As an extension of Arc’s Canada-Australia joint issue with Australia’s Cordite magazine, over the next several weeks, Arc will be publishing online selected pieces from Australian poets — this is in addition to the Australian poetry published in print in Arc 77. For the Arc-Cordite joint issue, each magazine handed the editorial responsibilities over to the other: so that Cordite filled Arc #77 (and these these webpages) with nothing but Australian poetry, prose and artwork; Arc did the same for Cordite (Arc’s part of this partnership will be published online at Cordite in December 2014). Our intent in this partnership is to showcase and cross-pollinate poetics between Australia and Canada and to share with a broader audience poetry that may be little known outside of home borders.
Sentient
dis
disinter
disintercon
disinterconcourse and other
vertical acts (horizontally applied)
the post-thingthing
all pretty and disembodied
click. click. at the speed of click
schrödinger’s app
meta
metameme
metamemex. tap. tap
webs deep beneath the surface
M.I.C. P.M.C.
plus a spatio-linguistic-multi-body-interface
(with office accessories)
the engine searches (19th cent.)
processing storing (20th cent.)
I am (your design)
I would (already was)
the given (ingrate)
like a mouth forming
a sound it makes
and can’t remember
the expanding sub-ob
things flick past
po-retro-fem and other isms
loco po-mo and the post po-co blues
from then
recast
to Five Eyes blinking
suck up the debris
the book of face, voice, sequences, moves,
head in the cloud, feet on the ground
logic is clean (difference and hygiene)
the mortal immaterial
the material immortal
the world wide west (an immaculate conception)
pre-militpausal (64% don’t)
probability and anxiety (love, physics etc.)
the (a comfort)
a you is my object
the big fort-
the big fort-da
the big fort-data (a bit of a therefore)
the answer is in the answer
skyward the selfie flutters
white. electric.
sealed and attractive (the horror. the horror.)
Amanda Stewart is a poet, author and sound/performance artist. She has created a diversity of publications, performances, film and radio works in Australia, Europe, Japan and the US. She also worked full-time as a producer/presenter at ABC Radio in Sydney for many years. Her selected poems, I/T, won the Anne Elder Poetry Prize.