If you ask him nicely, as I so often did at that little weekly reading in the next room, he will show you something serious, something subtle, and show you how varied his talents as a writer really are. He does not just rant, and rhyme, and string funny images together, although you can see his depth of talent there as well, but he can capture the simplest or most difficult images of life with skill and imagination and beauty. The same man who has so amusingly pissed on all our so-called Aussie idols can also use an unexpected visitor to a local park to show you not only the current course of, but maybe hope for our civilisation, like so:

this Easter Sunday Coelacanth Skippy
a furry sign of better times
gone but maybe prone to return

(from his poem In 2007 a wallaby was seen in a park in Alphington)

And just between you and me, on one notable occasion his powerful imagery, his refusal to shy away from difficult subjects, and the strength of his written expression reduced me to a tear-streaked wreck, to which a couple of you here can attest.

Why am I telling you this? Because with Two Minutes Hatefuck, James Jackson will unapologetically (heh) show you all what he can really do with his mind and a pen. As I’m sure most of us here already know, he has a lot to say, and a lot of questions to ask, and he does both well.

Questions like this, from the title poem:

and is time no more
than a litany of betrayals
an abacus of days
a two minute hatefuck
ecstasy, confusion and pain
impotent to change

When I was writing this launch, I started highlighting all sorts of bits and pieces from this book, and could keep illustrating this man’s talent for some time, but to shorten it just a bit, and since he tells me he is not going to read from the book himself, I would like to read you one complete, but short poem from the book:

The Future

The past fades
it is not a martyr for truth
no-one is outraged
at its tedious passing
had it tried to make a comeback
nipped, tucked, cut, lipo-sucked, lifted up
to an audience who had never heard of it
there might have been a mild disquiet
from self-serving nostalgics
certainly it has nobody
but its own toxicity to blame
it has had its day centre-stage
we can’t recall
but why should we?
it is past

>>page 3

© 2010 Smart Jackson Firkin