My Poem, ‘Hostilities’

March 18, 2024 ~ Libby Sommer ~ 4 Comments

Have a read of my poem, ‘Hostilities’ first published in Quadrant Magazine. I wrote the poem during the pandemic. It is one of the pieces in my debut poetry collection, ‘The Cellist, a Bellydancer & Other Distractions‘ (Ginninderra Press).

I hope you enjoy it.

Hostilities:

I worry about the ones

who disbelieve in science,

the ones on social media

with no qualifications

but a good command

of gobbledygook,

and the one who said

she’d had enough of wimps like me.

Scientists observe and calculate,

study the risks,

wave us across

as we wait by the side of the road,

even though the science of pandemics

is incomplete.

It takes a lot of guts sometimes

with those who are close to us.

Relatives, old school friends, intimates …

Anti-vaxxers still find arguments

to fire at us. I think of Aristotle’s warning:

there is only one way

to avoid criticism –

do nothing, say nothing,

and be nothing.

Photo by Edward Jenner on Pexels.com

My Prose Poem, ‘When the New Boyfriend Nearly Died’

March 4, 2024 ~ Libby Sommer ~ 4 Comments

Have a read of my prose poem, ‘When the New Boyfriend Nearly Died’ first published in Quadrant Magazine. The poem is included in my second poetry collection titled ‘Flat White, One Sugar‘, released this month by Ginninderra Press.

Hope you enjoy it.

When the New Boyfriend Nearly Died:

In the hospital’s public toilet, your face pleads back at you, white and worried. Far as you know, your new boyfriend had a heart attack while bouncing between your child-bearing hips. Too much of a strain. It’s not your fault. When he was admitted to Emergency you didn’t know if you’d ever see him again.

After five hours of waiting, you ask the receptionist if you can go in. When she asks you, you can’t pronounce his Polish surname. You spell out the letters. She considers you through the gap in the partition. You tell her you’re his new girlfriend. So you’re the one, she must be thinking before pressing the red button that lets you in.

He is lying in bed, a canula in his arm. His eyes are closed. You sit in a chair beside him and hold his hand. This would never have happened if it weren’t for you. Nurses and doctors hurry past clutching clipboards.

Don’t die on me, you plead.

If he dies, what you will miss are his text messages of love, the thwack of his body, and the pots of Japanese tea you shared. In bed you’d sip from tiny ceramic mugs.

You make a mental list of your strengths and weaknesses: you’re good at hedonistic pleasures, bad at Cryptics, bad at lonely Sundays, good at making new friends, bad at staying in touch, good at making loose-leaf tea after sex with an addict, good at falling for men who can’t stop swallowing uppers and downers. Good at loving your new boyfriend who took too many pills and now you’re worried he’ll die. Are you dreaming, or did he just squeeze your hand?

Photo by Kvs Sidhu on Pexels.com

COVER REVEAL

February 22, 2024February 22, 2024 ~ Libby Sommer ~ 10 Comments

‘Flat White, One Sugar’: 51 new poems by me, 21 illustrations by my granddaughter, Natasha Sommer, a graduate of the National Art School. Cover drawing by Natasha – out soon.

My Poem, ‘White Ibis’

February 11, 2024 ~ Libby Sommer ~ 2 Comments

Have a read of my poem ‘White Ibis’, first published in Quadrant Magazine. ‘White Ibis’ is one of the poems in my debut poetry collection ‘The Cellist, A Bellydancer & Other Distractions‘ (Ginninderra Press).

I hope you enjoy it.

White Ibis:

We wish that nature could stay put

in their home, far away …

not urban tip turkeys, bin chickens –

not like us,

scrounging for a living in cities,

but stay where they thrive,

feeding in swamps, lagoons,

floodplains & grasslands

their black downward-curved bills

digging for crayfish and mussels.

The farmers’ friend,

featherless black heads

flocking in V-shaped flight

to locust-afflicted areas,

gorging on ravaging hordes of insects.

Unlike us, they can eliminate

plagues with ease.

There are nights when we fall asleep

dreaming of ibises

flying back home.

Photo by Luis Arango on Pexels.com

My Poem ‘Here’

December 12, 2023 ~ Libby Sommer ~ Leave a comment

Have a read of my poem ‘Here’, first published in Blue Fringe Art & Literature Exhibition 2021 Collected Works. The poem is also part of my debut poetry collection ‘The Cellist, a Bellydancer & Other Distractions‘ (Ginninderra Press).

I hope you enjoy it.

Here

Each night the train

you cannot see

sounds a final journey

and the lightness which lifts you

in its healing promise all day

lets you down.

Now you pace,

heating up rooms,

pulling down blinds.

Into the silence

with its unknown destination,

conversations not yet had

or imagined.

Midnight threatens,

more enemy than

the worst enemy.

But, you are here now

in this moment.

Photo by Alex Fu on Pexels.com

My Poem, Safe … The Pandemic

November 28, 2023 ~ Libby Sommer ~ 1 Comment

Have a read of my poem, ‘Safe … The Pandemic’ first published in ‘Milestones’ Anthology (Ginninderra Press). It is also one of the poems in my debut collection, ‘The Cellist, a Bellydance & Other Distractions‘ (Ginninderra Press).

I hope you enjoy it.

Safe … The Pandemic:

Everyone needs order,

clothes rehung,

cut roses secured in

a vase.

When we move,

when we place one foot

and then the other,

we can put small things in place,

an email to a friend in another country,

bags of rubbish carried out

to the bins.

Our brains, wired this way,

want the winter doona

smoothed squarely across the bed,

the freezer stocked, and remotes

in position.

After we get out, we have only to move

cautiously, surrounded by so much space.

My Poem, ‘Her Amber Necklace’

September 5, 2023 ~ Libby Sommer ~ 4 Comments

amber stones that form the shape of a necklace

Have a read of my poem, ‘Her Amber Necklace’ first published in ‘The Thirteenth Floor’ XIV UTS Writers Anthology. The poem is part of my debut poetry collection ‘The Cellist, a Bellydancer & Other Distractions‘ (Ginninderra Press). Hope you enjoy it.

Her Amber Necklace:

my mothers dead

my mothers dead my brother said

he jumped in the air and

clicked his heels together

her children and grandchildren

and great grandchildren all came

jumping and bouncing

on forbidden chairs

we all laughed

now

distant lights scatter black night

a bus rumbles up Bondi Road

clock ticks in the empty kitchen

only the ticking

then

a dog barks outside

her woollen jumper warms me

her amber necklace hugs my neck

Release of ‘The Cellist, a Bellydancer & Other Distractions’

June 12, 2022 ~ Libby Sommer ~ 4 Comments

45 poems written over a 20 year period, here at last. THE CELLIST, A BELLYDANCER & OTHER DISTRACTIONS is officially released. My first poetry collection is available to order in bookstores and online.

Barry Spurr, Literary Editor, Quadrant writes on the back cover:

“Libby Sommer has the true poet’s eye for the deeper meaning that can abide beneath the ordinariness and small details of our daily lives and experiences. And she expresses her insights with the genuine poet’s careful and precise attention to placing the right word in the right place.”
Barry Spurr, Literary Editor, Quadrant

Big thank you again to Stephen Matthews OAM, Ginninderra Press. And much gratitude to everyone who has offered me support, encouragement and kindness over the years.

The Cellist, a Bellydancer & Other Distractions

May 1, 2022 ~ Libby Sommer ~ 5 Comments

I’ve received final proofs from my publisher, Ginninderra Press for my first poetry collection, ‘The Cellist, a Bellydance & Other Distractions’. In the home stretch now for publication of my sixth book. Happy happy.

So what are final proofs?

Proofs created by the printer for approval by the publisher before going to press are called final proofs. At this stage in production, all mistakes are supposed to have been corrected and the pages are set up in imposition for folding and cutting on the press. To correct a mistake at this stage entails an extra cost per page, so authors are discouraged from making many changes to final proofs, while last-minute corrections by the in-house publishing staff may be accepted.
In the final proof stage, page layouts are examined closely. Additionally, because final page proofs contain the final pagination, if an index was not compiled at an earlier stage in production, this pagination facilitates compiling a book’s index and correcting its table of contents.
Wikipedia

I’ll let you know when the book is released.