"LATEST NEWS!"
CREATIVE WRITING IN FREMANTLE
Friday classes have commenced for 2010 at the Fremantle Arts Centre. Writing at the Centre now has a new blog! Check the blog for class details.Writing at the Centre

SATURDAY POETRY CLASS IN FREMANTLE
A new poetry class each Saturday fortnight will commence on 13th February. This is an opportunity for those who work to join Helen Hagemann for instruction, writing exercises and self-participation. Check the OOTA Writers blog for details in January 2010. All welcome! ootawriters

POETRY BOOK STOCKISTS
Evangelyne & other poems is available at New Edition, Readings St. Kilda, Fishpond, from the author, and now at the University of Melbourne Bookshop. Order here! Melb Uni Bookshop

Read Roland Leach's launch speech/ review of Evangelyne & other poems
REVIEWS

RADIO INTERVIEW - October 2009
As a spin-off from the Emerging Writers' Festival, I have been interviewed on Vision Australia Radio. The program has now gone to air in Melbourne (with internet streaming). The interview centres around my images, influences & the challenges I face in the future as a poet. Vision Australia Radio (click on 23rd Oct - Hear This!)

CREATIVE WRITING at the Fremantle Arts Centre

Tweak your creative writing skills at the Fremantle Arts Centre and join an encouraging learning environment. Poetry and Prose classes are run every alternative Fridays. Conducted in association with the OOTA - Out of the Asylum Writers Group - all workshops guide writers through a broad range of literary techniques and forms. Why not bring out the writer in you! Download our 2-page brochure Creative Writing at the Centre

I now have two blogs, one for the novel "anovelist" and the other for poetry & poetics "evangelyne". Check out my narrative writing, and of course my poetry, & current theories on "The Female Voice".

anovelist
evangelyne

 

The Merry-go-Round

 

Perth Zoo Carousel
1.
 

In a cross-section of fairy penguins & café,
a merry-go-round, creaking in the wind
surges under a crackling switch.
Black & white horses, two abreast, dip & rise
as marionettes might do when pulled & released
from a platform of strings.
This merry-go-round is an instrument of grace;
a diorama of pastels, cut glass, carved figurines.
Music chimes from gilded mirrors, from fresh
blooms of art deco that move with you.
Appalachians in pine twist on brass poles,
gallop towards horsehair tails & stirrups ahead.

2.
 

At the bottom of the garden in a final clown roll,
my son wanders to the carousel. His tiny legs
like clappers in his sailor suit, held high
in the turning of this enamoured toy.
At twelve months, he can only watch boys & girls
on the oom-pa-pa saddles, some peering round
mirrored corners, let loose in whinnies & neighs.
At twenty-eight months, we deliver him again
to the roundabout’s ivy mirrors, egrets in paint,
theatre platform, the first white horse he sees.
He will not let go, blazing his boots in the saddle,
my palms resting on his hips. His face pink & close,
he chuckles at each turn, at the fairyfloss man,
says ‘horsey’ & ‘duck', riding the familiar.
In the final chorus of brass cymbals,
& Wurlitzer, my son clutches Silver’s neck;
his warm tracksuit in a voice of love,
and jockeying devoted hands into place,
whips up the story of a boy riding.

 

Services:

• Poetry/Prose Tutor
• Community Poet for Schools
• Critiquing Poetry
• One-on-one discussion on poetry
• Manuscript assessment
• Poetry Editing
• Poetry Discussion Group
• Children's Poetry Judge
• Poetry Judge - from Modernism to Postmodernism 
• Poetry Book Reviews
• Complimentary first session on any aspect of poetry

I am available six days a week.

My operating hours are:

Monday to Saturday  9.30 a.m. to 4.30 p.m.
Closed all public holidays

How to contact me-
Phone on (08) 9343 0072
or Email: Helen Hagemann 

or write for information to PO Box 331, WANNEROO, Western Australia 6946

Copyright 2005-2009 Unless for the purpose of study, research, criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright Act, no part may be reproduced by any process without the written permission of the author.