Happy Holidays (Virtual Mince Pies)

To all you lovely readers out there, I just wanted to wish you a very happy holiday with a plateful of virtual mince pies that I baked up just for you (my kids will eat them on your behalf).  I wish you a relaxing holiday with plenty of time to catch up on your favourite books.  What will you be reading?  I've got a stack that includes: Selected Poems of Dorothy Hewett (Kate Lilley, ed), The Vintage and the Gleaning by Jeremy Chambers, The Pleasure Seekers by Tishani Doshi, Sustenance by Simone Lazaroo, and Singing the Coast edited by Margaret Somerville and Tony Perkins, all of which I intend to read through January.  See you in 2011 with a swagfull of  reviews and interviews that include most of the above people and thanks to all of you for your support and participation this year.  For the full recipe and a little background on the pies, visit: http://www.redroom.com/blog/magdalena-ball/mince-pies-height-summer

Blooming Red

My writing partner Carolyn Howard-Johnson and I figure that nothing is more meaningful at any holiday than a poem - a real poem, not sing-song impersonal limericks from the shelves of card shops.  With that in mind we've created the Celebration Series of chapbooks and have just released our 4th book, Blooming Red: Christmas Poetry for the Rational.  Literature lovers everywhere can order these chapbooks, with full-cover covers by prize-winning artist Vicki Thomas, for only $3 each.  That's $75 for 25 of the most memorable holiday greetings you've ever sent out.  It's a budget-concious gift and card all in one.  The book includes a range of poetry inspired by the end of year holidays.

The chapbooks in the Celebration Series include Cherished Pulse (for anyone you love), also with artwork from Vicki Thomas; She Wore Emerald Then (for mothers on your gift list) with photographs by May Lattanzio; Imagining the Future: For Fathers and Other Masculine Apparitions (for the men in your life). And now Blooming Red for the special folks on your holiday list.  All are available individually at only $6.95 on Amazon, but are only $3 each when ordered in quantities of 25 or more directly from the poets.  Put HOLIDAY ORDER in the subject line and send an e-mail to Carolyn. She will make arrangements with you directly for the additional shipping cost for the number you order.

Here's a sample poem from the collection read by me:  Silent Symphony

and another:

Carol to the Universe

Take down the tree
tinsel trash tidied
broken baubles swept
garbage bag wrappings
discarded
through greedhaze
glitter snowglobe
lights off
exhalation
into the new
year.

A carol to the universe
held in one breath
between motion
and inertia
kiss of the godless
earth mother lump
to her quantum
creatures
evolving
beneath
every tap of the keyboard
a newbie springs forth.

No need for
leather clad rulebooks
ark over flood
fatherly edicts
no sacrifices in blood
here.

This is a rational zone
still
so many years on
fertile.

Book tree (now there's an idea...)

A great idea for celebrating the holiday with books (you could buy them as gifts too...I always do) from the Barr Smith Library in Adelaide.  They aren't the only ones doing it, though I particularly like the idea of the books resting on the Dewey Decimal Classification (showing my age). The James Cook Library in Cairns, QLD has also done something similar. My own shelves are definitely overflowing, and much as I love books, I've got no place to put all the new ones that will surely arrive by sleigh in the next few days, especially with the Christmas tree taking up half the living room.  Here's the obvious solution.  Happy holidays to all of you, and thanks for all your wonderful support this year.