from the launch of IN EARLY LIGHT - aubades --- at Watt Space Gallery (Uni of Newcastle) at the Newcastle Writers' Festival -- 28.iii.26

 

Kit reading from IN EARLY LIGHT

Josh Stenberg launching IN EARLY LIGHT

Magdalena Ball in conversation with Kit 

some pictures from the accompanying exhibition 

 at Watt Space Gallery (Uni of Newcastle) 

KIT KELEN | in early light ~ aubades

'in early light ~ aubades' | ISBN 978 1 763825 994 | 106 pgs | May 2025 | $25 (within Australia)

---

These freewheeling Hopkinsesque, Dylanesque, fragmentary poems have the thrilling feeling of “the still wet canvas” of dawn with its “light that breaks down doors” and suddenly you see, waking again and again to the newness of world and “the firstliness of birds / born to the thin air chase”. With gentle brushstrokes Kelen “rubs back a primed sky” with an irradiating light: “It’s just these little prints I leave / barest of impressions” he says, but what an impression these poems leave us indeed: “the practice of just where we are”, the meditation of poet being poet being human being artist in this world right now – and how thankful I am for them.

– Anne Kellas

AND YOU CAN GET THE BOOK HERE! -- FROM WALLEAH PRESS 

https://walleahpress.com.au/Kit-Kelen-in-early-light-aubades.html

KELEN, Kit | in early light ~ aubades |poetry | ISBN 978 1 763825 994 | June 2025 | 104 pgs | $25.00

Regular price $25.00

‘There’s weather in the head—its own world spinning’: in this exquisite collection of aubades, award-winning poet Kit Kelen brings his signature inventiveness and sidestepping of language convention, deep affinity with the natural world, metaphysical questioning and daily sunrise-inspired reveries to refresh the reader over and over again at the altar of time and truth. The poems made me think and dream and want to scribble! 

#2289 -- a flitter by

 

2289

7.96

7.iv.26

a flitter by

 

and vanish

 

that’s my cloud

these are my wings

 

a huddle

a curlup for winter then

 

that tune’s still in my head

 

there’s always an under-rustle

 

everyone gets eaten

just lie still long enough

 

 

#2288 -- dreamt I was someone else, only just slightly here

 

2288

7.95

6.iv.26

dreamt I was someone else, only just slightly here  

 

everyone else was me

 

things test us

and we are thing too

 

edge to what world

to what light

 

you were there

we were witnesses

 

you knew they knew we knew

 

clock to measure

shoes to pad off

 

make the fine adjustments

it’s half way to half way time we’re in

 

it was one for all in

last and first and go on

 

things had extent

were as they were, would be

 

they were trying to convince me

it was only a dream

 

I do my own dark too

#2287 -- I almost catch up with myself

 

2287

7.94

5.iv.26

I almost catch up with myself

 

a six wallaby morning

 

shy by fences

web threaded

 

taking up a pose

to suit the hour

each from a different cartoon

(none box)

 

a little mob, desultory, laconic

toughs chew on a straw of grass

just hanging

 

the far wallabies misted out

it’s April

it’s the day of the extra hour

 

there are words left from yesterday

topped up today

 

slow as drip

in the underleaf  

 

the egg hunt

the godrise

gets up again

a little punchdrunk

rolling stones

they’ve a weight

 

sentience slight, blear  

 

is that all you’ve got?

 

set to a paddock

there’s a come-again rain

 

fences for hop through

 

like a midst in which graze

as if thicket dim

glitter of the tips then

 

free of all doctrine

 

by the time a sun’s out

gone 

#2286 - Ecclesiastes

 

2286

7.93

4.iv.26

Ecclesiastes

that’s vanity!

 

God died today

or it could have been the day before

 

but there was a backup

we were able to reboot God

it took a few days

 

some people thought – a virus

 or phishing

 

a freight of flowers weighs

 

God died today

but there’s always another, similar story

 

a terror regime goes on

 

clone of a clone of a clone

and in motley

 

it was sad fish day

a loaf about

 

has to harrow hell too

 

there was a pause in these festivities

a darkening, a grief

God gone

 

gather round and you can be angel

 

God died

and who’s responsible?

there must be someone to blame

 

our God

it’s personal

all curses are

 

we’ve made back up god-drives everywhere

the punters may now rest assured

 

billions and trillions and no choice at all

 

you won

t need oxygen or light

we’re sending it out into the nothing

the great between

 

God won’t be lost

 

there’s always a point of light

just beyond us

just over rim

 

and a sun comes up

nothing new

and here we go round again 

#2285 -- one more attempt on the platypus

 

2285

7.92

3.iv.26

zoo day

and/or

one more attempt on the platypus

 

it’s every animal makes a world

from all the worlds there are

 

they suffer me to come

an arksworth here we are

 

hello to the feathers

and raise up a wing

 

I shit where I stand

wouldn’t you?

you do?

 

o creature!

 

dive to dip and lift

shake out

 

call it tentative quizzic

it’s every least hollow here

 

it’s every stone a home

 

these dearly beloved

gathered here

 

they plot but lack the freedom word

 

ask the roos why won’t they hop the fence

ask birds what height a sky

 

more intimate here than at home

 

even and despite our best

lots of singing

 

it’s not life as we knew it

the tinnitus city roar

but we’re fed

 

back there was tooth and claw

 

some few of us think to stay

it’s a life we have

new country

 

time like a grove

and we’re exempt

 

plod, dawdle here

there’s whirligig over there

 

bill and some webbing

fast as a flash

 

just a roll and a turn in the tank

 

old crocodile is gone

instead a mome rath snuffle

 

slow to be here

 

must be something they put in the food

 

the shouting of humans

unaccounted laughter

that’s what it’s called

a taunt

 

child picks up a feather for a souvenir

 

push off somewhere underfin

 

or tangle in a net – that’s death

 

it’s every animal makes a world

from all the worlds there are

 

it’s all this weather’s coming for

it’s all that the sun can touch