The Poet – by Kris Hemensley

when life kicks you in the teeth the teeth get to reading poetry.  ok, that doesn't make much sense.  still, these last few days i've been battling the blues.  for the usual reasons which is sometimes shit happens & sometimes the blues just comes as it goes.  at any rate, my spirits were raised more than a little from an email by my brother in the art jonathan hayes.  & also, by reading a little kris hemensley.  kris is a wonderful poet.  he emigrated to australia in the 1960s from england.  he was the owner-operator of Collected Works Bookshop in melbourne, a poetry only bookshop.  kris fairly recently closed the doors of his beloved shop after operating it for several decades.  he's also a brilliant, idiosyncratic diarist on life, friendship & poetry.  you can find his blog in the links.  but like many poets kris migrated his writings to other social media platforms like facebook.  & sometimes youtube.  i am more than thrilled to find this video of kris reading a poem from a recently published chapbook.  this is a terrific video.  the poem is titled 'the poet' & i'm betting that it is a little more than autobiographical for in it the speaker makes note of migrating from writing with pen & paper to writing & publishing poems on facebook.  still, & yet the poet in whatever medium or platform makes poetry.  again, watching/hearing kris read in this video makes this poet fucking happy.  & my blues have transformed to a tickled pink.