Poetry

poems in print

Here are samples of some of my poems in print.

An excerpt from 994.231 (General History / Australia / Adelaide) published in RABBIT #16. The original version of this sequence was written as part of the SA Spoken Word / Adelaide City Library Poet-in-Residence project.

(Clara)
When a friend fell off her bicycle on the foreshore at Glenelg,
everyone thought it would be the end of her. “Watch out for sharks!”
we advised, just in case she listened. “They love the smell of blood!”
Seagulls swooped for pie crusts, chip-squash, gravel-grazed gumdrops,
casual sandwich orphans, ignored furtive intercepting flight paths,
veered north or south or secretly seaward, to the west.

(Jean)
I remember the huge mahogany cabinets at my great-aunt’s farm.
Fairies danced behind a hidden upper shelf, saved us from tigers,
fork-tongued goblins, dragons hissing an excess of supremely evil plans.
She baked our favourite cakes, green cakes, purple cakes, reminded us,
implored us to keep our toenails clean, tie our shoes on tight, to stop
those jindy bugs gnawing into our feet, devouring our curdled brains.

 

Featured poem

Here is an excerpt from True Crime published in Australian Poetry Anthology 4. The original version of this sequence was written as part of the SA Spoken Word / Adelaide City Library Poet-in-Residence project.

364 WHI “Undone by Ancestry”
Do you really think I meant it to end like this?
Do you seriously reckon this was my plan?
I had no choice in the matter, it’s in my blood.
They set me up, nailed me, pumped me full of it.
And here I am telling you straight. Listen hard.

364.1066 ROW “The Lord of Sabotage”
Of course, there was someone else. There is always
someone else, pulling levers, flicking switches, issuing
muted instructions in the dead of night, undetected
behind curtains of smoke, walls of mirrors, and me
sliding on track, the rest of us, sliding down his track.

Tramstop 6: Way to Go

In 2015, Cathy Brooks  and Mike Ladd designed and coordinated a public art installation at Stop 6 of the Glenelg Tram, where the line passes over South Road. Supported by the City of Marion, the installation consists of signs and a mural containing texts by Jude Aqulina, Cathy Brooks, Indigo Eli, Alison Flett, Simon Hanson, Kerry Harte, Mike Hopkins, Jules Leigh Koch, Mike Ladd, Cecilia White and me. The day of the launch was freezing, and the pix in the gallery have been processed just a bit to reflect that…

 

 

Here is the text of my piece, which uses kind of double reverse palindromes…

 

stopspots
smugums
oohshoo

deepspeed
sleekeels
pupilslipup

tidedit
glenelg
tramart

heartsong

heartsong was a combined video / performance / installation held at Flinders Medical Centre and RiAus in 2009. Coordinated by Sally Francis, FMC Arts in Health, it was produced and written by Cheryl Pickering, with music by Richard Chew and Ian Dixon, sculpture and installation by Dwani Oak, video and animation by Dan Monceaux and Emma Stirling, and poetry by Ian Gibbins.

The show followed the journey of a heart attack patient in a live performance of improvised music, video, animation, visual art and text.

The images above show one of Ian’s poems, heart attack, displayed on the LED ribbon outside RiAus.

The poem featured in the installation was ecg, which you can read below. It is published in urban biology.

 

ecg

light hearted
heavy hearted
soft hearted
broken hearted
heartache

open hearted
cold hearted
empty hearted
kind hearted
heart of gold

goodness of your heart
bottom of my heart
heartfelt
heartless
change of heart

lion hearted
stout hearted
heart like an ox
your heart’s desire
learnt by heart

hale and hearty
his hearty laugh
her hearty broth
heartburn
your heart on your sleeve

down hearted
faint hearted
bleeding heart
heartened … Click here for more.