The view from a beach
A6 32pp ISBN 978-0-9807718-6-2
(cover photograph: Chris Mansell)
$9.90 including postage
The view from a beach is a single poem in 30 small parts on love, poetry and the sea. Unusually for her this collection is short and loose in construction, for example,
21.
Everything I touch I break.
I like the sea because of that.
which forms part of a longer reflection on love and the sea which has some quietly humorous touches in a reflective and accessible collection.
Stalking the Rainbow
A6 32pp ISBN: 978-0-9580367-1-9
(cover illustration by Robert Dickerson)
$9.90 including postage
Chris Mansell's other poetry publications include Spine Lingo - new and selected poems (Kardoorair Press, 2011), Head, Heart & Stone (Fling), Redshift/Blueshift (Five Islands Press), Day Easy Sunlight Fine (Penguin), and The Fickle Brat (IP Digital), Mortifications & Lies (Kardoorair Press) and Love Poems (Kardoorair Press) along with smaller collections and pamphlets of poems.
She has also published prose fiction and had a number of plays performed. For more information on Chris’ latest publications see her site at www.chrismansell.com.
The Beekeeper
the population controller
slips into disguise
his charming suit
his veil of words
conceals his gaze
he has laid out the fields
and filled them with blossoms
and counted the money jars
in his SimCity slim city
androgyn sharp
bodies are worry perfect
slicked back souped up
cool as drones
the neutered ones
will dance for one another
in the pages of glib
they make their ideal
hexagonal cubicles
gleam with honey
they gel their wings
catch their reflections
in passing pools
hope they'll win
somehow against
the odds
they won't
the beekeeper has
a boxed and ready fear
of bees
he won't
let them forget
he tells them
duty honour
the sacredness of home
and holds a smoking gun
for dissident and obedient
alike
those who gather in the courtyards
of fame he'll teach his rules
those who gather in the squares
he'll fight with guns and scorn
those who write destinations in the air
he'll silence
his fields and his alone
are edible he'll say
and all the rest are poison
and all those who disagree
are fools or mad
and must be fought
for sanity and for country
and the bees obey
Background
Chris Mansell was born in Sydney, Australia. She has lived in Lae, New Guinea and attended schools in New Guinea and New South Wales, Australia. She has a Bachelor of Economics from the University of Sydney and studied at the Playwright's Studio at NIDA. For most of her working life she has been involved in writing, performing, print production, editing, and in lecturing about writing.
Chris Mansell is widely published in literary journals in Australia and overseas. She has also given many live and recorded readings of her work. In 1978 she founded the literary magazine Compass poetry & prose which she edited until 1987.
Her first book of poems, Delta, appeared in 1978; her second, Head, Heart, & Stone, in 1982. While at Curtin University as writer in residence she completed Redshift/Blueshift which was published by Five Islands Press in 1988. The following year saw the release of Raptors Blue, her first audio work with music by Rob Cousins.
Chris Mansell's collection of poems, Shining like a Jinx, won the Amelia Chapbook Award, USA. In 1993 she won the Queensland Premier's Award for poetry for 'Yarmul'.
From 1987 until early 1989 she lectured in creative writing at the University of Wollongong. In 1988 she attended the National Institute of Dramatic Arts' (NIDA) Playwright's Studio. In 1989 she lectured in creative writing at the University of Western Sydney, Macarthur.
In 1990 she was writer in residence at the University of Southern Queensland, Toowoomba, and then, after a National Book Council tour in Queensland, she was writer in residence with Kaleidoscope Community Arts Company in Hobart, and later with Gambit Theatre Co. in Launceston, Tasmania. In 1992, she was editor in residence at the Royal Australian Historical Society in Sydney, again lectured at the University of Western Sydney (Macarthur), and was writer in residence at the Katharine Susannah Prichard Centre in Perth.
In 1993 she took up a Writing Fellowship from the Literature Board of the Australia Council. The following year she was awarded an Australia Council Community Writer's Fellowship in the Shoalhaven district of New South Wales. In 1995 she was a Community Artist with Shoalhaven City Council and wrote, with Mad Talent Theatre Group, their new play, Why? Her play, Some Sunny Day, written for the Kiama Council for the Australia Remembers project, was performed in October/November 1995.
Her collection of poems Day Easy Sunlight Fine was published in Hot Collation by Penguin Books in 1995 and was short-listed for the National Book Council's Banjo Awards. In 1996 her children's book, Little Wombat was published by New Holland. In 1997 she was writer in Residence with Flightpaths (Next Wave) in Wagga Wagga. She often works as a mentor to developing poets.
A collection of poems called The Fickle Brat was published on CD in audio + text format by Interactive Digital (Brisbane). She is publisher of PressPress which has also issued her Stalking the Rainbow. Her latest books are Mortifications & Lies (Kardoorair, 2005), Love Poems (Kardoorair, 2006) and Letters (Kardoorair, 2009) and, most recently, Spine Lingo: new and selected poems (Kardoorair, 2011) and a collection of short fiction Schadenvale Road (Interactive Press, 2011).
