I am honoured to have my poem, Whence, go to live in The Summer edition of The Poetry Review alongside such stellar poets whom i greatly admire, including Jen Hadfield and Mary Ruefle.
I can’t wait for my copy to arrive at the post office so i can walk down to collect and on the way home, sit where i wrote the poem and tell the trees and grasses and the kangaroos all about it.
Arwork by Marion Wadi
I was invited by Enfield Poets to be their June Poet of the Month. THis entails have a A1 poster of my poem displayed in the window of the Dugdale Theatre Centre in Enfield, London.
And this is a link to the previous Enfiled Poets of the Month
Black-throated Finches are endangered and their ecosystem is under threat from the proposed Adani coal mine in QLD.
Theses precious and irreplaceable creatures are our canaries in the coal mine and they re just holding on by a feather.
This is my drawing of one of these beauties, as a part of the !000finches project, to add voice to their existence..
If you would like, you can support and donate to the Wangan & Jagalingou Traditional Owners Family Council who have been at the literal coal face for the past eight years, fighting Adani over Land Use Agreement.
Below is a the link to the Wagan and Jagalingou Family Council.
I have a poem included in this free online edition of Westerly. Link to the download is in the button below.
Friday 8th March
11-2pm 2019
Women of Mount Alexander sing, tell stories and recite poetry at a highly entertaining and educative International Women's Day Open Mike with Felicity Cripps, Trudy Edgley, Meg Nightjar, Allis Hamilton, Maggie Jackson, Elizabeth Scanlon, Cate Mercer, Kavisha Mazzella and surprise guests…
A family friendly event.
All Welcome $5 suggested donation
Snacks and drinks by Friends Of Castlemaine Library
money raised will support FOCAL Women’s Prison Literacy projects.
Venue kindly supported by Mount Alexander Shire Council
PA kindly donated by Castlemaine Artists Market
Thank you to all Musicians have donated their time.
Poster drawn and created by Kavisha.
This excellent project is still touring the country.
I have a poem, White-necked (Pacific) Heron in this project, and created sound impressions of the Diamond Dove, in the project.
I am honoured to be a finalist in this prize alongside some amazing artists, judged by the brilliant John Wolsely. Here is the invitation to the show, if you are wanting to go and have a squizz.
Today my little Eel drawing made its way back home. It's clustered in here among 137 other Eel illustrations by 71 artists. Published by Guillemot Press, in conjunction with Plymouth University, U.K. to raise awareness of the plight of the magical and threatened Eel.
Link below to the Eel site:
I am a finalist in the $25,000 Adelaide Perry Drawing Prize, judged by the brilliant John Wolseley.
This is my shortlisted work, 'Nantiberry Spring, Warraweena', which I created using oil pastel and pencil on paper, en plein air in the Flinders Ranges in 2018.
The work will be shown among the other finalists from 2nd March until 29th March at the Adelaide Perry Gallery, ‘ The Croydon’, Corner Hennessey and College Streets Croydon, Sydney.
Artists Statement:
My artistry reveals itself through various mediums, from drawing, painting, music and poetry. I am driven to express my impression of the blessing of life into works that can feed the hearts and minds of the viewer, listener and reader.
I began this work on the final day of a drawing trip to the Flinders Ranges last Autumn. I often set out around my home in central Victoria, packed with a boiled egg, thermos and hat, to perch on the earth and transpose the vista about me onto the blank page. So to find myself creating within the majesty of the Flinders Ranges was a humbling and thrilling experience.
For this work I settled myself on the grey, blue, and purple pebbles of the drying creek bed, around the corner from the seeping spring, where wallaroos dig among soft gravel to lean on their elbows and drink from their freshly dug pool of water.
While I drew my impression of this awesome waterway, that reveals itself in layer upon layer of shale, I watched a family of wild goats traverse the far horizon, making their way down to the life-giving spring while above a magpie called in the still, enormous air.
Here is 'The Creel'. It's an anthology published by Guillemot Press, U.K. to raise awareness of the endangered European Eel. I am thrilled to have my work included among such fine company:
An anthology of contemporary poetry about eels, featuring Matt Barnard, Simon Barraclough, Rachael Boast, Eavan Boland, Traci Brimhall, Andy Brown, Sarah Cave, Jenna Clake, Claire Collison, Hugh Dukerley, Andy Fentham, Jerome Fletcher, Imogen Forster, Tim Gardiner, Stephen Grace, Ann Gray, Allis Hamilton, Sarah James, Fawzia Kane, Michael Longley, Jane Lovell, Rupert Loydell, Talia Marshall, Andrew McNeillie, Sam Meekings, Edwin Morgan, Paul Muldoon, Elizabeth O’Connor, Caitriona O’Reilly, Alice Oswald, Jeremy Over, Astra Papachristodoulou, Robert Peake, Rachel Plummer, Wendy Pratt, Susan Richardson, Robin Robertson, Elisabeth Sennitt Clough, Ben Smith, Danica Soich, Nic Stringer, Sneha Subramanian Kanta, M. Stone, Alex Toms, Gareth Writer-Davies, Marc Woodward, Tamar Yoseloff.
This is a very limited edition. Only 50 copies are available individually, printed on Mohawk Superfine with Fedrigoni end papers, with cover art by John Kilburn.
Here's to the eels and their ecosystems!
So eels are not having the easiest time. There is this project in the U.K. between Plymouth University and Guillemot Press to publish some books around the topic of eels to raise awareness of their situation.
My friend would tell me of the eels her family watched every year near Ballarat, in the local creek that flowed all year round. Now that creek is dammed and no longer flows, thus no more eels travelling along their ancient pathways. (Regenerative farming methods have solutions for much healthier ways to manage water on properties that value and protect water and build up healthy ecosystems and allow for creatures to do their natural thing) . Anyway, I've an eel drawing and a poem in this eel project. This is my drawing towards the aid of the mysterious and majestic eels.
After being one of the co-conveners of PoetiCas, Castlemaine’s monthly poetry reading, for the past four years, I am this month our guest poet.
PoetiCas:
featuring ALLIS HAMILTON.
Sunday November 18th
2pm for a 2.30 start
at The Maurocco Bar
4 Templeton St
Castlemaine
Open section as usual,
limited to 3 minutes per reader.
$5 donation at the door includes a raffle ticket
All welcome!
Allis Hamilton creates poetry, art and music. Her poems appear in anthologies and journals such as The Poetry Review (England), Australian Poetry Journal, Overland, Southerly, Plumwood Mountain, The Caterpillar (Ireland), and ‘Flightpath’– an anthology about migrating birds, published by Hallowell Press W.A. She has new work coming out in Eyeware (England), and in an Eel Anthology published by Guillemot Press, U.K. Allis was a guest poet at the Summer 2017 launch of the Poetry Review, London. She released a self-published site-specific collection, 'Cry of the Curlew – Poems of Pinchgut Creek', in June this year and has created a limited edition chapbook of poems and drawings, ‘Storm Music’. www.thestorytellingtent.com
I have a few small drawings in this show.
If you are in the area, drop in to have a squizz.
Exhibition Dates:
2018 Exhibition touring and viewing:
Riddells Creek Station
Thursday 8th – Monday 19th November
Castlemaine Station
Wednesday 21st – Thursday 29th November
Bendigo Station
Saturday 1st – Monday 10th December
2019 Exhibition touring and viewing:
Bendigo Marketplace
Tuesday 15th January – Tuesday 12th February
116-120 Mitchell St | Bendigo
Arnold Street Gallery
Thursday 14th February – Tuesday 19th March
189 Arnold Street | North Bendigo
Castlemaine State Festival | Open Studios Program
Thursday 21st March – Monday 1st April
Castlemaine V/Line Station | Castlemaine
Small art works, curated and presented to a high standard, will ‘pop up’ at different destinations along the historical railway line from Melbourne to Bendigo. This group show is taking art to the people, allowing broad public interaction with local art and arts practice.
Artists will be selected according to curatorial policy, developed via community consultation, with the aim of building a professional arts marketing cooperative. This model allows local artists to leverage individual effort into collective group initiatives, sharing resources for exhibition, presentation, marketing, communications, and distribution of their work.
Cry of the Curlew is a poetry collection anchored in and around Pinchgut Creek on Wiradjuri country. Allis Hamilton fetched poems from the wings of birds, wrestled words from the mouth of the wind, notated the movement of grasses into verse that will lead you to the hills of her home.
'Storm Music' is a chapbook handmade by Allis Hamilton, featuring a selection of some of her previously published poems. The collection is 16 pages and is a signed, limited edition run of 50 books. The book is printed on recycled paper (except the transparency page) and is bound on a foot-pedal machine. It is created in an off-grid shack in the Australian bush. 'Storm Music' includes drawings by Allis.
Praise for 'Storm Music':
'What a beautiful thing ‘Storm Music’ is! [Hamilton] has a passion for landscape, the kindest sympathy with animals – yet some of [her] best, irresistibly vivid poems are about people.'
– ALISON BRACKNBURY, award-winning poet and broadcaster and author of Skies,(Carcanet) author of 'Skies', chosen by 'The Observer' as one of its 'Poetry Books of the Year'.
"I've received your book, which is a truly beautiful book in every way - the artwork, the paper, the stitching. And of course the poems, all of which speak to me quietly but strongly. I love 'Storm Music', and 'Proprioception' is I think a superb poem. I think all books of poetry should be like this."
– ROSS GILLETT, author of Wundawax and other poems - with Mark Time Books and a new one coming out this year through Puncher and Wattman.
So you will see that i have added an Etsy store to my website.
I have my chapbook, STORM MUSIC, available for sale at the moment, and in time hope to add prints of my artworks and after June you will be able to purchase my new poetry collection on there.
Recently I have sat two residencies at Pinchgut Creek, on Wiradjuri Country.
Here is a link to my report from my time there:
My poem, BREATH, now lives in the excellent Overland Literary Journal.
Thank you to the editors, Toby Fitch, and Jacinda Woodhead, for selecting it.
Artwork © Brent Stegeman
Flightpath, the anthology, which includes my poem 'Lost Albert Ross', edited by Virginia Jealous, created by Hallowell Press, WA has arrived.
Here is a review of the anthlogy: Flightpath https://westerlymag.com.au/flightpath-review/
You can get your copy here: https://hallowellpress.com/
Pelican not included
Over this weekend, I created this mural on the back wall of the Grong Grong Hotel, out by the free camping area. If you are ever passing through, drop by for a squizz.
