Hit Parade
Fairy lights on the cover of my latest, what
could I have been thinking of? – that
forty-seven poems about a wrestling match
in foul weather would bring about
a fundamental change
in my star status – from number forty-seven
on the East Anglican hit parade to number one
in one lifetime; how absurd, this poem
a perfect example of my perennial inability
to articulate some universal truth, a sad fact
that’s guaranteed to keep me in the ranks
of the also-ran until the day I die or decide
to find some sensible occupation that might take me
to the top; wrestling, with one throw, why not?
Philip Hammial
Detroit born Phillip Hammial (1937-)is one of a number of North Americans who has made a career in Australian poetry. With Hammial creating order out of anarchy and anarchy out of order, a reader might well arrive at the end of a poem acknowledging ‘So, that’s where you’ve taken us!’ With 24 published titles so far a New and Selected Poems is in line for 2014.