Dear friends,

Let us gather. Let us wrap ourselves around the frailty of each other’s light. Hold ourselves as flames in the cold of each other’s loss and confusion. My hands have been frozen by the immensity of this. I need you. You need me. Let us gather.

This world is not an easy place to call home. It is not as friendly as we once hoped for, more broken than we were promised, it crumbles violent around the edges and I do not know what to do with this. How do you hold in your hand that which is falling apart?

Lightly. The answer is lightly. You hold it like feather. Like nest. Like only the birds know. Like parchment. A white knuckled holding to the way we demand it to be shall only schism us further. And haven’t we colonised enough already.

Let us not also colonise the…

Chuffed to have a poem in Mascara Literary Review, edited by Michelle Cahill.

‘The Moon and the Mason Jars’ (for my dear friend Ruth Whebell) will also be published in my first collection, Glasshouses (UQP, August 2016).

While you’re at Mascara, check out Rose Hunter’s poem ‘el edén’. I’m currently reading Rose’s chapbook descansos (dancing girl press, 2015). In her foam:e review of descansos poet and winner of the 2006 Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize Angela Gardner wrote ‘[this collection] maintains its focus in a way that allows the reader’s mind to follow many paths without losing direction. The subject is serious and the gaze unflinching and honest. [Rose’s] ability to make language and image strange, ensures we look deeper.’

I’m eagerly awaiting Rose’s next book of poetry, glass (Five Islands Press, 2017).