Jeff Guess

Picking Olives Angle Vale A sky hot April morning hens scratch from stifling sheds behind the rust and wire of their yard earth is burred with brown couch and the sharp spines of caltrop red ants cross-hatch red clay orange buckets and a yellow rake under the dull green shade of a leafed-in harvest black Kalamata half the old Greek farmer’s thumb swung load of purple fruit six small cuttings smuggled from Skiros in his singlet that dreamed a future out of dust this could be s

An interview from a recent Salisbury Writers' Festival. On being a poet It isn’t something I think about consciously, in terms of ‘being’ but more of doing; ‘I love writing poetry and always have’ ‘Being’ perhaps is the part which tells my subconscious, ‘I must write’ – it’s something I have to do, almost every day, and also gladly for me something I love to do. At the risk of repeating myself, I have told students and colleagues often over the years when asked these kinds o

The Navigator’s Wife after Ann Flinders (nee Chappelle) circa 1814 Thought she was going with him that first time, south into sea and storms but after 13 years only got him back to die her eyes already blind from weeping pressing his cold fingers to the first copy of his ‘Voyages’ - too late he’d already gone - without her again uncharted this time, and on a ghost ship beyond landfall from whose silence no letters ever get back threading a needle in freezing winter light rai

I have been asked on numerous occasions to give examples of the finest prose and poetry in the Western canon. I usually suggest with humour that it depends on what day I’m asked. The two below though for me are a superb few lines of both genres. From “The Dead” by James Joyce, in The Dubliners A few light taps upon the pane made him turn to the window. It had begun to snow again. He watched sleepily the flakes, silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight. The t

©Jeff Guess 2017

Writing About What You Know Best: A fundamental aspect of writing poetry for the student or beginning writer of poetry is to write about what they know best. A failure to take this advice usually guarantees flawed writing. This is not to suggest that the poetry can’t reach out beyond immediate experience. It is this initial knowledge which accompanies inspiration that is fundamental to the success of the poem. Writing about what You Know ‘that her right hand was broader than

One of the finest books I have read thus far in 2017 and perhaps for years is Richard Holmes third book in his trilogy THIS LONG PURSUIT. It is a masterful celebration of autobiography and his own writing. He is without a doubt one of the very finest biographers not only of recent times but perhaps in its long history. Holmes admits to the reader that he knows now and understands perfectly that he does not choose his subjects. Rather they choose him. As a poet I know instinct

Morning Walk I went out into the world with a world draped around my shoulders. Dark misshapen, crooked and monstrous. Full of wars and rumours of wars. I came back with a world in my pocket. Ready to tee off the day. About the size of a new shiny golf ball without the dimples. Jeff Guess page 9 Up for Grabs At exactly 6.42am every morning I collide smoothly with the Gawler to Adelaide train as it slides just beneath my feet on Railway Bridge but