Johanna's BlogLuke Beesley
b. 1975, Brisbane
Luke Beesley was born in Brisbane and is a poet, creative writing teacher and musician. His poetry has received awards and fellowships from The Australia Council, Arts Queensland, City of Melbourne, The Eleanor Dark Foundation and the Asialink Foundation; has been published in Australia’s leading journals and newspapers; and has formed part of major public art projects and collaborations. In 2007 he wrote two poems which were sandblasted into the walkway of the new Eleanor Schonell Bridge in Brisbane. He has collaborated with fashion designer Dani Klien for the Brisbane Writers' Festival, illustrator Johnathon Oxlade for Riverfest, and chamber music ensemble Collusion. In 2004/05 he wrote poetry which appeared on the envelope of the Brisbane City Council rates' notices.
In 2006 Luke completed an M.Phil in Creative Writing at the University of Queensland. He has written arts critique for The Courier Mail and The Australian Book Review and his first book of poetry, Lemon Shark (2006), was runner up in the Anne Elder Award and was widely and favourably reviewed. Luke's second poetry book, Balance, which includes poems written on an Asialink residency to India in 2006/07, is forthcoming. He presently curates poetry readings for Readings Carlton, and divides his time between Brisbane and Melbourne. Luke is one of four poets commissioned for the Sea Things project.
2006: 'Lemon Shark' www.papertigermedia.com
Sea Things (26 poems)
NOT MUCH IS KNOWN ABOUT HOW FISH SLEEP
The word described
Like broken bread the ship fell away
squid, kelp, carbon
Car bonnet
The sea also has carbon in it
NINE POEMS
I was lifting a film of carbon
Copy paper from a receipt book
When I went into the water my hands forward towards the wave
Two thoughts - like solicitors leaving separate offices - one
Around the inlet at the base of your neck
two the word estuary
Fish move like litter
GLITTER
In poet Robert Hass' recent collection
Time and Materials
He uses it three times to describe
light on sea water
and glittering sea, glittering sea and
the water glitters hard against it
YESTERDAY AND DAY LENGTH
The word Thursday - daylight contained in it
Unusually large day and the stories of hearsay and lunacy on the sea
Through history crime happened on a Thursday, as did
ecstasy. Take a whale. Lay it on a picnic blanket.
THE CLICKING SOUND OF A REEF WHEN YOU PUT YOUR HEAD INTO THE SEA
Yesterday's Thursday poem. I didn't know it at the time
It was Wednesday
Sometimes the day tricks you and you allow it like
salmon at the other table, a muscle in your calf that aches after swimming
The sea is like the skin of lettuce today. Is room temperature.
I open a drawer. Beside my bed filling up
all night the sea moves below me like
Christmas.
THE SEA IN THE 1980s
Fish move like dolphins in certain light
Leaves hosed by sunlight
On holidays I went to the sea and was lifted out of it by my father
who was looking elsewhere a wave
Folded pieces of paper
In the 1980s the sea was bluer owing to northern light skipping off the paw paw
coloured swim suits and something to do with tide and starlight, washed atmosphere,
a broken up comet, I don't know, in the 80s the sea was bluer
I was about eleven
It came up to my shoulders
**The title 'The Clicking Sound of a Reef When you Put your Head into the Sea' is a line from the poem 'Sweet like a Crow' by Michael Ondaatje
