Small Change Press

The work of a poet unafraid of the awkward paradoxes of the everyday world. The poems are courageous, witty, wry, tough and alive - truly free verse.

Andy Jackson

the loveless women sat on the floor of the writers centre
and pawed over unloved books of the 60s and 70s
thrown out for free

I had a cold
so I was in love with tissues
like snowflakes in Norway

why doesn’t somebody seize and hold them?
whether that was the books or the women
I didn’t know, I was fevered

the bells of St Paul’s sat in their tower
plump and rounded, spotlit
the gulls careened over Flinders St Station
as though chips and Macca’s wrappers
were some new kind of sea wrack

the books had poems and new writing in them
always new writing
the drunks and Friday night crowds
weaved and flowed
like in a speeded up movie
the coppers were ready to hit Pause
for the drunken aborigine

I would have tongue kissed the women
I would have read the poems
rung the bells, flown like a bird
made streets safe for children
taken rage from the policeman’s eye
given the aboriginal back his home

shaken the glass
until snow fell on Norway
but it’s not that simple, is it?
so instead
I blew my nose

if you write a book
make it a book the women read, and I read
and the people on the street read
and things change, but not that much
and snow falls soft on Norway

Austentayshus, King Lear's Fool and Woody Allen walk into a bar...

David Prater - editor, Cordite Poetry Review

Oh my god! You are so small! Though you may be larger than the
average poodle, I can hardly even see you. That’s because I’m so big.
I’ve taken your advice of wearing a bell as well as a proximity alarm
to lessen the chances of causing heart attacks to whoever crosses my
path unprepared. Yet, as you pointed out, how prepared can anyone
be? I glimpsed myself in the mirror the other day and nearly
collapsed from the sight of my own vast poodleliness. I have also
thought of carrying around a big sign that says Warning! Biggest
poodle in the world approaching! But what on Earth could I make
the sign out of ? There’s hardly enough wood, metal or plastic on the
planet to make a sign large enough that it would be seen before I was.
In fact, I’m amazed the whole planet hasn’t imploded from my mere
presence.

Winner of the 2009 'The Dream Aint Broken' Small Change Press Chapbook Competition

Nicola's work is original and brimming with energy. Equal parts Ginsberg and Stein, Scholes fearlessly deconstructs love in the 21st century.

Dear Rose, you were the best friend I had since I was torn from country at age ten
in the back of a black beetle cab. The driver couldn’t understand he was only taking
us to London as he took a corner it would set off my mother then my father
would start saying don’t look back. It was the last time we’d go down those streets
and the face I left footing the curb was not replaced until I met you.

Dear Rose what have you replaced me with, copious cups of tea or coffee alcohol
Ali study TV Connie Debbie or someone new? Do you appreciate this time, have
you achieved distinctions?

Dear Rose you said I stressed you out, you had to eliminate the stressors from
your life. What’s it like now, are you no longer stressed, how do you fill your time
now is it peaceful?

Dear Rose I won the open mic you shoulda been there Rose you shoulda seen me
Rose I did the poems justice I wasn’t nervous it was a huge stage they loved me
Rose you shoulda been there Rose you shoulda seen me Rose you shoulda.

Did you have a good time with Debbie that night?

Rose I may be transferring to UQ I’ve started rehearsals for a new play don’t you
want to see the artwork I did for the flyer Rose my car’s still not working but the
exercise is good I saw the doctor about my legs the scars are healing next week I
turn 32.

Dear Rose the updates are getting longer. I’m worried that one day they’ll get so
long they’ll need filing. You’ll say how are you & I’ll say fine. One gig of
memory zipped.

Haunting, provocative and lavishly surreal, Sean M. Whelan's latest collection of poetry is a glittering stand out. Walking the difficult tightrope between hard-earned poetic technique and raw ruby-red emotion, Whelan's exploration of honest and human stories will have you grabbing your chest and swooning with equal parts empathy and delight.

Cristin O'Keefe Aptowicz - New York City Slam Poet Champion and host of NYC Urbana.

The car almost sweating
bending every corner
using every means possible
to influence the air.
And there’s me
listening to Moonlight Mile on the radio
with a head full of snow.
I’m not driving, I wouldn’t drive like this
really I wouldn’t.

Meanwhile one hand caresses the wheel
while the other reaches out the window
to drag the street lights down
to scatter them behind me.
They spin and spark in my rearvision mirror.
Electric breadcrumbs
to gather later
to collect in my pockets on the long walk home
once the car has fallen away
panel by panel.
Once I’ve eaten a hundred phone boxes
and found not a single dial tone
that tastes like you.

Nathan Shepherdson constructs images in the minds of readers through his words. His deeply perceptive poetry stimulates new approaches in our navigation of physical and emotional sensibility and I am greatly honoured that my work could act as a catalyst for this dialogue. Anyone interested in the visual or literary arts will love the way he has hinged them in this instictively curious poetic work on light.

if i stand outside at night
and spin my head both ways at once
the moon becomes afraid
that it will drown in my eyes

( \ )

why are we supposed to donate our feelings to the moon \

why are there no flies attracted to this death \

why did they bury me instead of the hatchet \

why am i better at forging your thoughts than you are \

when did we start to run from what we run towards \

what is the atomic weight of an apology \

what can you do with a light-year and a ball of string \

outside each emergency room              crows wait
a young woman walks by                     red dress crashing cars
the suburbs are no longer where the nests are built
the night parrots will never see the sun
wattle-throated pensioners board the first bus
peak hour our middle fingers raised / stabbing clouds in defiance
below the avian families flock to the shops
birds of one feather / come together Friday night
do not feed the common myna or give money to thin men on corners
her nom de plume was Promise / breasts proudly pressed in her jacket of intent
on Saturday night the raptors strike
shirts tucked in / claws out                taxis record their flight plan

Pascalle's quirky, romantic poems are like little safaris, hunting down furry adventure and glittering joy in the tall grass of everyday life.

I read it on a screen, squinting and a lot of life was still there. Pomegranate II is my fave. Your conviction and good humour are totally winning. Impress it! Happy trails!

Has it ever occurred to you
that there should be way
more mental institutions?
And that someone other than
People
should be teaching
Psychologists and Psychiatrists
how People work?

I know - I talked to these
Doctors
about my Mother.

One had a nervous breakdown
no wonder
a Person taught him
how People work.

And the thing is, when I spoke to him
about my Mother
I thought to myself
'this guy's looking like he's about
to have a nervous breakdown'
at least that's what I'd read in books about
how People work.

Compressed energy and an unswerving courage to tell the truth about bad things gives these haibun a sharp edge – a kind of grim elegance. Journeying with Beveridge is not always comfortable but it is always compelling.

The haibun in Julie's collection are delightful, mysterious and many convey great tenderness. Nothing is glossed over, nothing sentimentalised. Each of the haibun is a snapshot of a point of crisis. Julie understand the instantaneous nature of the ideal haibun; the sense of craft.

Somebody else has been in these sheets. My lover in the shower washing away this morning’s sins. I kick my legs, pulling at the blankets to re-affirm my body’s grooves in the mattress. The scent of her hair strong on my pillow, no matter how often I beat it with my fists. I let my eyes close and choose to forget.

Choose to rise in the morning, make his breakfast before I leave for work – take him the paper and a coffee, wake his children and prepare them for their day. And when I arrive home kiss his face and beg him to lie to me about his day.

He crawls in beside me, curls up tight, kisses between my shoulders and tells me how happy I make him.

A late night Brisbane street corner, a wine glass the morning after, a discarded suit from his father-in-law. With shadows in his mind and the breath catching in his throat, Nunn celebrates a series of intimate moments. Pulling us in and making them real. It's a world of silent mirrors, drinks, parties, escaping Leonard Cohen albums to find "the streets/a beautiful menu of poems". There is beauty and sadness in equal measure, it's honest, open and beguiling.

Graham Nunn writes city poems with electric imagery, pulsing with loss and desire. His words are carved out of bruises, his phrases flicker like strobes around the bars and the long streets of the night.

4. A young musician wearing beautiful
dark glasses, inhaling the scent
of quarter past four in the morning

Rob Morris’s poetry makes me feel young and beautiful; it wipes away decades of cynicism. His poetry is a baby’s first smile, a bird playing the wind, an old man’s verandah gaze, the beat of a human heart; he has unblinkingly looked at life and sung it new.

His vernacular owns all the rush of the street but this no more contains his poetry than a Glasgow kiss puts out the light! Wherever his feet may be Rob Morris's rock 'n' roll head is always in the stars. He is a mystical realist first & last.

“The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the source of all true science.” – Albert Einstein

Is it natural that they depart beautiful
from the brutal drag that is time's Glasgow kiss
escape with an enigmatic bow
as some velvet curtain falls?
It is the Keatsian paradox,
the body slumps,
the swag comes undone
yet modest and oblivious
mind still struts and rocks on
though we dally wistful practice our worshipful prayers.
Time is a tough nut to crack.
It offers only memory’s consoling embrace on the stair.
Gleaners, we have to work at this stuff
or let our young shining ones go.
In the house of the artist
there are shape shifters
trying on old and new costumery
hopeful the wardrobe still fits
’til time gets impatient
with our lingering party and the darkening room taxes
our vision. We will dress ourselves upon light,
ask if we may
leave to
return tomorrow
and early.

"... poetry that makes me pay attention ... pulls me into stillness ... stringent, delicate, tender and erotic ... did I forget to mention wit?"

"Unlike most post-Beat Generation spiritualists, Hetherington is aware and proud of the essentialist nature of his poetry: his claims are earnest, deliberate, and devoid of irony. His is an immensely accessible poetry that gently preaches and directly speaks to his readers."

i stare with my heart
at the glowing horizon
not quite past that force which pushes & pulls us

today the morning rose
into the afternoon
& leaves brushed my face like kisses
i drank fresh cloud-drops
clarified with lemon juice
& let the dogs wander through their future

now the sun is an orange fallen off a table
the cool is beginning to rise from the soil
& the nightwind will soon arrive

i have spent so much time in looking up & down
& i’m peering out still
mouth in the clouds, feet in the sea