the home page of david prater

Yes, it's true: Davey Dreamnation is officially back on the block. This is the last post I will be publishing here, although I'll still maintain the site for sentimental reasons. To get on board, check out what's new and get over to [d/dn v.10] by clicking on the link above or below - and update your bookmarks accordingly! So long and thanks for all the raisins.

My chapbook Abendland (pictured left, details ) has been reviewed by Philly poet Adam Fieled on his excellent blog. Check out the review here . As far as I can tell, this is the first time my work has ever been reviewed, anywhere. I only have a couple of copies of the book left, but I hope to make an announcement soon as to a possible re-release, along the lines of Pavement's Slanted and Enchanted . For those who don't have a clue what I'm talking about, Pavement's debut full length album circulated unofficially as a cassette tape in the early 1990s, with the consequence that it was well known "underground" before being released, erm, "overground". So, if you'd like to possess a copy of the original chapbook, and would like to be able to tell your grandkids that you got in there first, before the Abendland project went mainstream, contact me via email . Like, today. In other spellbinding news, sure to get Stung seething, I've finally bitten ...

comments require verification so pass me bandanna and cry a flower into it's a war parents knew was coming & ever since then thoughts have been in turmoil as soon as argument was refuted he switched sides so hypocricy went unnoticed please go & fuck your self-righteous self sideways & stick business somewhere else maybe start where neo-con pals left off after all it wasn't fault but was it our duty to cluster bomb enemies even those who played no roles in dumb crusades against the left & i suppose mother taught you that method originally - flowers require water (but are already dead

Never let it be said that Davey Dreamnation, that strange pixellated figment of the collective insomnia cookie, is one to rest on his laurels. In fact, 2007 is only days old and already he has released four new titles in the DNRC catalogue, all of them dated prospectively, that is, in the future. Fans of Lost In Translation will be seething at the thought of having to wait three years to listen to the astonishing aural impediment that is Wasabi Peace: "Like, Dude" . Similarly, ears and noses will be bleeding around the world at the news that the orgasm that is Clint Bo Dean: "Never Go Ashtray" has also not yet come to pass. Those with an evil taste for Christmas and a tan will be secretly incarcerated by The Four Calling Birds: "Fa La La!" . Finally, who could fail to be astonished, moved and catapulted into heavenly hootie by the incandescent vision of life on Mars bars that is Hoodie Over Heels: "Hoodie Over Heels" . Look and learn, Sony BMG.

Last Thursday night I MCed at the launch of issue #24 of Going Down Swinging , Australia's coolest literary anthology. This issue has been the first I have been involved in editorially; I've pasted my editorial for the issue below. To order copies or to find out more about submitting to GDS, visit the website . EDITORIAL This is my first issue as co-editor of Going Down Swinging . It's been a wild ride. First, the submissions. I have to admit I was amazed and then slightly frightened by the sheer number (and quality) of submissions we received this year. This just confirms for me how many people are out there writing crazy poems, drawing kooky comics and coming up with surreal and interesting storylines. I hope you'll agree that this 24th issue of Going Down Swinging is as strong, if not stronger than any issue of any magazine that's ever been published. Anywhere. Second, the editorial process. This is the first time I've ever worked closely with a...

"Every time a rabbit comes out of its burrow, it is facing Vietnam the whole of its life ..." Allen Carr (R.I.P.) they call me pirate dave just to piss me off i am the vietnam rabbit coming out of a hole out of a burrow blown to bits i am a rabbit coming out of my hole every day for the rest of my life it's vietnam i'm on pirate radio for twenty one days bury me face down so you can all kiss my arse i am a white rabbit on pirate radio this is my story don't call me dave i'm fragging myself i'm fire in a hole i'm a rabbit on fire in a hole it's vietnam on the radio pirates coaxing rabbits out of holes a memory of a bitumen street at home i was just dave no one bothered to check if that was okay by me well fuck you all i am a rabbit you can call me pirate dave i was watching tv when vietnam happened we were eating tv dinners in front of vietnam on a tv my father made himself from a kit it was his birthday when they rolled the dice & he w...

Cordite 25 - Generation of Zeroes is now online, featuring new works by a whole bunch of digitally cool poets including Carol Jenkins, Derek Motion, Elena Knox, Jill Jones, Joel Deane, Klare Lanson and more! Our special guest poetry editor and chanteuse extraordinaire alicia sometimes has done a terrific job balancing the ones and the zeroes, with the result that what you get for your eyeballs is an excellent assortment of long, short and plain kooky poems. And it's all free! Continue reading my editorial for the issue here, on the Cordite blog .

hotter than that princes highway hotter than the towering inferno hotter than hell on christmas day hotter than every cricketer's mo heel heet! by crikey, that's hot heel hete! ouch! don't touch it! heel hete! (i'm talking very hot heel hete! ... ehm ... oh, shit. hotter than any council barbecue hotter than ham & cheese on toast hotter than a festival portaloo hotter than your mum's hot roast heel hete! very hot! take care! heel hete! very hot! aiy, beware!

the dreamy scent of sleep escapes from a glass jar full of rollmops slipping here between day & night the stars fall like drops of (dew eclipses bait the atmosphere with hints of anarchy & FSU (bleachers groan beneath our stellar weights subway snarls make the beast with two attacks tip a jar upside down watch (a sleepy tear dripping out soft cuddly animals in a tableaux meant for myer window dressers or snoring elves who gives a puck if satan's alive or merely (a stiff -

I was almost a bee by the time I was born under propylene beams I was two days old by the bee by the bay I was under moon wood that was why I would lie in the grasses at sunset was new & cicadas were still under nights by the light it was listening mountains yodelled their blades sharp as I was travelling backwards was time a part of a star's dim arrival it was there in the way you were walking & it was almost time to go I was sliding down the honey hill the future was a tree we had become a leaf at last at last

silhouettes of moons rising boxcars are stencils the shape of projections made by performance poets who've never fallen in love wincing through their routines screaming call a doctor (a doctor's haunted holiday home the leafless trees the free shots administered at dawn the freezing branches stacked with animals cries like a gurgling brook an owl falls from a telegraph pole it disappears before sunrise jack frosts (interred like jackals highways streaked with radioactive delay yellow buzzards playing banjos the courthouse gang that put their own spittle on trial beef jerky (tales of harvest balloons let loose in the ballroom as deadwood slurs drool from the corpse's mouth

Little grains of crazy sand fall in slow motion through the world's gigantic hour glass, making snows seem electric & water all-powerful. Your silver wingtips slice the future skies & make my atmosphere go crazy, each little moment, each tiny hit. Last night I awoke to the sound of crazy winds strafing my lonely house, circles under my eyes, bad dreams knocking. Come soon, gekkie! Time winds down like false alarms, a siren signalling the all-clear. This constant fight against desperation. Pitched battles in the early morning. It hadn't rained. Fall, crazy sands, fall!

One cloudy day last August, at the Rock En Seine music festival in Paris, me and Kat were lucky enough to see one of my favourite bands, Broken Social Scene , perform to a rapturous crowd in the rain (see the pics here ). While we missed the band's opening numbers, a surge of excitement pulsed through my body when the opening bass lines of "Stars & Sons" crackled over the loudspeakers. It's my favourite song of theirs, partly because of said bassline but also because of the joyous handclaps that kick in halfway through. Those of you who are familiar with BSS will know already that it's a kind of collective, with a constantly changing cast of band members. That day, as the section where the handclaps were supposed to kick in approached, I wondered how they were going to replicate that special moment, given that every member of the band had his or her hands full playing instruments of one kind or another. Then, just when I thought it wasn't going to happen,...

rivers roads borders & towns overturn regimes impose your own! take me before you take him (say light up that disease & crush those feeble ants! he's crazy they whispered true to the end he keeps on smiling & i just want to eat! myself or throw them off the scent that might do it! fool black birds swooping down to check my pulse! wise white birds (chase these daylights home! across borders rivers roads & towns dim people come out & cry! it's time! & don't tell me youse weren't aware we're moving into serious stages of riot! roads rivers borders towns towns (rivers roads borders & rivers (roads borders & towns - burn & blow up sounds! bring the regime down!