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Snapshots
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My Backyard 4 - Everything
My ducks are uncoordinated. They are, I suppose, more suited to swimming than they are to walking. Their legs are at the back of them. Their necks carry their heads too far from their bodies. They are, it seems to me, in a perpetual state of falling forward. When I am bored, or more often than not, annoyed, I walk behind them with an inhuman intent. They waddle away from me. They waddle slowly at first but the faster I stalk them the faster they waddle. I've worked out, over a few months, that if I raise me knees with each step the ducks will see this as an increase in pace even if I maintain my original speed they will waddle faster than their natural structure allows. There is something I find rewarding about increasing the pace of an animal' gait — my ducks are armless, they struggle with balance, I hate to see them suffer but when they reach their ultimate speed— when they fall over and quack I like it. I like it— that I can cause that to happen is affirming. Most things are beyond me — there are things I have no control over but when the ducks reach their maximum speed, when they fall over and quack as if their lives were over I like it. I like it. I do. Clint Greagan Poetryetc is a listserv relating to poetry and poetics which provides a forum for poets to debate their critical and creative work. The list has over the years run a number of projects for its members, of which Snapshots has been the most enduring. Every Wednesday, Poetryetc members were invited to post short poems on any subject or in any form they chose. The idea was to make a poetic collage of instamatic “snaps” of that day that reflected the international membership of the list. The project has generated an astounding number of poems. The first two runs, of six weeks each, and the first ten weeks of the third run, are archived at Wild Honey Press www.wildhoneypress.com under Poetryetc Project. The rest - amounting in all to a run of a year - are archived here. Poetryetc, like its affiliate Salt Publishing (http://www.saltpublishing.com), was founded by Australian poet John Kinsella. Salt is managed by Christopher Hamilton-Emery (cemery@saltpublishing.com), while Poetryetc is owned by Alison Croggon (ajcroggon@bigpond.com). Poetryetc is now archived at http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/poetryetc.html. and anyone interested can join from that url. To contact the listowner: Alison Croggon These pages are designed, maintained, and hosted by Rebecca Seiferle, the Editor of The Drunken Boat. To email. 
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