Ray Liversidge

Ray Liversidge

Ray Liversidge has had his poetry appear in over 100 journals and anthologies in Australia, the US, Canada, the UK, Scotland, Ireland and Spain. His verse novel The Barrier Range was adapted for stage and performed as Seeking Fabled Waters at the 2010 Melbourne Writers Festival. In that year his poem ‘The Lawn’ won the Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize and was recommended in the Rosemary Dobson Prize. His poems have won and been placed in numerous other competitions. He has been a guest of and read at more than 50 literary festivals in Australia and overseas.

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3CR Community Radio

On hearing the news that she has won the Pulitzer Prize, Elizabeth Bishop celebrates by consuming not one, but two Oreos

Having caught it
you now want to return
this tremendous fish
to the sea. But it’s
been filleted and
fried, grilled and
anthologized
to death.

               No matter,
it was an ugly fish
– what with several hooks
through its lower lip –
and its loss is no disaster.

The ocean is vaster
than imagined, so
how easy it can be
to miss the light
flickering on
the dinted bow of your boat.
Your rainbowed boat
of which you are master.

So sorry for your loss

They chase ambulances but never catch
them for death is an abstract concept.
They flock to houses, places of
untold violence, unthinkable infant deaths,
but never arrive in time to stop it. So,
they leave flowers and candles and teddy bears
and homemade cards with heartfelt condolences
written on them.
Grief thieves, they circle like vultures
round hearses, churches, graves and funeral parlours.
Empty and surrendered vessels longing to be
the loudest, the most redeemed.

Thank you for coming.