Helen McDonald’s poem ‘In deep blue’ is a prize winner in July’s Poetry Matters competition. That piece, along with Helen’s ‘A Friday, like any other’, is published in the always excellent Poetry Matters journal (Issue 36, July 2019). The theme of the issue is ‘runaway world’. More information on the work of Poetry Matters is available here.
Many congratulations to Helen!
A peaceful weekend and happy reading and writing to everyone.
Elwood Writers’ Helen is published in Poetry for Public Transport #27. Poetry for Public Transport is a regular publication that makes poetry easily available to the many passengers travelling each day on our public transportation systems.
What a wonderful way to spend your journey: reading and contemplating a poem or two while on the bus, tram, train, ferry, or whatever form of transportation you choose to get around. Pop your smartphone away, unplug from social media, and arrive at your destination calm and refreshed. Or maybe you’ll be inspired to seek adventure, go right past your intended stop, and see where the day takes you.
This is an initiative well worth supporting, so if you spy a copy of the publication, please pick it up and read it, then share with your friends, colleagues, and other loved ones.
Poetry for Public Transport #27 | Please do not litter. Recycle.
Helen McDonald’s poem Deluge is published in Poetry Matters, Issue 31, November 2017 (edited and published by Cheryl Howard).
From the journal’s website: “Poetry Matters is a home-grown print poetry journal that began in Spring 2006. Censorship can take many forms. The inability to find a place of publication can be social censorship. Poetry is freedom.”
To discover more about Poetry Matters and to find out how to subscribe, click here.
Poetry matters! Hashtag poetry!
Elwood Writer Helen will be reading two of her poems – “Twilight” and “Loss” – tomorrow afternoon at Chamber Poets in Woodend (Saturday 9th December 2017).
Venue: Woodend Neighbourhood House, 47 Forest St, Woodend, Victoria 3442
Hosted by Myron Lysenko
Entry by donation, raffle for book prizes. BYO alcohol. Tea & coffee facilities available, or visit nearby cafes for a cup.
2 p.m. for a 2.30 start
Elwood Writer Helen’s poem Paradise is published by Celapene Press in Short and Twisted 2016. Short and Twisted is an annual anthology of short-stories and poetry with a twist at the end. Congratulations, Helen!
You can read Helen’s poem below. And if you’d like to enjoy more of this wonderful anthology, the book is available here.
Paradise
Under brooding skies
beside the sheening metal sea
scuttling children, two-legged crabs,
tunnel to China, heads down bottoms up,
side-stepping drifting jellyfish
lazy see-through saucers just off-shore.
A seaside edge of seaweed currants
tortured palms, abandoned spades.
A flock of yachts strains, bows to the breeze.
Gulls on matchstick legs, beaks to the wind,
sentinels to the barricades banked along the sand
stretching out to claim the beach.
Signs that scream ‘Keep out’.
Paradise
It’s not for you
Helen McDonald
Elwood Writers 