druidic spatial data, which is leadenly prosaic in both tone and content. ***************************** But three trilithons abide Seven metres high, five metres wide Sarcens – mortise and tenon joints Aligned to Bronze Age sistral points After digging an earthen bank, Fifty-six Aubrey holes the Britons sank Outer circles, a central horseshoe arc In total, seven times one Central Park Ninety-three stones remain at Salisbury Plain Once purchased by Chubb – but not for gain! (Cecil paid six thousand, six hundred pounds, Did that include the funeral mounds?) The bluestones came from Wales by boat (At about three tons…

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Skin Bag

December 8, 2022 | Posted by Guest Reviewer | Poetry |

By Julian Kelly ——————— Skin Bag Why do you laugh? Why do you cry? What is that light      I see in your eye?  

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