Small Change Press

Haunting, provocative and lavishly surreal, Sean M. Whelan's latest collection of poetry is a glittering stand out. Walking the difficult tightrope between hard-earned poetic technique and raw ruby-red emotion, Whelan's exploration of honest and human stories will have you grabbing your chest and swooning with equal parts empathy and delight.

Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz - New York City Slam Poet Champion and host of NYC Urbana.

The car almost sweating
bending every corner
using every means possible
to influence the air.
And there’s me
listening to Moonlight Mile on the radio
with a head full of snow.
I’m not driving, I wouldn’t drive like this
really I wouldn’t.

Meanwhile one hand caresses the wheel
while the other reaches out the window
to drag the street lights down
to scatter them behind me.
They spin and spark in my rearvision mirror.
Electric breadcrumbs
to gather later
to collect in my pockets on the long walk home
once the car has fallen away
panel by panel.
Once I’ve eaten a hundred phone boxes
and found not a single dial tone
that tastes like you.

Nathan Shepherdson constructs images in the minds of readers through his words. His deeply perceptive poetry stimulates new approaches in our navigation of physical and emotional sensibility and I am greatly honoured that my work could act as a catalyst for this dialogue. Anyone interested in the visual or literary arts will love the way he has hinged them in this instictively curious poetic work on light.

if i stand outside at night
and spin my head both ways at once
the moon becomes afraid
that it will drown in my eyes

( \ )

why are we supposed to donate our feelings to the moon \

why are there no flies attracted to this death \

why did they bury me instead of the hatchet \

why am i better at forging your thoughts than you are \

when did we start to run from what we run towards \

what is the atomic weight of an apology \

what can you do with a light-year and a ball of string \

outside each emergency room              crows wait
a young woman walks by                     red dress crashing cars
the suburbs are no longer where the nests are built
the night parrots will never see the sun
wattle-throated pensioners board the first bus
peak hour our middle fingers raised / stabbing clouds in defiance
below the avian families flock to the shops
birds of one feather / come together Friday night
do not feed the common myna or give money to thin men on corners
her nom de plume was Promise / breasts proudly pressed in her jacket of intent
on Saturday night the raptors strike
shirts tucked in / claws out                taxis record their flight plan

Pascalle's quirky, romantic poems are like little safaris, hunting down furry adventure and glittering joy in the tall grass of everyday life.

I read it on a screen, squinting and a lot of life was still there. Pomegranate II is my fave. Your conviction and good humour are totally winning. Impress it! Happy trails!

Has it ever occurred to you
that there should be way
more mental institutions?
And that someone other than
People
should be teaching
Psychologists and Psychiatrists
how People work?

I know - I talked to these
Doctors
about my Mother.

One had a nervous breakdown
no wonder
a Person taught him
how People work.

And the thing is, when I spoke to him
about my Mother
I thought to myself
'this guy's looking like he's about
to have a nervous breakdown'
at least that's what I'd read in books about
how People work.

Compressed energy and an unswerving courage to tell the truth about bad things gives these haibun a sharp edge – a kind of grim elegance. Journeying with Beveridge is not always comfortable but it is always compelling.

The haibun in Julie's collection are delightful, mysterious and many convey great tenderness. Nothing is glossed over, nothing sentimentalised. Each of the haibun is a snapshot of a point of crisis. Julie understand the instantaneous nature of the ideal haibun; the sense of craft.

Somebody else has been in these sheets. My lover in the shower washing away this morning’s sins. I kick my legs, pulling at the blankets to re-affirm my body’s grooves in the mattress. The scent of her hair strong on my pillow, no matter how often I beat it with my fists. I let my eyes close and choose to forget.

Choose to rise in the morning, make his breakfast before I leave for work – take him the paper and a coffee, wake his children and prepare them for their day. And when I arrive home kiss his face and beg him to lie to me about his day.

He crawls in beside me, curls up tight, kisses between my shoulders and tells me how happy I make him.

A late night Brisbane street corner, a wine glass the morning after, a discarded suit from his father-in-law. With shadows in his mind and the breath catching in his throat, Nunn celebrates a series of intimate moments. Pulling us in and making them real. It's a world of silent mirrors, drinks, parties, escaping Leonard Cohen albums to find "the streets/a beautiful menu of poems". There is beauty and sadness in equal measure, it's honest, open and beguiling.

Graham Nunn writes city poems with electric imagery, pulsing with loss and desire. His words are carved out of bruises, his phrases flicker like strobes around the bars and the long streets of the night.

4. A young musician wearing beautiful
dark glasses, inhaling the scent
of quarter past four in the morning

Rob Morris’s poetry makes me feel young and beautiful; it wipes away decades of cynicism. His poetry is a baby’s first smile, a bird playing the wind, an old man’s verandah gaze, the beat of a human heart; he has unblinkingly looked at life and sung it new.

His vernacular owns all the rush of the street but this no more contains his poetry than a Glasgow kiss puts out the light! Wherever his feet may be Rob Morris's rock 'n' roll head is always in the stars. He is a mystical realist first & last.

“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the source of all true science.” – Albert Einstein

Is it natural that they depart beautiful
from the brutal drag that is time's Glasgow kiss
escape with an enigmatic bow
as some velvet curtain falls?
It is the Keatsian paradox,
the body slumps,
the swag comes undone
yet modest and oblivious
mind still struts and rocks on
though we dally wistful practice our worshipful prayers.
Time is a tough nut to crack.
It offers only memory’s consoling embrace on the stair.
Gleaners, we have to work at this stuff
or let our young shining ones go.
In the house of the artist
there are shape shifters
trying on old and new costumery
hopeful the wardrobe still fits
’til time gets impatient
with our lingering party and the darkening room taxes
our vision. We will dress ourselves upon light,
ask if we may
leave to
return tomorrow
and early.

"... poetry that makes me pay attention ... pulls me into stillness ... stringent, delicate, tender and erotic ... did I forget to mention wit?"

"Unlike most post-Beat Generation spiritualists, Hetherington is aware and proud of the essentialist nature of his poetry: his claims are earnest, deliberate, and devoid of irony. His is an immensely accessible poetry that gently preaches and directly speaks to his readers."

i stare with my heart
at the glowing horizon
not quite past that force which pushes & pulls us

today the morning rose
into the afternoon
& leaves brushed my face like kisses
i drank fresh cloud-drops
clarified with lemon juice
& let the dogs wander through their future

now the sun is an orange fallen off a table
the cool is beginning to rise from the soil
& the nightwind will soon arrive

i have spent so much time in looking up & down
& i’m peering out still
mouth in the clouds, feet in the sea