When my mother was young, 
she kept a little book of poems and quotations. 
I have it now, age-scented, pages crinkly edged 
falling from its cover as if begging 
to be read. At first, she snipped 
the lines she liked from magazines 
or papers. Some names I did not know. 
     Loveman, 
     Thomas, 
     Laski, 
     Drummond. 

Later, she only chose poems deemed 
the choicest, many shared with us. 
     Lines and lines of Whitman, 
     Frost, 
     Rosetti, 
     Dickinson, 

and a poem from a school 
examination paper.  
I sent her that poem—in her 
senior years. All she needed 
was a dab of Clag and yet 
my fingers touch each stanza, printed 
in pen and ink as neatly as a teacher 
might have written on a chalkboard 
years ago. The way I learned myself 
at Teacher’s College. 

time travel 
     searching 
inside her little book 
     trying to move 
toward the answer 
     my clock hands backward 

bank teller 
     she strives to free 
a time for study 
     her clock hands forward 

so much I do not know 
     I do not know 

 

—Long-listed Finalist in MacQ’s Cheribun Challenge #4

Publisher’s Note:

Clag Paste is a traditional, starch-based adhesive that has been used in Australian schools and households since 1898. Made by Bostic, the paste is iconic for its signature smell, non-toxic formula, and the brush built directly into its lid (source: Bostik.com).

 

Hazel Hall

is a widely published Australian poet, musicologist, editor, international judge of short forms, and lover of natural life. She founded and coordinated the ekphrastic poetry group School of Music Poets from 2012 to 2017, and directed the Poetry at Manning Clark House series of readings from 2018 to 2022. Her writing ranges from short Japanese forms to free verse, hybrids, and prose poetry.

Hazel’s most recent published collections include:

• a collection of poems coauthored with Moya Pacey exploring the ways humans interact with birds, Featherfall (September 2026);
  
  
• a chapbook of collected sonnets and hybrids, A Hint of Rosemary (Interactive Publications, 2024);
  
  
• two chapbooks in the Picaro Poets series published by Ginninderra Press: Breathe In, Breathe Out (2023), and Severed Web (2020), the latter with late artist Deborah Faeryglen;
  
  
• a radio play in 15 linked sonnets, Please Add Your Signature and Date it Here: A Verse Drama (Litoria Press, 2021);
  
  
• a full-length collection of tanka by Hazel Hall in collaboration with six other poets and illustrated by the late Parkinson’s artist Robert Tingey, Moonlight over the Siding (Interactive Press, 2018);
  
  
• a chapbook with haiku by Hazel Hall and tai chi by Angelina Egan, Step By Step (Ginninderra Press, Picaro Poets series, 2018); and
  
  
• Eggshell Sky with calligraphers Angela Hillier, Narelle Jones, and artists with Parkinson’s (2017).
  
  

Hazel holds a PhD from Monash University.

More on the Web: By, About, and Beyond

⚡ The Landscape Whispers, cheribun by Hazel Hall in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 29, August 2025); Second Place Winner of MacQ’s third Cheribun Challenge

⚡ Ghosts of Gershwin, cheribun story by Hazel Hall in MacQueen’s Quinterly (Issue 25, September 2024), long-listed Finalist in MacQ’s second Cheribun Challenge

⚡ The Miner’s Wife, sonka (sonnet + tanka) by Hazel Hall in Issue 21 of MacQ (January 2024)

⚡ A Question of Faith, Hazel’s tanka prose poem which also includes a pair of senryu and a cherita variation; MacQ publisher Clare MacQueen dubbed the piece “a heavenly hybrid” and selected it as one of eight Finalists in “The Question of Questions” Ekphrastic Writing Challenge (Issue 15, September 2022).

⚡ Culture Shock, Hazel’s cheribun in Issue 12 of MacQueen’s Quinterly (March 2022); Third Place Winner of MacQ’s first Cheribun Challenge

⚡ See MacQ’s Index of Contributors for half-a-dozen additional hybrid poems by Hazel Hall.