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All Travellers We
- Poems for Shelton Lea
...an
exceptional
poetry book - exquisite!
The poems are simply gorgeous, beautifully written, and above all, honest... |
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Book Description i do not want to go out as i do not want to go out as frenzied molecules trapped by tough air as if all moments are this, of this & more or less, this. we dance with jack through thinning air our desires a questionnaire. Shelton Lea April 2005 Born in 1946, Shelton Lea was adopted from an orphanage in Fitzroy. At twelve he ran away from his adoptive parents, living by his wits on the streets of Melbourne. Over the ensuing years he did time in reform schools and prisons, wherein he wrote love poems for the sweethearts of fellow inmates in exchange for contraband. He then travelled widely and began a lifelong commitment to write about Australia’s black and white dilemmas. After living in Sydney during the 1960s, Lea moved back to Melbourne, where he was associated with the vibrant Heide set and worked with Barrett Reid on Overland. An extremely engaging performer of his work, he also served as mentor to several generations of budding poets all over the country. Lea read his poetry in schools, pubs, performance venues, prisons, universities, and anywhere across the nation where eager and captivated crowds would gather to hear him read and speak. His elegant generosity of spirit, eternal optimism, and far-reaching influence on Australian poetry will echo into the future. There will never be another like him. From the "Foreward" As
Shelton lay ill, many friends (among them poets, musicians, actors,
family, and friends from every walk of life) arrived with all types of
presents. Many of these gifts were poems. Some were kept at the time,
others arrived after his death, and many had been written (either for
or about him) in previous years.
Jen Jewel Brown encouraged me to keep these for a possible book. Kerry Scuffins pushed hard for its birth, and with the rest of the gang: Jordie Albiston, Lyn Boughton, Martin Downey, Ian McBryde, Peter Tiernan, Raffaella Torresan, and myself, joined together to bring this to fruition. To those who may not be represented here, this book simply fell into its own space and time, and was virtually born of itself. Our credo was immediate and simple: to publish a collection which honours Shelley’s unique journey and work, by those who shared his life and loved him to the end. Leith
Woodgate, Melbourne,
July 2008
Cover photograph by Raffaella Torresan. ISBN 9781876044985 Published - 2008 Eaglemont Press 64 pgs $20.00 |
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Book Sample monody I miss you though you’re not even
Dead neither sick in body nor ill in Head just gone from me and so it Goes I miss you though you’re not Dead I stare at the sky so you will not die musty lace clouds Miss Haversham’s slice loping slyly the grey southern lights I miss you so even though I miss you though there is yet more your cane still tap-p-ing the book strewn floor your grit still spitting out Poem! Poem! your ship still sitting just there just out from shore Jordie
Albiston
In response to Shelton Lea’s poem... I am keeping my eye out
for a peach melba hat. And I will keep it in soft tissue paper in a white cardboard box. When I am eighty, I will wait for a day when the sun shines warmly, And I will feel my white linen dress smooth against my skin. And, I will sit, stately in my years, in the right seat, at the back of the right bus. And I will wait, and watch for the smile and the charming words. I will accept them as they are. I will catch them, before they are stifled by the gauche etiquette of some imbecile protecting my aged dignity, Possibly spit, As I remind of my aged femininity.
Kay
Arthur
shelton lea’s book-shop you won’t find it under that name
& although it’s on a corner a block from a shopping centre opposite a church, a school & tucked in behind a pub people aren’t sure it exists people peer through th bars at th books those in th know slide the bars across once in, you trip over boxes sprawl into a slough of poetry dedicated to lovers, discarded MEDICAL BOOKS past their use-by date LAW you’ll find under KOORRI PHOTOGRAPHY is hardest to find or else it’s blind people asking for it shelton sits in a haze of smoke playing patience on his computer a woman with no money asks to look at th book he keeps in th house, th one with th pictures I mind th shop I tell the girl who asks for PHOTOGRAPHY it’s next to th BRAILLE section I catch another bloke loitering in CRIME reading th last page of every thriller BUDDHISM’S across th room from RELIGION between ASTROLOGY & ASTRONOMY customers come in with their poems & beg shelton to praise them they leave without buying a book I put up a sign advice: one henry lawson an hour student poets fly out of th chrysalis of shelton’s shop empress butterfly cassie lewis from eaglemont & how many wobbly flights have been launched from de havilland’s? soaring club at clifton hill flying kites indoors th tug of love th broken string of prom i ses feral gardens admire th weeds like central american republics bookshops arise now! shelley is at large eric beach |
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Comment All Travellers We Richard Hillman 4 August 2008 All Travellers We is an exceptional poetry book - exquisite! Great balance between the expository and free flow. I don’t think I am being presumptious to suggest that Shellie would be pleased with this effort and, he would have grown ears just to hear these poems being read by their authors come launch night... It feels good in the hand, and it reads well. The poems are simply gorgeous, beautifully written, and above all, honest. I particularly liked Ian McBryde’s poem; extremely good, perhaps his finest achievement in poetry. And there was a surprising poem, called ‘Tonight,’ which caught my eye - it glistened... Everyone involved in the publication should be congratulated. |