Congratulations to Helen on having a selection of haiku published in a recent bumper edition of The Local. You’ll find Helen’s haiku in Local Lines on page 76 at the following link:
The Local February 27, 2023 Issue 274
The Local is distributed throughout the Central Highlands including Daylesford, Hepburn, Trentham, Kyneton, Malmsbury, Lyonville, Glenlyon, Tylden, Newlyn, Blampied, Creswick, Clunes, Blackwood, Woodend – and everywhere in-between.
Well done, Helen.
Happy reading, everyone!
EW
Helen has been busy recently, happily reconnecting with a cultural and literary community that disappeared two years ago, “leaving many poets and writers of a much-loved spoken word event quite bereft”. Chamber Poets attracts poets from Melbourne and regional Victoria, and will be held every second Saturday of the month from 1pm–4.30pm in the Woodend RSL (Returned & Services League) in the Macedon ranges. For more information about Chamber Poets, visit the following link:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/ChamberPoets
The July event this Saturday 9th will feature three poets: Angela Costi, Grant Caldwell and Claire Gaskin, who are launching An Embroidery of Old Maps and New; blue balloon (Collective Effort Press); and Eurydice Speaks and Ismene’s Survivable Resistance respectively.
All are welcome to come along and listen to some of Australia’s leading poets and to share their own poems, perhaps written in isolation, that just now might be ready to go out into the world.
Here Helen shares with us her delight at being at the return of the Chamber Poets held in June:
“It’s been a long road for all writers since you-know-what sent us all scurrying indoors, doomed to an artistic life played out on Zoom with its intermittent freezes, loss of audio and anxiety-making meetings, seminars and classes. Needs must.
So many books/collections were written and launched into this weird cybersphere. But happily, writers are emerging from their imposed cocoons, and book launches are at last taking place with live, wildly enthusiastic audiences. So it was that after a hiatus of two years, the Victorian regional Chamber Poets returned triumphantly on June 11th to Woodend, with the largest audience in the group’s history. There were three book launches, plus an open mic section and entertainment by the funky and humorous Black Forest Smoke band, and much-lauded local choir The Woodend Warblers.
Chamber Poets founder Myron Lysenko’s and Alice Wanderer’s haiku poetry collections – a ghost gum leans over and Lips Licked Clean – were launched along with Kevin Brophy’s latest poetry collection, In This Part of the World.
Inspired by the beautiful readings from each poet, some 20 people hungry for spoken word took to the open mic with their diverse and eclectic styles of poetry.”
Congratulations to Helen whose two poems ‘Gasp’ and ‘Carry the Truth’ have been selected for inclusion in Creatrix #50, the online poetry journal of the WA Poets Inc. You can find Helen’s poems here.
Earlier this year, when poets could still meet, perform and share their work in person (remember those times?), she was awarded Poet of the Month at Chamber Poets, held in regional Victoria, for her poem ‘Unsaid’. The judge was poet and author Kevin Brophy, Professor of Creative Writing at the University of Melbourne.
Don’t ever let it be said that a mere world-wide pandemic can hold back Elwood Writers!
Congratulations to Helen on winning ‘Poet of the Month’ at the July Chamber Poets meeting in Woodend with her poem ‘Stark Against the Sky’. If you use Facebook, you can find out about Chamber Poets here.
And Helen’s poems ‘A Friday, like any other …’ and ‘In Deep Blue’ are published in Poetry Matters Issue 36 – the 2019 Competition edition. You can read more about Poetry Matters here.
Elwood Writers 