the home page of david prater

Oh yes, read it and weep all you Brisbane Bears losers, the sash is back: I'm talking about the Richmond Football Club 's historic decision to revert to the fabled yellow sash on the black guernsey. It's enough to make you want to support Collingwood. Of far grater interest is the move to introduce a silver guernsey for the Wizard Cup matches, complete with tiger's head on the front. Roar, roar!!

ABC Radio National last night broadcast what it called the first ever National poetry slam in Australia, courtesy of the Deep End program and fellow-Proser charlotte sometimes. The program featured nine finalists from around Australia (including another Proser, KL) plus yours truly performing a "sacrificial lamb" role by reading out a poem before the contest started. The poem, entitled "I Claim Responsibility" was first made famous by the Mike Oldfield Five, who used the piece during their incendiary Babble Bam Slam appearance at the Melbourne Writers Festival in August this year. Visit the Deep End website to download each finalist's piece (Real Media or Windows Player) and then vote for the one you think is the best. Please vote for Klare. The first prize is recording time at the ABC. I really enjoyed the experience of reading for a national audience. It would have been nice to have my poem up on the Deep End site too but then I guess that's w...

Thanks to Hot Soup Girl for this terrific online resource : Llama Trivia and Oddments . As regular readers of [d/dn] already know, Scaramouche the llama is an integral part of Davey's musical team, contributing backing vocals on a number of incendiary [d/dn] tracks, as well as penning his own theme song and working on an ambitious solo album with flautist Stung. Rumours that Scaramouche has left Camp Davey in order to queue up for next year's auditions for Suicidol remain simply rumours.

For the past two years I've been studying towards a Master of Arts by Research (Thesis only) within the Department of English with Cultural Studies at the University of Melbourne. My thesis is a 30,000 word novella concerning the invention of Marzipan in a fictitious village (L-) in Germany in the 1400s. I've just been informed that my thesis has been accepted, which is great news. The (also partly fictitious) introduction to the thesis has been published online in Anti/thesis , a fully-refereed journal of contemporary theory, criticism and culture, and Australia's longest-running interdisciplinary postgraduate journal. Read The Invention of Marzipan .

Well, who would have thunk it. One of my favourite Pavement songs of all time is "Cut Your Hair", which is freaky because towards the end of the song the lyric goes like this: Advertising looks and chops a must No big hair!! Songs mean a lot When songs are bought And so are you- Bitch, rant down to the practice room Attention and fame so Career, career, career.... You see, ever since I first heard the song, I've misread "career" for "Korea". Which brings me to the gist of this otherwise pointless post. I'm going to Korea next year on a residency organised through the Asialink Centre at Melbourne University. I'll be going to Sogang University in Seoul to teach a course on Australian literature and culture for two months. I am now looking forward to visiting the Hermit Kingdom and playing hours and hours of networked games while munching on kim chi. Sounds great doesn't it? You betcha!

I'm dreaming of a nineteenth century Finland Where we skied to school & my lunch was free Prior to my birth even the birds did know it I was smaller than a grain of sand inside you Mother said I wasn't even thought of then yet She could feel me stirring inside a tiny bell Pealing against the walls of her silent womb Wondering how big I would get or if not when While your children are still small draw bees Skate on ice and lead ponies through the snow Go to sleep each night and dream compulsorily They say it helps when the sun doesn't come up When the good morning kiss you once expected Has evaporated like autumn mist by eleven am Your children are no longer small but dwarvish They remember your name & they call you by it No more stacks-on of a weekend or at any time An end to giggles & those silly little jokes You'll remember them all when your time comes When they call with the sponges to bathe you Though our pyjamas ann...

summers angles false starts hits trail a fuselage of painted mist that leaves & seasons glue assist suspension under glass portraits snails delay hollowly all along convex carpets of autumns soft crackle as the lens sends back fortitude in the shapes of hell winter kills the leaves of glass passing from time to liquidity an abstract class a new botanics snake eyes in an inkwell timbre these yes more shaded areas where spring sells dynamite & downtime sodden with memory engines rhyme automated slicers of yesterday lines formed by horizons clutch as rain drops soft pleasant bells pealing sentience from mechanics tending to their hydraulic shifts whose stare disrupts the unguent on the sky made up like drought these more yes besides them the wheel was rounder in those days questions served a function yet the day he decided to drive away shards upended ceaseless sharp a hollow cloud hovered over him slow as seasons eaves o...