Wagga Wagga Launch of 'fourW twenty-eight'

Booranga Writers' Centre welcomed poet Ivy Alvarez to Wagga Wagga to launch fourW twenty-eight at the Wagga Wagga City Library. A crowd of more than 50 people attended and the winners of the Booranga Prizes were announced. The 'best' poem in fourW twenty-eight is Daniel King's 'King Henry X'; and the 'best' fiction is Mitchell Grabois' short story 'Stinky Cheese'. Congratulation to Daniel and Mitchell.

An excerpt from Ivy Alvarez's launch speech.

"What always strikes me about fourW, as a literary publication, is its boldness of position, its openness to fun, adventure, experimentation and the raw original voice. I value fourW as an Australian journal unabashed in its outward-looking perspective, one unbound by location, while prizing writing that resonates, whether it is from Wagga, Australia, or beyond.

                                              Ivy Alvarez                          (Photo Claire Baker)

I like to imagine what larks the editorial panel gets up to when it comes to making their selections — maybe sitting together, paper everywhere, poems and stories scattered every which way. There would be laughter, and impassioned arguments, as people campaign for their favourite line of poetry or short story. Someone would bang on the table so hard, the glasses clink and the pizza slices leap out of their boxes. Then they’d laugh some more. (I don’t want to know if this scenario is untrue, by the way.)

According to the Booranga Writers’ Centre’s page, twenty-eight contains “more than 50 poems and nearly 20 short stories stretching the boundaries of writing in multi-layered, allusive writing that engages, challenges, seduces”[1] so I urge you to reserve your copy, whether as a last-minute standby present or as a beach-reading treat — for the season of gift-giving is well and truly upon us.

David Gilbey

I can think of no better way to honour the work that goes into stitching together this journal, number twentyeight, by writing a cento in dedication. The word cento comes from the Latin word for patchwork. The cento, or collage poem, is a poetic form made up of lines from poems by other poets.[2] For this cento, I am lifting the gate, and have included fiction writers, too.



Please join us in celebrating local, national and international literary achievement — through the hand-stitched quilt that is fourW — as we declare fourW twenty-eight launched into the world."

    

Joan Cahill (photo Claire Baker)

Our thanks to Ivy for her wonderful launch speech and for contributing to the success of this year's launch. We are greatly indebted to the Wagga Wagga City Library for allowing us to use this wonderful public venue for the launch and for the staff for their invaluable assistance in preparing and setting-up and for their assistance on the day.

[1] David Gilbey, Booranga Writers’ Centre FB page, 15 November 2017, www.facebook.com/Booranga/posts/1664426170274189

[2] poets.org, Cento: Poetic Form, 21 February 2014, www.poets.org/poetsorg/text/cento-poetic-form

  

Ivy Alvarez and David Gilbey

The fourW28 cento

by Ivy Alvarez

with thanks to the authors in this edition

By the way, did you know / rain is the buzzing of bees vertically landing on flowers? Even bliss        has its palsy to yank. The river of ghosts / spatters over rocks   the young man shifted about, as though trying to coax more comfort from the chair                                             beer in hand, sack open.

                                                                     kay okay lang kami, don’t worry about us, we are fine here. Drugged icy air, dazzling light      we climb knuckled fault lines / when we find anything following through with sharp attacks // on sensitive parts of the body                 another memento from when things were more in control.         He is my third eye, my spinal rod.                         Suffocation and empty lungs

                                 and a hundred men blinded by your charm

But the real estate man was looking at his clip board and gave no sign of hearing.     Mare and foal gaze through cicada haze

                        though I doubt you’ll remember details of the affair

Want your miracles / fat, loud & obvious?

              the itch goes away, but not the

              itches in her brain

                                 allowed to recreate Philadelphia from its

insides out                its bourgeois interior rich with brocade and (suggestion)           Her goats have breasts.

                                                                     though I know I’m

currently employed   at Kentucky Fried Chicken

my mother was born in a town like this       in creek water shallow

sometimes oddly neglecting to mention       whatever the clock

Where are the people / In the cars, in the glass       if I said where

would you be there?                  “But we were speaking of oysters,”

cos I’ve got that bearded brown face?    Dissolves under erasure’s X

In the other lounge a fire has been lit, but no one is present. My balcony is their dining table!          I dive into a clarity

Beneath the waves is hot and silent

                                                      stretching to match the murders

The woman pregnant / with a skin of health      “I’m not dressed.”

Katerina brushed back her long black hair      Vanya felt in a stupor, unable to take it in      Stiff quiffs, soft cocks, shit music.

before its lines / were said        i’ve encountered three irish accents

Summer seeps through flannelette.  The jetty burns with fireworks

Begin with a verb     escaped from a London winter   Writing pretty letters   windows leaking life    she pauses. like lightning.

a holy & blessed ascension               a hundred respectable denizens

I feel slightly sick   A drink of water.           A hole in the ceiling

She and I / are getting to know the puddles     dewdrop of longing

he’s under the filleting knife                        A boot was kicking

the heat & itches you must shed    blood fixed      an extended wing

escape, a reverb under                                 to grant saintliness

Sources: Sofial Azam’s To a Gunman, Christopher Barnes’s Lord Byron Joins a Dating Site, Robert Beveridge’s The Poetry Bowl, Craig Billingham’s The Messenger, Julie Briggs’s White Christmas, Erwin Cabucos’s Lights of Different Colours, Joan Cahill’s One-Eyed Trust, Chloë Callistemon’s X, John Carey’s Post Truth, Carol Chandler’s Watched, Sue Clennel’s Frida, Lucy Coughran’s Hera, Michael Crane’s A Café in Marrakesh, Louise D’Arcy’s Alex and Max Go for a Walk, Sally Denshire’s after Horses, Michel Dignand’s Next Door to Charles, Tug Dumbly’s Incredible, Claire Feild’s Palpable, Adam Fieled’s Nights I Staggered Drunkenly, David Gilbey’s ‘To Speak of the Woe ...’, Mitchell Krockmalnik Grabois’s Stinky Cheese, Jonathan Greenhause’s I am a God, Rory Harris’s road, Elanna Herbert’s Road to Gallipoli : between Cappadocia and Pamukkale, Matt Hetherington’s Seidel’s, Ross Jackson’s Waking something, Jill Jones’s Undoing, Christopher (Kit) Kelen’s practice of a disappearance, Maryanne Khan’s Sideways, Zohab Khan’s Untitled, Daniel King’s King Henry X and The Astrological Coasters, Vanessa Kirkpatrick’s The balcony, Andy Kissane’s Caught, Mran-Maree Laing’s The raw faces, Gary Langford’s p154, Wes Lee’s Airbnb Weekend, Alison Lesley’s Weightless, Rosanna Licari’s All Saints’ Eve, Natalya Lowndes’s The Professionals, Julie Maclean’s Joel and Jess on the Verge, Alex McKeown’s qu’est-ce que c’est qu’un sansonnet?, Derek Motion’s birds poem, Jan Napier Kennels’s The Black Dog, Damon O’Brien’s Catching the Last Wave, Mark O’Flynn’s (Missing)(The)(Point), Nathanael O’Reilly’s (Un)belonging, Liam Perry’s Fool’s Gold #1, Andrew Purches’s Individual Cities, Caroline Reid’s the kid, Graham Rowlands’s Absolutely, Rajith Savanadasa’s To Keep Pace, Steven Sharman’s The Kill, Dorothy Simmons’s In Your Face, Ali Jane Smith’s Christmastime!, Barnaby Smith’s Docklands, Ian C. Smith’s Mixed Fruit, Rob Walker’s Tommy Ru, Biff Ward’s To the West, Les Wicks’s The Mad Book, Gail Willems’s Woman Holding Roses Standing Between Two Springs, Jena Woodhouse’s Wild Geese Migrating, Mark Young’s or part thereof, Robyne Young’s Afternoon Tea