Graham Nunn is a Brisbane based writer, current Director of the Queensland Poetry Festival (www.queenslandpoetryfestival.net) and founding member of local performance group SpeedPoets (www.speedpoets.zap.to/). Currently he edits and produces the monthly SpeedPoets zine, co-ordinates their monthly spoken word event at the Royal George Hotel in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, as well as a series of ‘SpeedPoets Presents’ readings at ARTOURS Bulimba Book Store.
His work has been featured (or is upcoming) in:
Ezines: Get Underground (USA), Retort Magazine, Vibewire, Slamming The Sonnet, Synaptic Graffiti, Muse Apprentice Guild (USA), Ink Mag (USA), Poetic Voices (USA), Stylus Poetry Journal, Melomag (USA), The Surface Online (USA), Lily Review (USA), Australian Reader, Simply Haiku (USA), Short Stuff (USA), tinywords (USA), Softblow (Singapore) and Sidereality (USA)
Print zines/Papers: Run Panic Bight, Tsunami, Bottle Rockets (USA), Egg Poetry, The Courier Mail, The Westender, Blue Dog – the Australian Poetry Journal, Open Wide (UK), Synaptic Graffiti - Slam The Body Politik (CDROM), Aesthetica (UK), Clara Venus (USA), fulva flava (USA) and SpeedPoets
Anthologies, Text Messages, From the Anabranch (2002 Poets Union Anthology), Love and Fear, The Between Space, SpeedPoets - The Best Of 2003, Destination Anywhere (UK), Ask The Rain (2004 Poets Union Anthology), Taboo Haiku, Brisbane Literary Walks and Small Packages vol. 7 & 8
He has been invited to read at the 2004 Ubud Readers and Writers Festival (Bali), Kaiyar Festival of Art Wine and Words (2004), The QLD Poetry Festival (2001 - 2004), Straight Out Of Brisbane Festival (2002 - 2004), Triple Z's - Joint Effort (2003), the Brisbane Writer's Festival (2003 & 2004), Visible Ink (2004) and various other poetry readings including feature spots at New and Selected (2001-2), The Expressure Lounge (2003) and Orphic (2003). He has also read on radio stations 1197AM, Planet Radio and 4ZZZ.
His first collection of haiku - A Zen Firecracker, published by Impressed Publishing (www.impressedpublishing.com) was released in 2003. Share the Tragedy (out now through Impressed Publishing) was launched at the 2004 Brisbane Writer’s Festival in October.
Blue Feelings
I woke up
thinking I was
made of blue glass
with you throwing
stones at my body
my throat torn open
the blue jugular
spouting a shadowy death
that bubbled at my lips
and ripped open my chest
blue cracks
emptying veins
into the ocean
and the moon breaking
over my head
blue feelings
like mercury in the blood
to unravel the damage
of being born
in the morning
Dead Heart
walk with me
bare your feet and
walk with me
to highways and canefields
to discontented sons and daughters
walk with me
bare your feet and
walk with me
to red earth and mountains
to the rim of desolation
to the centre of grief and
the centre of solitude
through the bones of history
through the dead heart of paradise
Boiling In Our Veins
we sat boiling in our veins
the moon in her wet menstrual period
and the wind stole our fire
it was blue and sang softly...
have you seen it?
In Devotion to Remembering Life's Sordid Affairs
in every town there's a 'place'
and a girl who's sure to be there
in the lounge bar
laughing with some young executive
curling her hair and him
around her finger
me, I don't go out much anymore
but now and then on a Friday night
when the Cohen albums drag me down
then throw me up gasping for a drink
I pull on a coat and rush out
into the babble
and she's there wearing the same red dress
slow dancing by herself in the pool of neon
waiting for the good looking academic type
near the door to notice her
and he will
he's watching her already
doesn't know she got a divorce last summer
and still isn't over it
that she likes Mexican
and sometimes takes a gay lover
'just to be different'
he'll learn soon enough
and spend the rest of his life forgetting
like me
rushing home to change the record
read some Kerouac and Ginsberg
and write this poem in devotion
to remembering life's sordid affairs
Breaking Into Age
morning hunches like a gathering of school children
in yellow rainjackets, waiting for their mothers
shudders into light
as if resisting a change of colour
listen: prepare yourself, loosen up
spit out the bitter taste of night
the light goes blood orange
slips across the lip
a happy flame to burn
the ravenous flesh
listen: yesterday is a thief
choose a path suitable for your new movements
morning edges nearer
in an eloquent flow
filling the sky
in the hope of discovering an opening
listen: avoid water and mirrors
the loss of youth corrupts reflections
