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So Adelaide’s Writers’ Week has been and gone but not without plenty of book-buying, meeting poets and attending the odd session here and there. The first was ‘Searching for Sylvia Plath’ facilitated by the fabulous Felicity Plunkett.
With around 10 biographies about Plath already, why do we need another? Well at a 1,000 pages, this appears to be the definitive one. Written by Heather Clarke over 12 years, Red Comet covers every aspect of Plath’s life, from when she began writing her first poems at 5, through repeated medical trauma and self-medication to her somewhat fraught relationship with Ted Hughes, its a culmination of endless hours in the Plath archives trawling through her journals, letters and photographs. It’s only since her untimely death that Plath has been recognised for the trailblazer she was, a professional writer with a strong work ethic who immersed herself in a world of words, including these rather profound ones when feeding back on the work of her mother’s friend:
Let the wind blow in more roughly.
The next session I went to was ‘Poetry in the Age of Absolutely Everything’ with UK Poet Laureate Simon Armitage, again in conversation with Felicity.
Appointed in May 2019, Simon talked about how the role of Poet Laureate changed after the death of Ted Hughes to more of a working role spanning 10 years rather than a lifetime, establishing the Laurel Prize for eco and nature writing during his. Simon shared entertaining stories from his 256 mile Walking Home project in 2010, which involved walking the Pennines the wrong way giving readings and surviving on whatever was given by his audience, as well as some of the poems he wrote, often with rhyme and rhythm synonymous with a purposeful trek. Simon also held the Oxford Professor of Poetry for four years, publishing a collection of essays during his time to explore how this form takes new directions down old roads, with some debating:
poetry’s constant anxiety about its own existence.
In between these sessions, I joined award-winning author Ellen van Neerven‘s ‘Desire in Poetry’ Masterclass, which examined the different ways this can be expressed through example poems, insightful discussion and a series of writing prompts. And of course, Writers’ Week isn’t complete without a visit to the book tent where I bought a few somethings to keep me going.
With Adelaide Writers’ Week wrapped up for another year, I want to share some of the highlights for me, predominantly poetry, despite the limited selection this time.
The Opening Address, Imagination Redeems, was delivered by Ben Okri, a Man Booker Prize winner for his novel The Famished Road. Ben was an engaging speaker, believing that “literature is one of the great freedoms” and that “reading happens in the theatre of the mind”. Being human is a strange condition, which we “seem to accept and hurry about our lives”, and Ben went onto explain the concept of unfreedom, where “our deepest dreams are strangled at the roots of their dreaming place”. Ben left us with these words:
The strength of our freedom is wholly dependent on our imagination. Children see small castles in stones growing into adults who cannot see the small stones in castles. Literature is a way of seeing with the mind.
The first session was Open Book with David Malouf, the title of his new collection, which spans all stages of life. David explained how he learnt poems by heart, his first favourite being Kenneth Slessor, quickly followed by Rainer Maria Rilke, Wallace Stevens, Emily Dickinson and W B Yeats. For David, poetry comes from a dreaming, rather than a thinking, place, and when planning a collection, he waits until he has enough poems and then tries to order them in a coherent way. David shared the title poem from his new collection, and ‘On the Move’ and ‘Late Poem’, stressing the importance of close listening and layering in language.
Next up was Fiona Wright’s The World was Whole, the follow up to her award-winning essay collection Small Acts of Disappearance. Fiona’s writing is mesmerising, part poet, part memoir, who doesn’t consider herself to be a confessional writer. She’s not ashamed of her illness, with her new book about managing it on a daily basis. When stuck, she reads Helen Garner, a famous diarist and thinks herself a slow writer, having to battle with a double consciousness in that she can never just sit in a park and relax, her mind is constantly working. Fiona spoke about transcendent time (a journey) and imminent time (here and now) – her new book focuses on the latter.
The final session I went to were the Poetry Readings with Birgitta Jónsdóttir, David Malouf, Fiona Wright, Joelle Taylor and Ben Okri. Birgitta’s an Icelandic poet, who read a moving piece about refugees as heroes and another about colonising women inspired by the #metoo movement. David read a poem about the war in Brisbane in 1944 from his first solo collection, followed by a few from Earth Hour, another of his fascinating works. Joelle’s a spoken word poet, sharing how she was raped by soldiers when she was five then reading excerpts from a canto in her new collection, Songs My Enemy Taught Me, to express this trauma. Fiona read from her new collection, Domestic Interior, including the title poem and the entertaining ‘Thank you internet’ which comprised a conversation Fiona overhead in a café. Ben closed the session by sharing a love poem, and another about stars and wishes/fishes, a clever play on words.
Needless to say my book collection has grown considerably with a few of them signed, so roll on next year’s Writers’ Week, and may there be plenty more of the poetic kind.
This took place yesterday in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden, as part of Adelaide Writer’s Week, with a spectacular line-up – Alison Flett, Nelson Hedditch, Rachael Mead, Rob Walker and Manal Younus.
Facilitated by Peter Goldsworthy, a stalwart of the South Australian poetry scene, each poet was introduced to share some of their work with a packed audience. Alison was up first.
I love Alison’s work, particularly her fox and vessel poems, of which, among others, she shared both. ‘Liminoid’ is from Semiosphere, Alison’s Little Windows chapbook, and describes an encounter with a fox where there was still all the noise going on around me but there was a pencil line of silence running between me and the fox.
Alison then shared the first part of the trilogy ‘Vessel’, which symbolises the stages of womanhood and opens with:
No one else has seen inside this child.
She is small. The sky does not yet come down
around her. It is still contained
in a blue strip at the top of the page.
Nelson was up next, a performance poet I wasn’t familiar with, who has a passion for rhythm and words, which punched through. With his collection Never Finish Anything, Nelson began with ‘End to the Means’, which, like any brilliant performance poet, he recited from memory. ‘Homeostasis’ slowed down the pace from a song, ending in the line when I was born, I looked into my dad’s eyes like I’d been here before. Nelson also shared a poem written by his grandmother, ‘Words are dry shells, which presented a series of evocative images. When not poeting, Nelson is a hip-hop artist by the name of Dialect, at which I’m sure he’s just as talented.
Third to read was Rachael, another of my favourite poets, sharing some of my favourites too, starting with ‘The wild grammar of leeches’ from her new collection The Flaw in the Pattern, UWA Publishing :
I shed my clothes like an awful first draft, splashing river
on my face and into places used to their own company…
I look down to find my body being edited, its pages
harshly corrected with black punctuation.
Rachael also read ‘Powerless’, an award-winning poem I’ve shared on here recently from the Grieve Anthology along with ‘The dog, the blackbird and the anxious mind’, which was published in Meanjin, where while walking the dog, he drags me like I’m emotional baggage he’s desperate to escape.
Rob took to the podium next, again whose work I admire. He opened with ‘An accident waiting to happen’ from his collection Tropeland, Five Islands Press, which relayed a series of bad things, including I am the scissors in the hand of the running child. Rob also read ‘A Clarity of Smog’, which won Friendly Street Poet’s Satura Prize in 2015 (the year one of my own was shortlisted), followed by ‘radiology’ from his chapbook Policies & Procedures, Garron Publishing, where:
holding our futures in nervous hands
we come with xrays – ikons
in large envelopes with corporate logos…
this arcane analysis
reading the stars within…
Manal finished the set, another unfamiliar poet to me, her poise and delivery impeccable. Manal began with ‘Girl’, in honour of International Women’s Day tomorrow, further emphasised by the readings being held where they were. A particularly poignant piece, it compared woman to tree where ‘flowers are bi-products’ culminating in the stunning lines:
The burden is not who you are
but who you are asked to be.
Manal then shared a poem she had performed earlier that day, ‘Colour me in’, at a high school, in which we’re asked to colour me kind, colour me strong and colour me conscience so I see things others do not.
The readings were followed by the essential book buying and signing, so once again, I’ve got me some reading to do!
Adelaide’s Writers’ Week kicks off this Saturday with an impressive program full of all things literary, so there’ll be something for everyone.
Held in the Pioneer Women’s Memorial Garden, there’ll be a plethora of poets, novelists, playwrights, historians, biographers and memoirists, all genres to captivate and challenge the crowd. Notable events are; Mike Ladd chatting about his recent collection of poetry, Invisible Mending, published by Wakefield Press; an interview with Ken Bolton, ‘a laconic and discursive poet’, aswell as art critic, editor and publisher; and the coveted poetry readings presented by Peter Goldsworthy, with a stunning line-up.
Jan Owen and Cath Kenneally, stalwarts of the South Australian poetry scene, are joined by Steve Brock, Jules Leigh Koch, Louise Nicholas and Dominic Symes. Jules and Louise I know well and are incredibly talented poets; Jan I’m learning an invaluable amount from through her monthly workshops; Cath and Steve I’m still relatively new to their work; and Dominic I believe is an up and coming poet, one to watch.
Unfortunately, however, I’ll be en route to New Zealand to explore the South Island so will miss the entire week! Note to self for next time – avoid holidays in March.
I was one of five guest poets invited to read at Payneham Library yesterday as part of the Friendly Street Poet readings and it was a fab line-up – with Thom Sullivan headlining backed up by Cary Hamyln, David Mortimer, me and Russ Talbot, all introduced by the charming Louise Nicholas.
Now I warn you this is not an in-depth detailed analysis like my usual posts. Mainly because I find it difficult to focus when I know I’ll be up there shortly! But also because I’m going to the launch of both Cary’s and Russ’s chapbooks later this week, so you know, didn’t want to duplicate too much (and then there’s the nervous concentration thing…)
Anyhow, Thom kicked off still basking in the glow of his reading at the Adelaide Writer’s Week a few weeks ago. Thom reads well, there’s a certain quiet strength about him with which he captures his audience and what particularly stood out for me was Thom’s acknowledgement that we poets stand on the shoulders of greats, a responsibility we all share, a profound statement. Thom shared poems he wrote during last year’s National Poetry Month, including ‘Crow poem’ and ‘Living in a draught, which can be found here on his blog.
Next up was Cary who, although not new to the poetry scene, confessed she has not given many readings (like me!). Cary read from her new chapbook Scraping the night, part of the Picaro Poets series published by Ginninderra Press and began with the title poem, followed by ‘Moment of departure’, ‘Time is a hound’ and ‘Future prince’ to name a few, with the titles alone enough to pull you in. Cary’s poems left me with some very vivid images but as said, more to follow about this shortly.
David went up next, reading a selection of poems from his collections, including ‘No wonder’ and ‘Towards evening’ from Magic Logic published by Puncher & Wattmann. David, like Thom, is one of many amazing local poets here in Adelaide and is also adept in his delivery, finishing with a very clever poem about Keats and Wordsworth, who are considered to be part of the thousands of greats Tom referred to earlier.
And then it was me. Louise did a wonderful introduction, mentioning my blog so I thought yes, better post about this event then(!). I opened with a new poem based on our Oodnadatta travels last October, a kind of sestina and probably the longest poem I’ve written to date. I then shared ‘Hoodlums’ recently published in InDaily, followed by three from my collection Smashed glass at midnight and ended with a poem I plan to include in my next collection I’m just finalising (yay!). Think I did ok.
Russ finished the guest poet line-up sharing work read by Jennifer Liston due to his acquired brain injury as a result of a brain tumour. I’ve never read any of Russ’s work before, it was breathtaking, as poems were read from his new collection Things that make your heart beat, also part of the Picaro Poets series from Ginninderra Press. And like Cary to be officially launched later this week, so I’m going to leave you hanging for the detail.
After a short coffee break it was open mic time, where we heard the likes of Ian Gibbins, Martin Christmas (who was also happily snapping away), Judy Dally, Louise Nicholas (the MC) and Mike Hopkins, all of whom were highly entertaining. And there were a few first time readers as well whom the room applauded, something that happened to me at my first ever reading here, which is incredibly endearing and encouraging.
So that’s it. I managed to sell, correction, the dazzling Jules Leigh Koch (who invited me to be a guest poet) managed to sell five of my chapbooks (which made my husband happy when I got home!) and I also had a lady approach me in the break to tell me how beautiful my poems were and how much she could relate to them, which I found very touching. All in all it was a wonderful way to spend a Sunday afternoon, set me up for the week it did.
This year’s line-up at Adelaide Writers’ Week were all from South Australia – Aidan Coleman, Jelena Dinic, Jill Jones, Kate Llewellyn and Thom Sullivan – who shared poems from their own collections as well as from a poet who has influenced them.
Peter Goldsworthy compered the event, telling us about the new state-by-state anthologies from Australian Book Review (ABR), in which these poets feature, before moving on to introduce each of them.
Aidan opened the session with two poems from Asymmetry published by Brandl & Schlesinger Poetry, a collection that focuses on his painstaking recovery following a stroke. ‘To play’ is a parody of putting himself back together, asking us to ‘catch a face before it slides from the plate’ and in ‘New York’, the last poem in the collection, they were ‘leaving an afternoon of coloured glass and temples’. Next Aidan read his ‘Secondary’ series about these colours, where in ‘Green’ ‘lungs are scoured by brillo air’, ‘the heart is a wound or badge’ in ‘Purple’ and how ‘Orange’ ‘is the light of a cupped match.’ From his new chapbook, Cartoon Snow available from Garron Publishing, Aidan read the title poem asking us to ‘go where a blue night is snowing to itself’ followed by ‘Barbarian studies’, where ‘kids jostle, shove and swing like wrecking balls’. Aidan’s influence was John Forbes, an Australian poet, and he finished with a poem of his own about motivational posters, where ‘scent falls upward like helium.’
Next up was Jelena whose work I just adore, influenced by Vasko Popa, a Serbian poet. Jelena started with ‘Dawn chorus’, a sinister poem about her ancestors from her chapbook, Buttons on my Dress also by Garron Publishing, where ‘under their tall hats time waits’ followed by ‘Visiting’, describing a time Jelena returned to her hometown culminating in the fantastic lines ‘Lamp-lit photographs are mute. I pretend to know the answer’. Next up was ‘Wedding’ where she asks the obligatory question ‘stepping on his foot just in case’ and then one of my favourites ‘Portrait of Olympia the Prostitute’ which is just that, ‘her black-cat eyes mastering the craft of the second hand love.’ ‘Ballad retold’ was a longer piece from the chapbook, as well as its final one, in which she walks ‘fine lines where beauty hurts’. Jelena finished with a poem by Popa called ‘Before the game’, which she read in English and then Serbian, in particular for her parents in the audience.
Jill’s work is exquisite, her poems have been described as ‘tapestries of the present’, and she didn’t fail to impress. She began however, with her influence Peter Gizzi an American poet producing layered poems both intimate and global. Jill then read ‘Bent’, her poem in ABR’s state anthology, where ‘I make sense then drop it, it gets dirty, it breaks, the ants carry it’, a very poignant piece and with the poems that followed, Jill went on to paint equally vivid images – ‘maps of rain and passage of stars’ and ‘the sky is as opaque as reality’. Jill shared a few poems from her new collection Breaking the Days published by Whitmore Press Poetry, starting with ‘Happy families where ‘your own genius spooks, it runs to the cupboard and breaks all the plates’, followed by a sense of separation in ‘Fractions’ where ‘you could be tempted to fold’ and in ‘Not all choices’, she is out ‘to relieve the dog of its chasing thought and the business in the head’.
Now I must admit Kate is new to me, I’ve not heard her read before, but she was introduced as SA’s most popular writer, known to her friends for her legendary letters. Kate started with ‘Harbour’ about both sailing into Sydney and growing old, where ‘the little casual things I see grow into a roar.’ Kate’s next poem ‘Dirt’ was very amusing, with which she falls in love through gardening, comparing it to Mr Right with a subtle rhyme throughout. In ‘Oxytocin’, included in the new ABR anthology, the line ‘last night I strode among the stars’ is repeated at intervals creating a profound effect and in ‘Seeds’ we hear the story of Demeter and Persephone, where the latter is a ‘creature of light, the sun and beaches’. Kate then read ‘Older men’, a poem she wrote years ago before, in her own words, she got old, where he is ‘courteous with your mother whom he could have married’, another humorous poem ending with the line ‘consider this a shopping list’. To compliment this, Kate finished with a poem by David Campbell, her influence, called ‘Younger women’ with their ‘blue stare of cool surprise’.
Thom I’ve heard before at Lee Marvin, and again was moved by the pieces he shared. After Peter spoke of Thom’s good use of colons to separate snatches of thought or dreams, he opened with a poem called ‘Homosuburbius’ and its repetitive line of ‘you’re dreaming still’, with ‘post boxes gagging junk mail’ and where ‘late night programming is flickering under their eyelids’. Thom’s next three poems were pastoral ones about his hometown in the hills presenting us with different aspects of it. In ‘Threshold’ there is ‘a fine grain of stars’ and in ‘Freehold’ there are ‘a pair of eagles riding the thermals’. The poet A R Ammons was one of Thom’s influences so he read one of his poems called ‘The city limits’ followed by a two-part one of his own called ‘Carte blanche’, where there is ‘death with a moon in her pocket’ to prove a poem can be serious without being solemn. Thom finished with his poem ‘Nothing doing’ from Australian Love Poems 2013 published by Inkerman & Blunt, where we find that ‘a bowerbird is hoarding memories’.
It was an amazing session (both the first and only one I will unfortunately have time to attend at this year’s Writers’ Week) with some damn fine poems, plenty to absorb and ponder.
Adelaide Writer’s Week that is, and I went along to my first session yesterday to hear Julia Gillard talk about her new book.
In the 35 degree heat albeit with partial shade, Julia’s session was literally bursting at the seams with the crowd of people there to hear her, many standing due to a lack of available seats, a sure sign of this ex-prime minister’s continuing popularity. Julia is an amazing public speaker, one question being posed at the end asking her if she knew of any courses, programs, free downloads where one can learn this skill, to which she replied that being part of a high school debating team considerably helped.
The interview was interesting, the host Laura Kroetsch probing Julia about her time in office, how she got there, memorable moments and the impact they had on her family. And in turn Julia provided very informative and heartfelt responses, which at times were highly entertaining, perhaps endearing her only further to her hometown of Adelaide. And the queue of fans afterwards to get their copies of My Story signed snaked around the garden!
So other sessions I plan to attend next week are the Poetry Readings tomorrow where Barry Hill, Anne Kennedy, Omar Musa, Samuel Wagan Watson and Ian Wedde will read a selection of their work, and then Shorts on Thursday with Cate Kennedy and Angela Meyer talking about the art of the short story. Oh, and of course there will be the obligatory visit to the book tent, must remember to take a sturdy bag…
I have just started my online feedback course through the Poetry School based in London hosted by Catherine Smith. Catherine’s work is just delicious, her collection of small stories, The Biting Point, evoke such powerful imagery in a hauntingly beautiful way.
The course runs over 10 weeks with members of the group uploading poems for feedback from each other on a fortnightly basis. Poets can upload as many versions of the same poem during this time, for Catherine to then feedback on the final version at the end of each two week slot. The idea is to dig out those ‘problem pieces’ that just don’t feel right – and I have plenty of these believe me, where I like a particular line or concept but something is just not working.
I’m finding it to be an incredibly useful experience, and have created a feedback document for each of my own pieces in which I’m saving all the comments I receive to later review the work with these to hand. And I’m meeting some wonderful like-minded poets along the way, who I hope to remain in contact with after the course has finished.
January has been a busy month. Other things keeping me buzzing are submissions – five achieved so far to a mixture of magazines and competitions – keeping up to date with the latest publications which yes, does involve purchasing some collections and books, and working out which sessions to attend during Adelaide Writers’ Week starting later this month. So having my wonderful Writer’s Diary has been an absolute saviour! It has really got me organised with submission deadlines, when to work on them in advance as I have, in the past, missed some due to a lack of allocated time, so every Friday now is just chock-a-block of what to achieve. The old paid job gets in the way 😉
J V Birch 