Michael Farrell
Michael Farrell won the 2012 Peter Porter Poetry Prize. Recent books include Family Trees and I Love Poetry (both published by Giramondo), the scholarly Writing Australian Unsettlement: Modes of Poetic Invention 1796–1945 (Palgrave Macmillan), and, as editor, Ashbery Mode (TinFish), an Australian tribute to John Ashbery. Born in Bombala, NSW, in 1965, Michael has lived in Melbourne since 1990.
I was riding a shark through Cork, just for the exercise of courseIt might seem quaint but rather it wasGorgeous, like an early morning courtyardImagine the dialogue. AC/DC confronts shark shark repeats shadow prime minister'sGaffeYou guys are the white Australian Uluru. Fancy, say theyIt became noon. An emuIn police uniform j ... (read more)
You feel this way, kind of free when you lie down
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I've seen it, the cocking head, the dipping branch, but nowI'm thinking of something else. The long drawnOut day. The novelty of peaches inA new form. Savour the bird's body language, you may needIt to recognise yourself later. Like water, your head empties slowlyOf melody (though not ... (read more)
Angels are made from banksia. They are grown in Prague, areExported in all directions, and turn grey in air. TheyOnly fly in places where the ground is hard. IfYou try to count them they turn into numbers. IfYou try to call them they turn into names. TheyAre not decorative at parties but illustrative, of Guernica, for example
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In their crucibles they attempt a new kind of teaevery day, usually through a combination ofMethods, such as the fox method, the hydrangeamethod and the sunlight method this is a colour-Determined method in effect, though efforts areMade to avoid repeating any method on consecutivedays another of their efforts has gone into producingA quietness spray to be used at peak noise timesOf the day they a ... (read more)
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You’ve always associated the two terms together partly due to your reading of Schiller; partly due to your watching of Kimba. Kimba sublimates his mother in the water. You’ve always thought your mother a baroque figure. You go into the forest. You make something from a tree: a book a club. Material comes from the mother; also happiness, and therefore beauty. The mother expects love and finds ... (read more)