Jeremy Davies's Blog

Am I the only goodreads user who actually doesn't feel that these new guidelines are that oppressive? Part of my living is in providing written 'content' for publication, and there is always a brief, there are always guidelines … except in the most personal (and, unfortunately, less lucrative…) creative writing arenas. I started writing reviews here as a hobby, and I enjoy the combination of getting feedback and ‘argument’ (in the intellectual, not the fisty-cuff sense…) from other users, and just the process of collating and refining my response to a book immediately after reading has helped cement many of the ideas and feelings inherent in the reading process. Another contributing factor to my lack of concern may be that I’ve never enjoyed focusing on authorship as a particularly interesting, or even particularly valid, critical tool. The ol’ hilarious one-star goodreads reviews that in particular want to heap up cultural-warfare-based pejoratives, or just plain abuse, on the author as the pillar of a position on the work itself are my least favourite things to read … and, ironically enough, tend to just simply favour other quasi-biographical texts that tend to be a thousand times less interesting — or, dare I say it, important — than the one being so ‘amusingly’ reviled. So, I suppose, I’m not in favour of things necessarily being ruled-against, but I’m also not in favour of the actual things being ruled out. Is it so bad not being able to abuse people in absentia? There’s loads of places to go on the Internet for that. Goodreads could just be about genuine engagement with … reading books?

Always interesting to see how the National Library of Australia categorize your work for cataloging purposes. 'Rosemary and Julia: unblock me' received: Subjects: Friendship--Fiction, Missing persons--Fiction, Assimilation (Sociology)--Fiction, Identity (Psychology) in youth--Fiction. Dewey Number: A823.4 The 'Assimilation (Sociology)' call is particularly interesting and, in a strange way, appropriate.

Just signed with Satalyte Publishing, a new Australian publisher, for print and digital rights to 'Missing, Presumed Undead'. Will now be working further on putting book#2 of Casablantasy together, currently titled 'Khaos Theory (or The Fifth Elemental)'. With great thanks to my Literary Agent at Book Harvest: Ineke.

Maximilian is an author’s cat.
When he rolls on the carpet, he does it like Proust,
and he curls himself up like a fistful of foreign furry
grammatical marks:
black and white pools.

He has a mind for French-Americana,
frank and short and stubby, tightly whiskered
like his pink-tipped face;
but so full of sens.

Nearby the Russians; none-too-proud,
he resists the urge to scratch
and purrs instead. Harsh, but happy.
Stern, but with fresh dribble in the corner of his teeth.

And there, the English,
with the sun page-yellow of a second hand book,
his paws pressed beneath the stand of the old summer fan
and twirl and ruffle and ‘meow’—just a tweet—
where the sound itself is enough
to write a novel.

             antilochus.tmp click on link for text message poem...

before a parade is staged
by jeremy davies
‘I’m Botswana,’ he says,shows me a coloured-in flagpasted to a stick.
‘Do you know where that is?’
He nods, his ocean eyes omnipotent,bottom lip confidently bit.
The parent in me asks:‘So where?’
And the answer is so supremely rightthat nothing else from that timeon could ever do it injury.
‘It’s in room three.’
‘Of course!’
Wet with my shadow, he cocks his head,gifts me with a grin,and says: ‘What’s funny?’

before a parade is staged
by jeremy davies
‘I’m Botswana,’ he says,shows me a coloured-in flagpasted to a stick.
‘Do you know where that is?’
He nods, his ocean eyes omnipotent,bottom lip confidently bit.
The parent in me asks:‘So where?’
And the answer is so supremely rightthat nothing else from that timeon could ever do it injury.
‘It’s in room three.’
‘Of course!’
Wet with my shadow, he cocks his head,gifts me with a grin,and says: ‘What’s funny?’

After a mere two decades or so, I've garnered the interest of a literary agent: Ineke of Book Harvest will be representing 'Missing, Presumed Undead' here in Australia, and maybe beyond...

Every night the moon is full.

Buildings, broad-shouldered, are canyon-cutting
up through the stone and earth:
they know themselves

and the monuments, with sky in their eyes,
ignore me, looking ever down:

there is blood beneath the cobblestones
that hearts still move about.

You smell food in the light,
cigarettes in the dark,
and the difference is gentle,
like the breeze in November.
Sweet Henry,
sweet Ricardo,
dream me into city dreams
amongst the beating boom of living lusting rock

Here,
to catch your breath
is to put it in a jar,
seal it up
and start to build a pathway.

Madrid is breathing me,
in and out and in
to the streets, in
to the open-shuttered bedroom
warm as hand-held brass.

Life is a city, this city,
so heavily human,
so full
so unlike empty meadows, flowers and fields
that know nothing.

Every night the moon is full.

Buildings, broad-shouldered, are canyon-cutting
up through the stone and earth:
they know themselves

and the monuments, with sky in their eyes,
ignore me, looking ever down:

there is blood beneath the cobblestones
that hearts still move about.

You smell food in the light,
cigarettes in the dark,
and the difference is gentle,
like the breeze in November.
Sweet Henry,
sweet Ricardo,
dream me into city dreams
amongst the beating boom of living lusting rock

Here,
to catch your breath
is to put it in a jar,
seal it up
and start to build a pathway.

Madrid is breathing me,
in and out and in
to the streets, in
to the open-shuttered bedroom
warm as hand-held brass.

Life is a city, this city,
so heavily human,
so full
so unlike empty meadows, flowers and fields
that know nothing.