foam:e – April 2013

foam:e, an Australian online poetry annual, is now in its tenth year. Because of its origin, I am lost on some of the details, references, and government issues, but overall, the issue was an enjoyable array of poetry, varying in topic, form, and tone.

foam:e, an Australian online poetry annual, is now in its tenth year. Because of its origin, I am lost on some of the details, references, and government issues, but overall, the issue was an enjoyable array of poetry, varying in topic, form, and tone.

Simon Patton’s “Simon to Simon” (to Simon Cheang) approaches the idea of meeting someone with the same name: “As I call you again by our personal name, / I try tactfully to undo / a subtle defensiveness in my make-up.” It’s playful (“I work doubly hard to make sure / that I’m not simply talking out loud to myself”) yet also insightful (“I hear in a ‘background’ that will never speak its mind / the buzz of our intimate no one”).

Michael Aiken’s “Wedding Spielzimmer” struck me immediately with its imagery:

grey crows perch at the fork of a branch
in a barren tree overlooking the hospital playground
mice gnaw squat hedges in the corner of the courtyard
under the unused slide

Jena Woodhouse’s “Imeros,” a poem of a kiss that never actually happened, also attracted me with its imagery:

Our cheeks rested
against each other,
butterfly to petal;
eyelash ensnared eyelash;
for an instant,
an eternity,
time turned blind eyes
and checked the granules
flowing through the hourglass

I spent a lot of time with Mark Young’s prose poem “Actually,” trying to uncover what each line means and refers to, assuming it refers to the recent exhumation of poet Pablo Neruda but not quite able to fit everything in. Either way, it gets the reader thinking, proof it is working.

And be sure to read some excellent shorter poems (too short to quote here without giving it all away) by Natasha Adams and Gregory A. Gould. The issue in entirety has plenty of poetry to linger over as well as some reviews and an interview with poet Michael Farrell (who orginally came up with the magazine’s name).
[www.foame.org]