Poetry Monday: David Musgrave

This is not the first time I'm writing about David Musgrave.  David was also on the poetry panel "The state of Australian poetry" that I ran last year at the Newcastle Writer's Festival, and I'm very much looking forward to working with him again. This is not only because he has the best collection of poetry themed t-shirts I've ever seen, but also because he brings to the table a vast depth of experience, as reader, editor, publisher at Puncher and Wattman, and award winning poet. Last year I included a very tiny snippet from his 2013 Newcastle Poetry Prize winning poem "Coastline", so this year I thought I'd feature his 2012 Blake Poetry Prize shortlisted poem "Nine Crab Barn".  You can read the whole of it here: http://www.nswwc.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/BlakePoetryPrize2012-NineCrabBarn-DavidMusgrave.pdf  (and I urge you to do so - it's a poem that combines wry humour, pathos and beauty in just the right amounts), but to encourage you to read it all, here are two stanzas:

  

Now I've profiled my entire poetry panel, and I think you'll agree with me that the session is bound to be pretty amazing.  We'll be talking about many things - the dynamic between reader and writer, editing vs censorship, on what it means to be a modern publisher of poetry, and a modern author of poetry, on the notion of a 'critical edition', on the relationship between editing others and writing your own work, on poetry advocacy and much more (keeping to our allotted hour will be the hard part).  The session is free, and there will be plenty of opportunity for audience participation, so please do come and join us on Saturday the 5th of April at 1:30pm in the Mulubinba Room at Newcastle City Hall.  No need to pre-book - just show up, but don't be late as it's first come first served and last year the free sessions filled up fast (I know because I couldn't get into a few of them myself).  Looking forward to seeing you there.