Live Encounters Poetry & Writing April 2024.
Three Days, poems by Michael J. Leach.
Three Days
i.
Australia Day
I elect to work
from home
ii.
Anzac Day
the black swan’s bugle
iii.
Election Day
my TV screen glows
red blue green
teal
The Bright Sides of La Belle Époque
© Michel J. Leach
Michael J. Leach (@m_jleach) is an Australian poet, critic and academic. Michael’s poems have appeared in journals such as Cordite Poetry Review, exhibitions such as the Antarctic Poetry Exhibition, anthologies such as Poetry d’Amour 2022: Love Poems (WA Poets Incorporated, 2022), and his two poetry books: Chronicity (Melbourne Poets Union, 2020) and Natural Philosophies (Recent Work Press, 2022). Michael has won the UniSA Mental Health and Wellbeing Poetry Competition (2015), received a commendation in the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine (2021), jointly won the poetry category of the Minds Shine Bright Confidence Writing Competition (2022) and had a poem shortlisted for the Woollahra Digital Literary Award (2023). During 2024, Michael will publish two new poetry books: a collection of haiku and senryu (In Case of Emergency Press) followed by a collection of poems exploring sounds and emotions (Ginninderra Press). He lives on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung Country and acknowledges the traditional custodians of the land.