Two New Books!

Well, actually ...

One new, the other a re-issue of its predecessor in a new edition.  And not absolutely this-minute new, but recent. And not mine alone, but a collaboration with three of my friends – two of us in Australia, the other two in the USA.

In 2014, Helen Patrice, Leigh D.C. Spencer, Delaina J. Miller and I were all participating in the international online thing of writing a poem every day in April. Happens every year! And we (along with many other poets all over the world) participate every year. 

We four all love each other’s poetry, as well as loving each other. Someone suggested we collect the best of our combined efforts into a book. And so we did. It was very exciting, and also a lot of work – most of which was done by Delaina, as the books were produced by the publishing company Content X Design, which Delaina runs with her wife Kristin Hatch.

We were, and are, very proud of She Too.  This is what it looked like (front cover, right; illustration from back cover, bottom left):

(Top left – for the highly successful online launch, Content X Design offered prizes to those who correctly guessed the answers to questions about the four authors. The answer to this question is: me!)

Last year, Delaina said to the rest of us, ‘Hey, it’s our 10-year anniversary. Why don’t we do another?’  And so, again, we did, and Paper Birds was born. It was very gratifying to find there was no deteriorating with age, as some of us (well, this one of us) had secretly feared. Over that decade, our poetry had only got stronger. 

We wanted to do it justice, so this time we were more ambitious. We decided to employ an editor and a book designer. Delaina also found a wonderful artist for our cover picture: Jeanie Tomanek, whom you can find on Instagram @everywomanart or under her own name on facebook and at her website.

It all looked so good that we decided on a new edition of She Too in matching format.

They were issued with lots of delightful online fanfare. Which should have included this blog, but somehow didn’t. (I guess I was too busy at all the other sites!) 

They’re available as both ebooks and paperbacks. All the details are at the WHERE TO BUY MY BOOKS tab (at top of screen, under blog title). And here is a look at the four of us now, ten years later – photos which appear in black-and-white inside both new books. (Tea with the Poets was a video event, one of the online activities from the launch of Paper Birds.)

Please note that, although published in America, the paperback version is also available from an Australian supplier – otherwise postage from there to here would be prohibitive.

We are thrilled to pieces with both these books!

Poems from My Last Performance

Which was for Poets Out Loud, back in August, at M/Arts in Murwillumbah.

 I was supporting visiting star Es Foong. For her unique and moving poetry, you'll need to get her book, which you can do here.

Don't forget you can buy my books too. See WHERE TO BUY MY BOOKS at top of screen. But the two following pieces have not been in a book yet.

The first one, I chose because it's seldom been heard in Australia, having been written especially for the Austin International Poetry Festival in Texas in 2006, where I was one of the guest poets. In particular, I knew that one friend in my POL audience had always wished to hear it, so this was my chance to make sure she finally did. 

In Austin, I delivered it at the opening event of the Festival, a dinner for local and visiting poets to make each other's acquaintance. It was also my opener at Poets Out Loud. (You who are seeing it onscreen must please imagine it belted out at full volume, declaimed with gusto and intensity, as well as gesticulation.)

I Am the Poet from Down Under

Written for the Austin International Poetry Festival 

(Texas) 2006

 

I am the poet from Down Under.

My heart calls to yours with a peal of thunder,

my mind is full of delighted wonder,

my spirit aches with a splendid hunger:

I want to feast on poetry —

I speak to you, you speak to me,

we all go together into mystery,

we all dream together with ecstasy —

not the drug, man, not the pill, lady;

who needs that for rhapsody?

We have words to set us free.

Words as bright as lightning,

words as clear as dew,

words that are frightening,

words that are true,

words that deliver us

from so-called reality

then drop us back, but without finality.

 

Tripping through the wild, the vast unseen —

Poetry, Poetry, what do you mean?

Poetry, Poetry, what do you say?

Come out, come out, come out and play!

 

I am the poet from the land of Oz.

That Great South Land is where I was:

the land where I grew, the land where I age,

the land of power, beauty and rage —

bushfires and flood, cyclones and drought,

all the extremes. Now I am out

into the wider world, into here.

Texas is real! I see and hear

excitement and vitality:

the Lone Star State is the place to be.

Give me your verses, give me your truth,

give me your wisdom, give me your youth!

Don’t hang back in the vestibule:

we’re here to create a Festival!

Give me your lightness, give me your dark!

In a coffee lounge or in the park,

let us with music, let us with voice

gather to celebrate, gather to rejoice.

 

Where have we been? What have we done?

Nothing new under the sun

excepting poetry makes it that way.

Poetry, Poetry — come out to play!

 

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2006

 

I prefaced my closing poem by saying, 'One of my mentors, the late Melbourne poet Mal Morgan, once said to me, "Tell me me something I don't already know." I'm about to tell you something you do already know – but sometimes, to speak is a matter of honour.' 

Then I told them this one:

                       Ripping the Blindfold Off

 

                                           I finally realise

                               (I can be very slow) –

                               of course they are killing the children!

                               It’s a genocide (we all know that) 

                               so of course they are ending

                               the next generation

                               before it starts. 

                               Before it gets a grip.

                               They are bombing the hospitals,

                                destroying maternity wards –

                                the new babies, the mothers 

                                about to give birth.

                                I thought they were – blindly – creating

                                a new generation of terrorists (war

                                begets war). But no,

                                not so blind after all. 

                                They are busy eradicating

                                the whole future 

                                of a whole people.

                                Contemplating this,

                                seeing more clearly

                                than I ever allowed myself:

                                I too have lost my breath.

                                Words have not been enough.

                                Decades of words, 

                                a century of words

                                failed to save the earth 

                                from effects of human greed.

                                How can I hope that words

                                might prevent the slaughter of children?
                                But words are all I have …

                                © Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2025

In between, I treated them to two poems from the recently-published Paper Birds: a poem for an old love (read here) then one for a current love (here).

Oops!

... And I suddenly realise I haven't written anywhere in this blog/website about the publication of Paper Birds! (Except under the BUY MY BOOKS tab, above.) Here – where I get to quite legitimately skite about all my writerly achievements! Good heavens!

That must have been because, at the time, so much launch activity was going on elsewhere over various social media, organised by the wonderful publisher, Content X Design. 

Never mind, I'll do a post about it here too, very soon, promise.