Thursday
25th October
6pm for 6.30pm start
The Linkway – 4th Floor John Medley Building
University of Melbourne
CAROL AND AHOY by Simon West
PUNCHER & WATTMANN
to be launched by Justin Clemens
The backdrop of Carol and Ahoy is the Goulburn River and its floodplains around Shepparton. Ancestry and watchful reflection combine seamlessly in these poems, which are ever in search of “what is tactile and particular”, be it a gum tree, an agave or the past. Simon West’s fluid, ever-shifting gaze will be familiar to readers of his previous volumes.
Waking on a Summer Morning
I asked if verse were no more than a toy,
then heard the blackbird’s carol and ahoy
and the traffic’s tidal snare drum sough.
They were absolute, these tones, not thought’s forgotten setting now,
as they washed through open windows and the new-found
arch of door jambs, and echoed round
the room’s old school of shadows. They were glory
of music on the mind’s cool parquet floor.
Simon West is the author of three collections of poetry and an edition of the Italian poet Guido Cavalcanti. He is represented in anthologies including Thirty Australian Poets (UQP), Young Poets: An Australian Anthology (John Leonard Press), and Contemporary Australian Poetry (Puncher & Wattmann).