Almanac Poetry: An Historian reads Sports Poetry A to Z

Historian Bernard Whimpress discusses the A – Z of sports poetry in an article recently published in Australian Society for Sports History Bulletin.

Almanac Poetry: What the Phoenicians Took from the Land of Punt

Kevin Densley delves into his archives and retrieves a poem in which the main character still remembers (in detail) the answer to a unusual question on a Social Studies test he did thirty years earlier.

Almanac Music: Songs and Cars

Cars – like teenagers and high school – are a common feature in songs of the rock‘n’roll era. In this Friday’s column, KD writes about songs and cars, and, as usual, welcomes comments from Almanac readers.

Round 1 – Haiku Bob: outgoing sky

Haiku Bob is back for the new footy season! He can’t get the word ‘Daicos’ out of his sentences.

Almanac Poetry: Jubilee Lake

This week’s poem by Kevin Densley was inspired by Jubilee Lake, in Daylesford, central Victoria.

Almanac Music: How Low Can You Go? ‘Way Down’ – Elvis Presley’s Last Single

This Friday’s music piece from KD concerns the last Elvis single released before his passing, and its importance in musical history, as well as raising the issue of the bass voice in songs of the rock ‘n’ roll era.

Almanac Poetry: Drifting into Oblivion

This week’s poem by Kevin Densley is about women and dreamy, painterly beauty.

Almanac Music: Ooby Dooby Shoop Shoop

This Friday’s music article by KD deals with songs in which vocal sounds and/or deliberate verbal nonsense are an important component. We all know such songs, and readers are invited to add to the list Kevin has compiled.

The Cowboy Surfer

‘The Cowboy Surfer’ is the latest offering from Damian Balassone.

Almanac Poetry: At Isobel’s

A long-ago stay at a well-known Australian novelist’s house on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria inspired this week’s poem from Kevin Densley.

Almanac Music: Catchy

In this Friday’s piece, KD writes about what makes a song catchy, and discusses some of the catchiest songs he knows, then invites Almanackers to put forward ones of their own.

Almanac (Prose) Poetry: After Reading Ovid’s ‘Dedalus’

This Monday’s piece from Kevin Densley is his poetic take on the Greek myth of Dedalus and Icarus as told by the Roman poet, Ovid, in his famous work ‘The Metamorphoses’.

Almanac Poetry: Erasmus Fell

Eureka! Almost being clocked on the head by a large framed print (of the Renaissance scholar, Erasmus) gave Kevin Densley the idea for this week’s poem.

Almanac Music: Scenes from an Australian Eden – The Seekers Performing ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ at Chateau Yaldara, Barossa Valley, 1967

In 1967, for a TV show, The Seekers filmed a version of ‘Turn, Turn, Turn’ at Chateau Yaldara in the Barossa Valley. KD elaborates upon this beautiful song performed in a lovely setting.

Almanac Poetry: Archangel

Kevin Densley’s poem this week references the Archangel Gabriel, Mary and the Annunciation; ‘the basic concerns here are beauty and tenderness’.

Almanac Life: First Car

A person’s first car is a milestone event. In this Friday’s piece, KD talks about his, a 1962 Ford Anglia, and invites Almanackers to share their own ‘first car’ stories.

Almanac Poetry: The Musician and the Boy

This week’s poem from Kevin Densley was inspired by the time he played in his school brass band.

Almanac Music: ‘I Forgot to Remember to Forget’ – It Began with Elvis

In this week’s Friday piece, KD looks at six versions of a song that was Elvis Presley’s first Number 1 hit and recorded down the years by numerous other artists, including Johnny Cash and The Beatles.

Almanac Debut: Stefan Rogers – To Our Summer Nights

Steven Christou makes his Almanac debut with a conundrum that features a boy and a cicada. Steven is a poet who supports Collingwood. (Welcome to the Almanac, Steven. May this be the first of many.)

Almanac Poetry: Amherst Wisdom

Kevin Densley based this poem upon a line from a well-known Emily Dickinson poem; Dickinson (1830-1886) was born and lived most of her life in Amherst, Massachusetts.