Pre-sale of ‘Outcrop – radical Australian poetry of land’

Outcrop is a new anthology which collects contemporary radical Australian poetry of land, to be published in July 2013 by Black Rider Press. Delivery of pre-sale purchases will be in July.

Curated by Corey Wakeling and Jeremy Balius, Outcrop transcribes innovative and significant poetical approaches to land at the crossroads of ecologies and language.

The collection, rather than an exhaustive survey, represents a diversity of contemporary Australian radical poetic perspectives. These range from land in content and syntax, to voice, ecology, gesture and land of the body.

These are poetic experiments with landscape and geopolitics, exemplars of radical visions of land.

The anthology is approximately 240 pages in length, with up to 10 pages dedicated to each included poet.

Outcrop features a diversity of contemporary Australian radical poetic perspectives

Outcrop features poetry from Louis Armand, Laurie Duggan, Ali Cobby Eckermann, Kate Fagan, Michael Farrell, Lionel Fogarty, Keri Glastonbury, Matthew Hall, Fiona Hile, Duncan Hose, Jill Jones, John Kinsella, Astrid Lorange, John Mateer, Peter Minter, Sam Langer, Claire Potter, Pete Spence, Nicola Themistes and Tim Wright.

Outcrop is to be launched at ASAL 2013

Outcrop will be launched at the Association for the Study of Australian Literature (ASAL) 2013 Conference at Charles Stuart University in Wagga Wagga.

Held in July, the conference’s theme this year is ‘Country’ with a focus on topics which include the reimagining of the antipodes, discussing notions of country, region and location in literature, the sacred and the profane in country and the interaction between the cosmopolitan and the rural.

Outcrop is available at discounted pre-sale price for 10 days

Outcrop is available at a discounted pre-sale price for the next 10 days only. Save over 20% (including a saving on postage & handling) by pre-ordering Outcrop on Pozible.

Outcrop is available for $20 (inclusive of postage & handling) until 1 June 2013. Once launched at ASAL 2013, ‘Outcrop’ will cost $25 (plus postage & handling).

Also, available for the next 10 days are bundling opportunities, including limited edition printed chapbooks from the Black Rider presents Lyrics chapbook series. This series of chapbooks is usually only available in ebook format. These limited edition printed chapbooks will only be available for purchase as part of the pre-sale of Outcrop and will not be sold again.

For A$30 (inclusive of postage & handling), you can buy a copy of Outcrop at a discounted pre-sale price, plus your choice of one limited edition chapbook of new poetry in the Black Rider present Lyrics series by either Jill Jones, Michael Farrell or Ali Alizadeh.

For A$50 (inclusive of postage & handling), you can buy a copy of Outcrop at a discounted pre-sale price, plus all three limited edition chapbooks of new poetry in the Black Rider presents Lyrics series by Jill Jones, Michael Farrell and Ali Alizadeh.

For A$70 (inclusive of postage & handling), you can buy a copy of Outcrop at a discounted pre-sale price, plus all three limited edition chapbooks of new poetry in the Black Rider presents Lyrics series by Jill Jones, Michael Farrell and Ali Alizadeh, plus a discounted copy of Kirk Marshall’s debut short fiction collection Carnivalesque, And: Other Stories.

And finally, for the most discounted bundle of them all…

For A$80 (inclusive of postage & handling), you can buy a copy of Outcrop at a discounted pre-sale price, plus all three limited edition chapbooks of new poetry in the Black Rider presents Lyrics series by Jill Jones, Michael Farrell and Ali Alizadeh, plus a discounted copy of Kirk Marshall’s debut short fiction collection Carnivalesque, And: Other Stories, plus a discounted copy of Cottonmouth – An Anthology of New Australian Writing.

All pre-sale orders will be delivered after ASAL 2013 in July.

Put your order in for Outcrop – radical Australian poetry of land.

Free chapbook: ‘the halation assembly kit’ by jeremy balius

the halation assembly kit is an English-language/German bilingual poetry chapbook.

I’ve published it here so you can download it for free.

The chapbook is after the light-sculptures of German artist Mischa Kuball and focuses on identity of the individual amid the fluidity of value and wealth, post-Global Financial Crisis and ongoing Eurozone Crisis.

It was Kuball who said “Every gesture in the city is political.” (“Jede Geste in der Stadt ist politisch.”)

My gratitude goes to Marcus Roloff whose light shines bright within the German translation in this chapbook.

Download the halation assembly kit 

If you want a printed copy of the chapbook, PM me on Facebook in the next couple of weeks.

Another review from KSP

KSP published another review about me, this time in the May edition of their newsletter.

Thanks for the kind words Rosanne!

Literary dinner with Jeremy Balius

By Rosanne Dingli

It was a brilliant night of warm company, delicious food, and thought-provoking entertainment. Let me tell you about it.

It’s not easy to wean oneself off the computer screen to face the real world. A literary dinner seemed the best way to link back  to something concrete: real people, real food, a real location. It felt scary making the booking. Online social interaction is so much easier – it doesn’t matter what you wear, for a start. But look – my shiny top still fitted. I hadn’t driven through Midland for something like 8 years, and yes, they were STILL digging up the intersection with the highway.

I can’t say it was like I had never been away – lots of changes occurred since I worked at KSP. The first I noticed was the office – what a miraculous transformation from the old shed where we’d hide the keys under a pot of rat poison! The library was another transformation that blew me right away. So beautiful and conducive to a nice long read… but I had dinner to eat and people to meet.

Jeremy Balius is a star: there is no other word for this youthful extremely talented writer. His abilities are legion, his eclectic forays into different genres quite illuminating, his style indicative of a more than just adequate understanding of history and literature. He read in between courses from published and more recent work, leaving the intimate audience desiring to know the origins of such intricate language.

I thought the days of having fun with words were over. I thought prose poems were dead. I thought this vast, cruel, pragmatic world had shrunk everything to 140- character meaninglessness. Not so. I was so very happy to sit back, between delicious soup and wonderful curry, and listen to Jeremy Balius read from his “Wherein? He asks of Memory”, which was a surprise, to say the least. Dense, dense, dense with all the lovely, juicy words I had missed for so long. Did he really say ekphrastic? It was magical to listen to a sculpture quiz a mountain.

There was ample opportunity to quiz the Writer-in-Residence at KSP about his writing, background, accent, and a number of other important aspects. It turns out Jeremy Balius has taken up residence in Fremantle. His fascination with the place is causing him to delve into its history, and his sojourns in Germany and his native USA are informing the way he delves. He understands Fremantle, without a doubt. But the way he writes about the port town is going to make us all look at it again, and see it differently. We might see Balius’s words next time we look at a crane.

Between curry and dessert – let me tell you, homemade chocolate cake, cream and ice cream – Jeremy read from the manuscript of his WIP: a novel which the
residency is allowing him to write in comparative ease and comfort.

I was surprised again. A literary novel, with striking words once more taking centre stage. Did he really say abecedarian? Yes, and loudly and clearly, too. A writer’s delivery, I find, is often indicative of the breadth of their potential, and what I heard that Tuesday night was wide. High. Deep.

Rosanne Dingli’s most recent novel is Camera Obscura. Available wherever good books are sold online, in paperback and eBook. http://www.rosannedingli.com

forward slash launch in Melbourne

forward slash will be launched by Corey Wakeling and will feature readings by contributors Michael Farrell and Duncan Hose. The launch is part of The Poetry Symposium 2012, this year titled The Political Imagination: Contemporary Postcolonial and Diasporic Poetries.

The Political Imagination is a symposium that brings together some of Australia’s leading poets and poetry scholars to investigate the state of contemporary postcolonial and diasporic poetries. It aims to explore the contentious, at times controversial, issues surrounding the production and discussion of poetry and poetics in work that engages with the politics of the postcolonial, the transnational and the diasporic.

Edited by Matthew Hall and Jeremy Balius, the first edition features:

Duncan Hose
Michael Farrell
a.rawlings
Louis Armand
Kemeny Babineau
Astrid Lorange
Jay MillAr

“In showcasing seven of the most exciting writers either side of the Pacific, this collection demonstrates just how strikingly resonant Australian and Canadian contemporary poetries are in challenging pretexts of language, nation, and the interior.  Here we have undressed affect, meddlesome crossings of intimate and ideological landscapes, and ebullient spurs against aesthetic and political complacency.  It is, in short, redactive iridescence.” – Ann Vickery

Volumes of forward slash will be available for purchase at the event for 10 smackers.

Thanks to Ann, Ali, Lyn and Corey for making this happen.

When: 4:30pm, Thursday 12 April 2012
Where: Deakin Prime, Level 3, 550 Bourke Street, Melbourne

KSP reviews Black Rider

KSP posted some reviews in their April 2012 newsletter. Thanks Rose and Mardi – your kindness abounds.

Meet the Poet

By Rose van Son

On Monday, 12th March, 2012, KSP audience members were treated to a spellbinding session of performance poetry and discussion by Emerging Writer-in-Residence, Jeremy Balius. Although born in the US and spending much of his formative years in Germany and Los Angeles, Balius has lived in Fremantle for the past seven years. He is caretaker of Black Rider Press.

An excellent communicator, Balius held the audience in awe with his strong poetry, crystallised performance readings and insightful philosophies and perceptions of his poetry and what poetry could be. His connection with the audience and their questions was at once thoughtprovoking and confronting. His background information and incredible research for his poems were informative and humbling.

Balius’ passions for language and philosophy are evident in his poetry, his readings and his art. He understands the balance of words and symbols – where they go and what they do to excite, cast shadow, reveal. His poetry leaves much scope for the reader to add meaning and to wonder poetry’s power and resonance.

Balius’ publication wherein? he asks of memory by Knives Forks and Spoons Press, UK, is both an aural and visual feast. He is unafraid to use language, and not just the English language, bilaterally, to at once tie, separate and propel the text.

Balius will soon be published in the Fremantle Press Performance Poets series publication to be accompanied by a CD.

As he writes in a line from Of the fifth consideration: ‘Explanations are never sufficient’ – the audience that sultry Monday afternoon, was left, having gained so much, wanting more.

(Rose van Son’s collection of poetry (Labyrinth) has recently been published in Sandfire by Sunline Press, Jan, 2012)

 

The Power of Place

By Mardi May

Jeremy Balius, our Emerging Writer-in-Residence, knows the importance of place or setting in a story, and how this influences the lives of people and characters.

American by birth and raised in Germany, Jeremy met an Aussie girl and Fremantle has claimed him for the last seven years.

Currently working on a novel set in Fremantle, Jeremy is also a poet of some standing in the Perth poetry community. Influenced by the American experience and the expressiveness of the German language, his poetic style flows into the prose of his novel.

As our guest at Past Tense, he read excerpts from his current work and we discussed areas relevant to our own writing projects. In his demonstration of the power of performance, we learned much about presentation and will endeavour to convey this in our readings on Open Day.

Thank you, Jeremy, from Past Tense, for your generosity in sharing your time and knowledge with us.

‘wherein? he asks of memory’ now published by Knives Forks and Spoons Press

It’s out now!

wherein? he asks of memory is an ekphrastic chapbook-length epical poem in the tradition of Edward Dorn’s Gunslinger and draws upon my Germanic upbringing and American heritage to transcribe the creative process of Germany-born and New York-based Ursula von Rydingsvard.

In the poem, von Rydingsvard’s first major museum exhibited sculpture For Paul visits the narrator and they sit conversing on the apartment’s balcony. They are joined by Storm King Mountain, a mountain located near where For Paul is permanently exhibited at the Storm King Art Center, as well as by Ricardo Villalobos who brings the Detuned Guitar with him.

wherein? he asks of memory is now available from Knives Forks and Spoons Press in the UK.

Black Rider down at the Poetry Club this Saturday

This Saturday I’m going to read some words down at the Poetry Club.

The website bills it as:

On 18 February at Perth Poetry Club you can hear the distinctive spoken sound of Cottonmouth favourite and underground publisher JEREMY BALIUS, plus the premiere feature of a new voice, CRAIG ROGERS. 2-4pm at The Moon, with open mike and professional sound as always.

Jeremy Balius was Dallas Texas born, Gießen Germany raised, Los Angeles California educated, and has lived in Fremantle Western Australia for the last seven years. He looks after Black Rider Press and hangs out with the Cottonmouth kids. wherein? he asks of memory is forthcoming from Knives Forks and Spoons Press (UK). He’s a Katherine Susannah Prichard 2012 Emerging Writer in Residence.

Craig Rogers grew up in Perth after emigrating from the UK in 1994. Before that he lived all over England and Scotland, including the Shetland islands, home-schooled for most of that time with his younger sister. He has had an on-again-off-again relationship with writing since childhood; but this has developed into more of an inward instinct than an external interest, particularly over recent years. He has been reading in the open mike at Perth Poetry Club for just over a year.

forward slash – more feedback

“A forward slash / can be a substitute for a line break/ pause/ fracture in thought./ A forward slash / can break a word/ divide alternatives/ either/or. A forward slash is playful as the poet’s words/ skirts the border between letter / line./ A forward slash is furtive/ tempting/ mysterious./ In this first of many issues, forward slash celebrates the written word through the vision/s of seven innovative poets/mischievous word-players/from Australia/Canada/ who share/ revel in the ‘habitat’ of language.” – Jessica Wilkinson, Editor of Rabbit Poetry

“In showcasing seven of the most exciting writers either side of the Pacific, this collection demonstrates just how strikingly resonant Australian and Canadian contemporary poetries are in challenging pretexts of language, nation, and the interior.  Here we have undressed affect, meddlesome crossings of intimate and ideological landscapes, and ebullient spurs against aesthetic and political complacency.  It is, in short, redactive iridescence.” – Ann Vickery

“At a time the term ‘innovation’ has become very much a part of the jargon of business and capitalism, the editors of forward slash attempt to reclaim its disruptive, discomforting potential. There is nothing anaesthetically or conceptually comforting or lyrical about any of the poems published in forward slash: here Duncan Hose unleashes the “blackbirds squalling in your pants”; Michael Farrell finds himself “fretting, frediting, freaking, fumbling”; a. rawlings howls “wolves! wolves! wolves!”; Louis Armand illustrates “the destruction of form”; Kemeny Babineau celebrates “the death of the sonnet”; Astrid Lorange enjoys “illegal working the dirt speaking”; and Jay Millar “bounces off an influential object in the sky”. A vibrant  dose of dispruption.” – Ali Alizadeh

Black Rider presents forward slash – coming soon

forward slash is a Black Rider collage of Australian and Canadian innovation.

Edited by Matthew Hall and Jeremy Balius, the first edition features:

Duncan Hose
Michael Farrell
a.rawlings
Louis Armand
Kemeny Babineau
Astrid Lorange
Jay MillAr

What people are saying

Balius and Hall have not so much edited as curated a powerfully critical, vital, and ranging assemblage of poetries as environmental archeologies, retracing colonial violences and suppressions’ “chiasma?/
e/merging in the present…” – Trisha Salah, author of Waiting in Arabic, Contributing Editor EOAGH

This is an uncommon collection of writing. Jarring yet hypnotic, raucous yet intimate, staccato yet sustained — forward slash prods the conventions, premises and assumptions of ‘mainstream’ poetry. Set in a transhemispherical and postcolonial context, this anthology of experimental Canadian and Australian poetries should be of interest to anyone intrigued by language — its possible trajectories, its pliant spatiality, its capacity for expression beyond steady imagery and common narratives. – John Ryan, editor, Landscape, from International Centre for Landscape and Language Research Group

forward slash is a wonderful poetic antidote to much of the polite verse presented today in traditional journals. It is like being in a strange calligraphic city where around every corner there is a surprise. And fortunately not all of them are happy ones. – Glen Phillips, retiring poet.

forward/slash invites your eyes and ears – music is diction here. Score on the page, thought on the tongue. if there is a single / direction / the reader will discover that it is plural (LA) To make new language, tune it differently and play it taut :: it will create new thought. Am I behind these lines? (ajr) Tradition? There is no going back in the way / You fancy (DH) Get off the pedestrian walk: [these poems] are boneless and make good eating. (MF)

‘The best way to find out about poems is to read the poems.’ Louis Zukofsky, ‘A statement for poetry’ in Prepositions, 1950 (Uni of Cal Press). Of course he’s right. – Andrew Burke

Black Rider Podcast 04 – Mixed by blkrdr

Artwork by Ryan Michael Swearingen http://www.myeyemachine.com

… and then the fourth instalment of the Black Rider Podcast.

A couple of years ago I’d drive out to Karen and Crispin’s house every Tuesday night. They’d converted their loungeroom into a studio and rehearsal space. This was just before Pacific by Rail recorded some songs there.

Those times were very special to me, playing music with Karen, Greg and Matt. I was and still am in awe of the music the make in their The Ghost of 29 Megacycles band. I listen to it a lot. I miss them terribly.

When Greg recently ok’d that I’d make a mix of his songs, I’d also had portions of a book of poems of mine appear in Yellow Field #4 out of Buffalo, New York. It was timely to include a reading of some of it in the mix.

I hope that anyone who listens to this mix falls just as madly in love with The Ghost of 29 Megacycles as I have been.

Download Black Rider Podcast 04 – Mixed by blkrdr

Or stream it here: