New track for Cities and Memory: My Grandmother didn't just leave me this typewriter, featuring Mabel Hyacinth reading her poem, Web of Life

I have reated a new track for Cities and Memory:
'My Grandmother didn't just leave me this typewriter, featuring Mabel Hyacinth reading her poem, Web of Life

Composition by Allis Hamilton.

"My grandparents lived across the road from me growing up. It was my Grandmother Mabel Hyacinth (May) who introduced me to poetry. She wrote poetry herself and often used a typewriter. When her and my Grandfather finally moved out of their home, in the empty house on her kitchen table May had left me her typewriter. It was such a beautiful sight! Did she know I would grow up to become a writer? Perhaps, but I doubt she would have guessed I would use the typewriter as an instrument in a musical composition. I created this work in honour of her.

"In the composition I have used the typewriter May gave me, alongside the typewriter sample provided by Cities and Memory. As well as the typewriters, to help set the space of the place where I was given the typewriter, I included a recording of my family at our home having breakfast in the sun. I also created cello, harmonium, chimes and vocal recordings to sit these sound among; as well as some frogs recorded at my home in the bush because I thought the frogs sounded like typewriters. And within all of this I have placed my Grandmother May reading one of her poems, Web of Life. I recorded May reading this poem when she was 93. She lived to be 98 years young. She would be thrilled to know her poem may be heard by people from all around the world."

This is part of the Obsolete Sounds project, the world’s biggest collection of disappearing sounds and sounds that have become extinct – remixed and reimagined to create a brand new form of listening. Explore the whole project at https://citiesandmemory.com/obsolete-sounds

Link to Cities and Memory here:

And you can also listen to the poem/song track below

My Hare poem is a part of Reflections on the Castlemaine Art Museum Collection 23 June 2022—26 February 2023

Reflections on the Castlemaine Art Museum Collection, this is held at Castlemaine Art Museum, Littleton Street Castlemaine

‘In this response to a large oil painting in the collection, poet Allis Hamilton recalls her poem Hare, as having ‘writing itself onto my page’ after viewing Philip Wolfhagen’s Southern Vista I. As Allis describes, "there is no visible hare in Wolfhagen’s painting yet to me it felt like it was there, or could quite easily be there, in among the shadowy hedges of the landscape."‘

The works in this exhibition have featured in a series of articles published on the CAM website. Reflections began as part of CAM’s online response to the COVID-19 lockdown. Contributors are asked to ‘reflect’ on works or objects from the CAM collections and history. Reflections also included published interviews with local artists and education resources for young people.

Reflections has been an experiment in opening up CAM's art and museum collections to new voices and knowledge. This series and exhibition represent a commitment from the Castlemaine Art Museum to make our magnificent collection accessible, relevant and uplifting. We encourage and invite our community to continue these reflections and conversations and have included a number of works which have not yet attracted a ‘reflection’. The exhibition also includes a selection of objects in the historical museum downstairs.

Link to the Castlemaine Art Museum here

And you can read my Hare poem here

NEW ALBUM: A Campfire at the Edge of the World by Necklace of Wrens

During lockdown I created an album.
I recorded it in my garden, or in my hut, or one track under one of my beloved trees.
My musical moiniker used here, Necklace of Wrens is named after Michael Harnett's brilliant poetry collection A Necklace of Wrens, which i am using with permission and blessing from his son, Niall Hartnett., the exexutor of Michael’s estate,

You can download the album on my bandcamp page here:

A Campfire at the Edge of the World

This is my painting/collage of the The Finnish goddess Ilmatar

Under the Grandma Tree by Necklace of Wrens

I have created an album.
Here is the first single off it.

Under the Grandma Tree by Necklace of Wrens
From the album, A Campfire at the Edge of the World

Created, sung, recorded and filmed by Allis Hamilton under her music monkier, Necklace of Wrens.

Necklace of Wrens is named after Michael Harnett's brilliant poetry collection A Necklace of Wrens, which i am using with permission and blessing from his son, Niall Hartnett., the exexutor of Michael’s estate,

I improvised and recorded this is in one take under an emormous old Yellow Box tree that is my dear friend. Afterward I did a little juggling of the track to create the over-dub that completes the song.

Track was mixed (engineered) by Chris Parisi
Mastered by Adam Casey of The True Vine Recordings.
Released May 2022

©Allis Hamilton, 2022

The entire album will be up on my bandcamp page tomorrow.

My poem: A Pindari Day in The Poetry Review

I am happy to say that dear Emily Berry, the editor of The Poetry Review, has chosen another of my poems for the fine quarterly.
This poem: A Pindari Day is dedicated to one of my oldest friends, Benjamin.
You can purchase a copy of the Poetry Review here

Among the quietening air

My poem, Among the quietening air, has gone to live in the Winter 2021 edition number 243 of the Overland Literary Journal.

I wrote the poem in the early days of the first Corona virus lockdown back in 2020.

Ice, rain, spirit, wind – a music track

Ice, rain, spirit, wind is a track I created for Cities and Memory.

Thingvellir national park reimagined by Allis Hamilton.

"This track is a conversation between midwinter, in my bushland home of Heron Cottage in Southern Australia, with that of the Iceland Thingvellir National Park. It is a song of the elements of rain and ice, wind and spirit.

"The night I first heard the Icelandic track was an evening of an enormous storm, a tornado of sorts, and the recordings I made of that fierce wind and the trees in my garden swaying and swirling in their unified response to the wind created my first thoughts for the music.

"Over the winter, through frosts, thunderstorms and rain I recorded the sounds of the natural world outside my squeaky front door. Alongside these I played some piano, ocarina; and added vocal layers laid like whispers on the wind over the footsteps of the other sounds, including the Icelandic recording which bookends the song alongside thunder and the calls of the mystical and mythic black cockatoos, the rain bringers."

“Cities and Memory remixes the world, one sound at a time - a global collaboration between artists and sound recordists all over the world.

The project presents an amazingly-diverse array of field recordings from all over the world, but also reimagined, recomposed versions of those recordings as we go on a mission to remix the world.

What you'll hear in the podcast are our latest sounds - either a field recording from somewhere in the world, or a remixed new composition based solely on those sounds. Each podcast description tells you more about what you're hearing, and where it came from.

There are more than 5,000 sounds featured on our sound map, spread over more than 100 countries and territories. The sounds cover parts of the world as diverse as the hubbub of San Francisco’s main station, traditional fishing women’s songs at Lake Turkana, the sound of computer data centres in Birmingham, spiritual temple chanting in New Taipei City or the hum of the vaporetto engines in Venice. You can explore the project in full at www.citiesandmemory.com “

To listen to my track, click on the image.

(photo from the website)

My exphrastic poem, Hare, after Phillip Wolfhagen published among the Reflections Series on the Castlemaine Art Museum website

‘In this response to a large oil painting in the collection, poet Allis Hamilton recalls her poem Hare, as having ‘writing itself onto my page’ after viewing Philip Wolfhagen’s Southern Vista I. As Allis describes, "there is no visible hare in Wolfhagen’s painting yet to me it felt like it was there, or could quite easily be there, in among the shadowy hedges of the landscape."‘

You can read the poem here:

Philip Wolfhagen, Southern Vista I, 2008, oil on beeswax on linen. Castlemaine Art Museum, Purchased with the support of the Robert Salzer Foundation and the T C Stewart Bequest Fund, 2008. Courtesy of Dominik Mersch Gallery.

After ‘At Eternity’s Gate’. Music, illustration & animation created by Allis Hamilton

After ‘At Eternity’s Gate’: an animated drawing and melodica ditty that seeped out of my being. Inspired by the majestic performance of Willem Dafoe as Vincent Van Gogh.

Illustration and animation by Allis Hamilton.
Music composed and played by Allis Hamilton

© Allis Hamilton 2021

'Remembering World' and 'Guidance' in Elbazin magazine

Two of my poems, ‘Remembering World’ and ‘Guidance’ have gone to live in the online magaine, Elbazin. You can read them here.

Ledbury Poetry Salon, 22 October, with Claudine Toutoungi

I’ll be doing a three minute reading in the open mic of this event in the early hours of Australian time, 7pm GMT.

• Ledbury Poetry Salon
  Thursday, 22nd October 2020
  7:00 pm - 9:00 pm

Ledbury Poetry Salon and Open Mic with featured poet Claudine Toutoungi

Hosted by Chloe Garner, Festival Artistic Director

7pm – 9pm on Zoom

Tickets £2

Poet and playwright, Claudine Toutoungi’s new collection Two Tongues is published on 29 October by Carcanet and follows from her acclaimed first collection Smoothie. Blending wit and surrealism, these poems blur boundaries and explore the fluidity of identity. The event will combine readings and conversation with opportunities for the audience to contribute to the conversation and pose questions in the chat. The Open Mic follows for the second half of the evening

Improvising with the Australian outback on Freeness, on BBC Radio 3

The feature BBC Radio 3’s improvised music show, Freeness, and I created in February 2020 was repeated this week. It is available to listen to again via this link for the next 28 days.

Ghosted in Meanjin

My poem, Ghosted, can be found by subscribing to Meanjin here.

Or you could borrow a copy from your local library, if you live in Australia.

Ghosted is written in the style of a sijo. A sijo is a Korean verse-form related to haiku and tanka.

My poem, Ghosted, has three lines of 15 syllables per line.

The poem dripped from my fountain pen when i was attending a Poetry Workshop by Mark Treddinick.

Meanjin No 79 Vol 2

I’m deeply humbled and excited to have a poem in the forthcoming edition of Meanjin, alongside two of my favourite writers: Alexis Wright and Toby Fitch, among many others whose work I look forward to reading.

The edition is out on June 16th. But you can pre-order a copy here.

Chase of the Light from The Creel, on YouTube

Guillemot Press have made an online eel festival in celebration of their sold out poetry anthology, The Creel, which was created in honour of the magical eel. My poem lives among them and you can watch it, and all the eel clips on Guillemot Press's Youtube channel, if you eely feel like it.

The Creel is ‘an anthology of contemporary poetry about eels, featuring [deep breath] 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.’ - Guillemot Press

Seven Dials Festival 30 Poetry Trail

I just discovered this happened. My poem, Winding Her, was part of the event.
You can read the poem, & the others, in the little ebook here, if you feel so inclined. 📚

A commemorative e-booklet collecting all the poems that featured on the poetry trail run by The Poetry Society that appeared at the Seven Dials Festival 30 in Covent Garden, London on 29 June 2019. Each poem was selected from the back catalogue of The Poetry Society's quarterly journal The Poetry Review.

'To Save Herself' in Australian Poetry Journal

One of my poems about my stroke and it's aftermath, ‘To Save Herself’, is nestled up in the latest edition of Australian Poetry Journal: APJ 9.2 – ‘DIS─’ edited by Andy Jackson and Jennifer Harrison

Cover artwork: punctuation drawn from a 9.1 poem, created by Stuart Geddes.

Bandcamp

There are some songs: some new, some old, on the bandcamp page - if you are interested.

Allis and Alias Nun on BBC Radio 3's programme, Freeness.

BBC Radio 3 and I made a thing. They are are playing that and a song of Alias Nun, (Araignee Chaine, Sha Proudfoot and myself), as well as a poem on the show.

Farewell Kavisha Concert

I’m delighted to be guest at the Kavisha Mazella Farewell Concert on Saturday 30th Nov. at Theatre Royale, Castlemaine.

”FAREWELL KAVISHA
She's returning to the west

Kavisha Mazzella, the much loved and admired musician, singer, songwriter, performer and choir leader, is leaving Castlemaine to return to her original home town of Perth.

The ARIA award-winning songbird will be deeply missed. But before she heads west Kavisha will perform a special concert at the Theatre Royal - a night brimming with her original and traditional Italian songs steeped in humour, poetry,
social justice and the spiritual.

Think of it as a Royal Command Performance, where Kavisha's fans from Castlemaine and afar can come together to honour her as an artist and for her great
community spirit in bringing people together around her music.

Oft quoted as having the voice of an angel, Kavisha will be joined by musical friends,
including Jack Norton (bouzouki and chittara battente - Italian guitar) and Matthew Arnold (violin) along with MC Jan 'Yarn' Wositzky. And there will be more!

So book early for what promises to be a grand Castlemaine night to farewell one of the great artists to make this town home.”

Kavisha and I met at a Daylesford Wind Turbine Festival some years ago when we were both performing and i am thrilled to join her on the stage for her Farewell Concert. I will be reading a poem on the night.

If you want to come along follow the link below.