The Ghost Poetry Project
Ten nights. Ten haunted locations. One terrifying adventure across Australia.
From a gaol cell to a lunatic asylum to a night in a haunted hearse, The Ghost Poetry Project is one poet’s attempt to find a language of guts and daring. A unique exploration of fear, courage, and the power of mystery and myth.
'This book must have the strangest ever provenance of any collection of poetry in Australia. Only a vampire or a Nathan Curnow could have done this... These poems come drenched with the bloody and violent deaths central to history of European occupation in this country. But they are not ghoulish or sensational. They are the real thing, both 'transparent and completely solid'.'
- Kevin Brophy
The Ghost Poetry Project by local boy Nathan Curnow – a striking collection of poems inspired by visiting ten ‘haunted’ sites around Australia. It’s not what you expect and it’s work that packs a sly sideways punch, most memorably when performed by the author. A startling find from an author I’ll be looking out for.
- Cate Kennedy, Best Reads of 2009, Readings website
ISBN: 978-1-92145018--1 Publisher: Puncher and Wattmann
From a gaol cell to a lunatic asylum to a night in a haunted hearse, The Ghost Poetry Project is one poet’s attempt to find a language of guts and daring. A unique exploration of fear, courage, and the power of mystery and myth.
'This book must have the strangest ever provenance of any collection of poetry in Australia. Only a vampire or a Nathan Curnow could have done this... These poems come drenched with the bloody and violent deaths central to history of European occupation in this country. But they are not ghoulish or sensational. They are the real thing, both 'transparent and completely solid'.'
- Kevin Brophy
The Ghost Poetry Project by local boy Nathan Curnow – a striking collection of poems inspired by visiting ten ‘haunted’ sites around Australia. It’s not what you expect and it’s work that packs a sly sideways punch, most memorably when performed by the author. A startling find from an author I’ll be looking out for.
- Cate Kennedy, Best Reads of 2009, Readings website
ISBN: 978-1-92145018--1 Publisher: Puncher and Wattmann
Below is a terrific poem from the Melbourne writer, Alex Skovron (who is something of a sage). He graciously dedicated this ghostly piece to me. Thank you Alex, I love it!
THE LANDING
for Nathan Curnow
But then, one sultry summer middlenight,
when the Tudor hostel-house groaned to its gables
and the gale swept, jostling my elegant dream
of seven-metre strides across a half-known city
glumly awake, I stumbled out in search of water
to the vestibule, the flickered light, the landing;
and there, upon a flight above – rimmed
in a Saturn-glow that, if not halo, hung afloat
about the solitude of a stately penumbral form –
dimly but clearly a man! He stood erect
and like a guest of stone stared down
with an hypnotic expertise, as if alert to exact
a tribute or an oath, or some revenge …
I, frozen, less in fright than pertinent disquiet,
thought to address the presence; thought
fleshed into word, and bled into: ‘Hello?’
This gambit, faint for its underbaked bravado,
induced no notice, let alone retort – I staunched
myself to gather vaster courage, challenge ghost,
and would have edged a slipper to the bottom stair,
when attic-timbers cringed, the wind uprose,
and, where an orb had hovered, black singular space.
Listen to a reading of my poem EVP at qarrtsiluni.
A review of The Ghost Poetry Project at Reeling and Writhing by Genevieve Tucker.
A review of The Ghost Poetry Project at the blog of James WF Roberts.
THE LANDING
for Nathan Curnow
But then, one sultry summer middlenight,
when the Tudor hostel-house groaned to its gables
and the gale swept, jostling my elegant dream
of seven-metre strides across a half-known city
glumly awake, I stumbled out in search of water
to the vestibule, the flickered light, the landing;
and there, upon a flight above – rimmed
in a Saturn-glow that, if not halo, hung afloat
about the solitude of a stately penumbral form –
dimly but clearly a man! He stood erect
and like a guest of stone stared down
with an hypnotic expertise, as if alert to exact
a tribute or an oath, or some revenge …
I, frozen, less in fright than pertinent disquiet,
thought to address the presence; thought
fleshed into word, and bled into: ‘Hello?’
This gambit, faint for its underbaked bravado,
induced no notice, let alone retort – I staunched
myself to gather vaster courage, challenge ghost,
and would have edged a slipper to the bottom stair,
when attic-timbers cringed, the wind uprose,
and, where an orb had hovered, black singular space.
Listen to a reading of my poem EVP at qarrtsiluni.
A review of The Ghost Poetry Project at Reeling and Writhing by Genevieve Tucker.
A review of The Ghost Poetry Project at the blog of James WF Roberts.