Moments in Rhyme Series

Mengeling is something of a mixture – less a collection, it is more a disparate group of individual poems all drawn together into one bubbling pot. From the ridiculous Bilgeby Sprite to the deeply introspective Waking Up, these poems offer a slightly more personal glimpse into the writer’s psyche. Burnt Cakes & Opening Up, like many others titles in Mengeling, display a kind of disarming honesty, allowing the reader to get a little closer to the author. Worlds Apart on the other hand is just plain crazy... An interesting blend.

Lizard of Oz is made up of two separate anthologies: Greenhorns & Bundaberg. While not exactly a travel journal, the seventy-plus songs and poems gathered here do capture the moods and times the author went through as he packed his bags and set off on an adventure into the unknown! As in the Australian continent itself, there is huge diversity in Lizard, from the ludicrous (Maud, Fighting With Giants), to the more thoughtful (Dingo, Keep on Dancing), and the alternative lyrics to several well-loved songs (Bundaberg City, Tribute to John Lennon). They would have you believe there are no icebergs Down Under, but seen through the author’s eyes, you will realize that Lizard is merely the tip of one...

Songs From A Wooden House is a collection of more than forty poems which will provide both light-hearted amusement and thought-provoking distractions for people in all walks of life. With titles such as Love Is..., The Tribulations of a Hungry Buddhist Spider and Desert Island Vegetables, these poems can be read anywhere at any time, whether on a packed commuter train on your way to work or curled up with a glass of something before the fire late at night. Whether you like the utterly absurd Ice-cream Related Injuries or prefer to get lost in the deeper concepts talked about in poems such as Life, there will be something in Songs for all but the blackest of souls...

Those Distant Shores holds over seventy more poems from the next three collections - Terug, Old Friends, New Friends and Conti-mental - from the introspective poet, Stephen Brown. Following directly on from Outback Dreaming, these give a glimpse into the thought processes of the author upon his return from Australia and for roughly the next year of his life. He spent some time visiting friends before packing up his car and heading out onto Continental Europe and, as we are used to by now, capturing his experiences during these tempestuous times in his own peculiar styles of verse. Titles this time are again diverse: A Lovecraftian Ballad, Sufi Skinny Dipping and I Wonder If Gandhi Had a Dog, sitting mixed up between Feeling Faithless in Brighton, Warm Coloured Curtains and Innocence II – What I Would Do With a Time Machine. From Australia to Brighton, to Holland to Belgium, Those Distant Shores is a wonderful mixture of melancholy and the ridiculous. Pick a favourite...

This very personal collection covers the second period of the author’s time in Australia, the majority of which was spent in the Rainforests and less-visited Outback, away from the more established tourist haunts of the Queensland coast. Join the author’s personal highs and lows as he describes a mammoth road-trip in his own, inimitable way through titles such as The Red Centre, Flip-flops in the Night, and Leopard Skin Sheets... From comedy to the despair of a fairly major mid-life crisis (and back again), Dreaming is one man’s growth through his experiences on the road.

The next installment in the poetic life of Stephen Brown, On The Road Again is the sixth in the chronological series of his collections, containing the three short volumes Moving Again, Four Floors Up and Two Cities. Comprising sixty or so titles, Roads contains the usual eclectic mix, with lines lifted from such diverse locations as Paris, Oostend, a London flat and the North of England. The rap-style musings of Flotsam and Whiter Than White lie comfortably together with more structured songs such as Spinning, One Kiss, and Empty House Blues, all of which of course wrap snugly around the other entertaining verses like A Snail in Two Cities, Double Glazing and Questions That Smells Bring to Mind. Who says poetry is dead?

Sixty-odd more titles make up the seventh volume in the Moments in Rhyme series, making up roughly the first half of an extended journey through Sri Lanka, India and Nepal. At times comic and at others soul-searching, these titles mark the next stage in the poetic road-trip that the author’s life. Rabindranath Tagore it is not - these poems are merely one man’s experiences captured in verse. Still good though.

A JUMBLE OF DOGS completes the author’s initial trip to the subcontinent. Another six months’ worth of highs, lows, moods and musings captured in song and verse. Titles include The Hunchback of Premam Beach, Turtle Bones, The Temple Dancer and King of the Cliff and range from doggerel to rap to hard rock with all sorts in between.