On course an alternative would be to call this the Ninth Day pre-Christmas. A Christmas which may never come as of 10pm this evening (from Melbourne’s time zone, anyway).
At least the Mayans saved me some Christmas shopping.
The next (and perhaps last) reflection comes from Petr Malapanis, on his poem ‘Suck This’.
Beau Hillier | Editor, page seventeen
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To date, personal experiences of love, loss, birth and death informed my work. I have always used the writing of poetry to explore themes or issues that trouble me in some way. I guess my sexuality or personal experiences of sex was never something that gave me enough grief to warrant wordy representation or dissection.
Writing this particular piece has opened up a whole other world of material to draw from. It was only when I started playing with the idea of writing in another voice that I thought I might visit hitherto unexplored terrain and it became clear in the planning and editing of this piece, that all that hasn’t actually happened, but can be imagined,is fair game too. Sometimes it is a single image or a sliver of an image, a half remembered smell or echo of a feeling that informs the whole piece.
The ability to bring to life such a personal and private moment in a way that I believe most women can relate to started with just such an echo; the discomfort of kneeling for too long, and noticing your sore knees when you are meant to be lost in the moment.
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Petr Malapanis is a Greek-Australian writer with work published in anthologies including Set Free, Motherlode, Reflecting on Melbourne and Southern Sun, Aegean Light, as well as online.