Alex Skovron was born in Poland, lived briefly in Israel, and emigrated to Australia in 1958. His family settled in Sydney, where he grew up and completed his studies. Since the early 1970s he has worked as a book editor for various publishers; he now lives in Melbourne, is married with two children, and works as a freelance editor.
Alex’s has read twice for Wordplay, and can always be relied upon to bring a bit of decorum to proceedings, with a mastery of the language that makes what he does seem deceptively easy. His Alex-off with Alex Scott in November 2008 was a memorable contrast in styles. Alex’s poetry has been published widely and five collections have appeared to date, most recently The Man and the Map (2003) and Autographs (2008), a book of prose-poems. Awards have included the Wesley Michel Wright Prize for Poetry (twice), the John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award (twice), the Australian Book Review Poetry Prize (2007), and (for his first collection) the Anne Elder and Mary Gilmore awards. His prose novella, The Poet (2005) was joint winner (with Kate Grenville) of the FAW Christina Stead Award for fiction. A book of short stories is in preparation.
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Supplication
Let the film turn before it touches the Moment. Let the motorcade stop, drift backward down the plaza. Let the jetliner freeze, metres short of the tower, flow back out of the frame like a toy wing at the sling’s limit. Let the black plumes billowing from the edifice be reinhaled to unmask the blue. Let the bullet thread with a thud back in the barrel crouching in the gateway, the victim clinch his scarf and vanish within. Let the high sniper crawl from his perch, scrabble back down the fire-escape, the drunken messenger lift his stone boot from the pedal, his machine veer backward from the X. Let the siren’s wail diminish again, let the smoke be sucked back, the ovens clang open. Let the battalions pause on their relentless march, the battleships heave about, the bombs plunge upward. Let the tanks unroll, let the stormtroops halt, pummel grotesquely backward down the boulevard, let the proud man-children in camouflage watch their rifles fetched from their palms, the proud inflamed barefoot boy-children receive their stones flung back in their fists. Let firsts unfurl. Let hearts. Let every prayer open with Amen, each breath be the ending of a prayer without words, let words unravel, and all manner of thoughts, and things done and undone, let the Moment be immaculate and true, untouchable as a dream. And let the days unfold and fold back again, so that as we awaken and begin to forget the dream, we remember the Moment.
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- Alex Skovron was born in Poland, lived briefly in Israel, and emigrated to Australia in 1958. His family settled in Sydney, where he grew up and completed his studies. Since the early 1970s he has worked as a book editor for various publishers; he now lives in Melbourne, is married with two children, and works as a freelance editor.
- Alex’s poetry has been published widely and five collections have appeared to date, most recently The Man and the Map (2003) and Autographs (2008), a book of prose-poems. Awards have included the Wesley Michel Wright Prize for Poetry (twice), the John Shaw Neilson Poetry Award (twice), the Australian Book Review Poetry Prize (2007), and (for his first collection) the Anne Elder and Mary Gilmore awards. His prose novella, The Poet (2005) was joint winner (with Kate Grenville) of the FAW Christina Stead Award for fiction. A book of short stories is in preparation.