A poem makes the cut

I’m off to the Poetry in McGregor this Friday to read a poem (“My Mother had a Concrete Garden”) that was selected as a finalist for this year’s competition. I’ll be reading the poem before a live audience for the first time since the lockdown. Wish me luck.

Today I had a chance to browse a bit. So bumped into a review of How to Make a Salagubang Helicopter & other poems which I should have shared long ago. Here’s the link to the Bookbed review.

Here’s a bit of what they say: “How to Make a Salagubang Helicopter & Other Poems by Jim Pascual Agustin is a great collection of poetry that lays out hard-hitting truths and manages to strike universal emotional nerves.”

They also shared a few pages from the book.

I’ve been writing in bursts – wild production of a new series and just about what hits me – followed by long silences of maybe just gathering or recollecting. It wasn’t always like that.

Something random… The other day I went to a craft fair (with bric a brac) and saw this – perhaps a unique/disconcerting version of Chewbacca which my kids convinced me not to buy: