Whether this is your first visit, or you are a regular reader (perhaps as a contributor), thanks for your interest in Catchment, coming to you from Kurnai country, in West Gippsland, Victoria.
Our sponsoring organisation, the Baw Baw Arts Alliance, wishes to be culturally inclusive.
All the same, with this Third Edition, again we have had to reject poetry received from overseas.
Sadly, such work just cannot be considered, given that this journal is produced by a small team.
This is the sole reason why contributions can only be accepted from poets within this country.
For we simply don’t have the human resources to cope with additional submissions from offshore.
Over 70 Australian poets have offered work, with some new to us & others old friends.
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Some poems focus on overseas locations, while a majority hold up a mirror to our own backyards.
Along with one or two islands, most states & territories in this country feature in work presented.
The largest numbers of contributions come from Victoria & NSW, followed by WA & the ACT.
We continue to approach the selection of work for publication with a generous disposition.
A variety of contributors have had work caught here in tributaries, in a larger river system of verse.
Such a confluence of Eastern & Western traditions is a rarity among poetry journals, world-wide.
We are happy to give feedback in drafting tanka, including mentorship for less experienced poets.
Hearing from established voices too is vital, of course, in both genres, towards quality & range.
We value explorations of the parameters of poetry of place; whether pitched in visual/ emotive/ atmospheric registers; or being experimental/ reflective/ challenging in evoking location.
A sense of place could focus on status as much as geography; one’s placement in human terms.
Writers having no luck are encouraged to submit again, after reading work here from fellow poets.
Prose poetry of indeterminate length will continue to challenge our own generosity of spirit.
Longer poems constructed entirely around rhymes will struggle to build a hut beside such a creek.
Tanka with more verbs than lines, all in a continuous sentence, may need to give readers a break.
We take pride in publishing strings of poems in this genre, unique as that is in Australia these days.
A departure we made in our second issue – compared to our first – continues, as editorial policy.
You will find a maximum of two longer poems per contributor selected for publication in Edition 3.
This could seem arbitrary – even if the ghosts of Kenneth Slessor or Judith Wright were to submit three undiscovered works, we could still publish only a pair of such pieces, no matter how sublime.
Again, we persist in selecting no more than four tanka out of a maximum of five, however deft.
An obligation to make such choices refines our thinking, giving integrity to the selection process.
My deepest gratitude extends once more to both Jennifer Fell & Jo McInerney for each giving invaluable support, in an editorial dimension and beyond.
J F Garrow & Meg Long continue to give great backing as well; as further readers; as listening ears.
Our IT team-members, Marlene & Mike Ogden, do a huge job in maintaining our digital submission portal, while generating innovations which improve outcomes, towards online release.
We are also grateful to Jeannie Haughton & Yvette Stubbs for convening poetry readings locally.
A big thank-you goes to Jeff Thege for ongoing help with publicising the release of new editions.
Sue Murphy & other Bbaa committee members are likewise appreciated for continued support.
Further organisations/ websites deserve our gratitude as well, in helping to promote submissions.
The Australian Haiku Society, the Australian Writers Resource, Ballarat Writers, Gippsland Writers, the Victorian Writers Centre & Gregory Piko’s own website have all given valuable backing.
As a team at Catchment, honoured by being entrusted with fine creative work about place, we continue to find this enterprise rewarding, instructive and thought-provoking.
You will see we have introduced content warnings, where applicable, in a couple of poems here.
May our Third Edition of Catchment – Poetry of Place prove rich & satisfying & engaging for you as readers too: gathering together compelling verse in different styles; depicting a wide range of captivating locations; sharing varied voices & lenses; prompting a host of emotions & reflections.
Rodney Williams,
Editor
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