Dear Friends, A year ago Collected Works Bookshop was faced with an uncertain future as we digested implication of the large rent rise (unforeseen as we sought new 4 year lease). The support we received from our poetry community (writers & readers) was fantastic! The Christmas Benefit (December, '10), organized by Friends of Collected Works, was a huge & positive interjection (dollars & cents, morale, energy). Our programme of book launchings + readings have sustained this momentum. But a new problem, or a new context for the problem, has emerged. Turning around the public perception of the collapse of bricks & mortar book trade in the wake of the Borders/A & R crash is the new challenge. It is fortuitous, therefore, that the McBryde/Harrison/Smeaton "BIG READ" is just around the corner. Please see here first announcement of the programme:
You are Cordially Invited to
A Poets’ Benefit Event for Collected Works Bookshop
featuring
jordieALBISTON, connieBARBER, tonyBIRCH, lynBOUGHTON,
eddyBURGER, m.a.CARTER, jenniferCOMPTON, alisonCROGGON, danDISNEY, megDUNN, michaelFARRELL, susanFEALY, wendyFLEMING, leeFUHLER, claireGASKIN,
luisGONZALEZ SERRANO, timHAMILTON, libbyHART, lynHATHERLY, susanHAWTHORNE, kristinHENRY, andyJACKSON, KOMNINOS, michelleLEBER, geoffLEMON,
LISH, rayLIVERSIDGE, earlLIVINGS, kerryLOUGHREY, myronLYSENKO, bronwynMANGER, emilyMANGER, felixNOBIS, anthonyO’SULLIVAN, k.f.PEARSON, PI O, judithRODRIGUEZ, josephineROWE, robynROWLAND, gigRYAN, kerrySCUFFINS, tomSHAPCOTT, steveSMART, jennySTRAUSS, fionaSTUART, peterTIERNAN, lyndonWALKER, chrisWALLACE-CRABBE, ceciliaWHITE, petraWHITE, laurenWILLIAMS
plus
jenniferHARRISON (reading dorothyPORTER)
kenSMEATON (reading malMORGAN)
ianMcBRYDE (reading barbaraGILES)
FRIDAY, AUGUST 19th, 6:30 for 7 pm
__________________________________
at Collected Works Bookshop,
1st Floor, The Nicholas Building, 37 Swanston St., Melbourne
(corner Swanston St. and Flinders Lane)
Free Admission for all, the only prerequisite asked is to please buy a book or three to keep Collected Works thriving and alive!
Complimentary Wine & Nibbles Provided Inquiries : Collected Works 9654 8873
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Friday, August 5, 2011
Sunday, July 3, 2011
THE MERRI CREEK : POEMS & PIECES, # 24, July 2011
GREGORY DAY
The Uncool Eloquence Of Mark Tredinnick
(Address given at the Melbourne Launch of Fire Diary
at Collected Works Bookshop on May 27, 2011.)
I always think that a good book is not one which you necessarily enjoy but one that you remember. Likewise, the test of a poem for me is often something similar – not necessarily a matter of subject or style, nor metrical pyrotechnics or even the cleverness of its intellectual riffing, and definitely not its erudition or intertextuality, which too often are worn like the watch on a busy man’s wrist, or the mobile phone that goes off in a movie. The question for me, the measure of these things, is somehow about about the ear and the tongue - has the poet a capacity to make a line, or even an image or a joke, that I want to say again, that resounds in the ear and is pleasurable well afterwards, even becoming necessary to repeat. By heart, as the saying goes. By heart.
This very requirement points to the unusual, and probably unfashionable quality in Fire Diary, the eloquence of Mark Tredinnick. Fire Diary is full of memorable image, joke and line. As Pound would say, perhaps a bit disingenuously for him, it has ‘a quality of affection that carves the trace in the mind’. No mean feat. This is the first thing that struck me about the book, and soon I found myself thinking of it in geological terms as some kind of magnetic anomaly in the poetry world. Or in ecological terms, as charismatic fauna. It was the nature of its cadence. Its ability to be poetry with all the rigour that that implies, and to communicate vocally from the page. It was its preparedness to take on the mantle, the reality of its voice.
The narrowness of my view, and I do admit it’s narrow, is such that whenever I read an Australian writer, poet, novelist or otherwise, there is a way in which I am looking for the role he or she might play, not so much in the national conversation, but in a kind of parallel national constellation of artists. I think I listen out for a pitch with something unusually real about it, something inexplicable too that I can’t trace through the grids of reason and therefore something symbolic of the mysteries of existence. Something both of, and beyond, the muck and verbiage, the bowel movements of the consumerist media. I need to situate the voice too in relation to what for me remains an unfederated landscape – this still moving continent.
It’s because this country we’re on is such an old distillery, such a strong and, in terms of biodiversity, such a copious drop, that I’m always fascinated to observe the ways in which we’re still getting to know it, even those whose families have lived here for thousands of years. To me Mark’s particular talent, and a very distinct one I see it as in the Australian context, is his ability to write from a fair dinkum knowledge of that landscape, a micro to macro understanding of it, and then to transform that experience of the world into a properly epigrammatic line, such as – ‘who we are is who we’re not. Whatever it is we’re part of’ - or, ‘The night smells like any one of a dozen childhood camps/in which the present has pitched her tent’ or ‘mortality is the price we pay for form’, or ‘the world is a mystery occluded by reality’ or, the soul will always choose a holy mess above a tidy fraud’, or even, referring no doubt in this case to the ignorance of those who can’t distinguish symbolism from historical fact in the Book of Genesis, – ‘seven days is all eternity for a people with no memory’. In this ability to harness aphorism and resonators Mark blends a great gift for listening with lyrical ears to the outdoor tunings of existence. He does it with a defiant neo-romantic belief, it’s a kind of heroic dare I’d say, a belief, or at least, in his words, a ‘trying to believe’, in a world intact, in the beauty of the processes of the universe, the brokenness of wholeness, as opposed to dogmas of wholesomeness, the world both violent, rapid and glacial, and sweet.
Now coming from a man literate in geology, in astronomy, in ornithology and meteorology – which he would call the study of ‘blue machinery’ - but also in the death of species and the self generating masochism of post industrial capitalism - ‘there aren’t many wild places left: death is one’ -, this belief in the sanctity of nature, which is everywhere implied in these poems, this almost boyish heartfeltness integrated with the grown-up accomplishment of his poetic craft, is quite special. With these talents converging Mark becomes a singer, motivated by, and loyal to, the impulse of beauty in the world, because, once again in the words of his book: ‘no-one reads poetry to learn how to vote. Verse can’t change/the future’s mind. You write it like rain; you enter it like nightfall’.
And here’s another one – ‘Let your mind be like the fox you caught earlier eating pizza from a box/on the porch in the dark: go hungry, but not too hungry. Know a gift/ when you see one. Take it but leave the box. Turn but don’t run’. Again, a quality I’d like to re-emphasise about Fire Diary, beyond its pretty uncool delivery of wisdom into the ironic heart of contemporary poetry, - is how well Mark knows the world of which he speaks. He lives in the NSW southern highlands, closer to the sunrise than where I live on Victoria’s southwest coast, and there’s obviously more European trees, but nevertheless there is sometimes a unifying sense amongst those of us who live outside the urban areas of Australia that the very nomenclature of the landscapes we inhabit make some of our work seem a little intransigent or even obscure to editors living in the big cities. Sometimes when urban editors see bluestone laneways we see the basalt the lanes were cut from. There are many things in the daily life of the natural world which don’t make the news or the cultural tourism brochures, nor David Attenborough or even YouTube – and which, when described and reembodied in words and then sent away to town, can seem just like a sword stroke in the water.
But here in Mark’s book is not only an overcoming of that difficult translation, but also an exactness about the phenomenological experience of the emotionally struck human figure in the massive midst of stars, birds, storms, dawns, trees both European and Indigenous and rivers both fucked up and restored. That’s another dubious view I personally suffer from – I squint at nature poems sometimes, seeking out, with an initial lack of trust I must admit, the proof that the poet is not just some subjective romantic, that the poet truly knows the hill of which he or she speaks, not just as fodder and not just as an artefact, as a living hill that I might know too, experientially, not only by the digestion of Common and Latin names, not by a grasp even of geomorphology or the igneous past, but as a personal witness in time, a witness to the particular music of wind amongst its trees, the emotional feel of a possum landing, as Mark writes – ‘like ordinance on the roof’, the leadlighting of cicada wings, the mad scale of plovers, - all these things are in Fire Diary - Mark captures the sound of plovers so surprisingly with the question that I’ll always ask now when the plover calls - ‘why will a river not stay in the ground?’
Fire Diary is in this sense the real deal, the craft-quality of it is a given in Mark’s case and of course there’s not too many first books of poetry of which you could say that - this book has, both superficially and profoundly too, been a long time coming.
What Fire Diary has above all, what I admire about it so much, and why I’m so glad to help launch it here in the south, is its personal vulnerability - Mark himself I think calls it a ‘confessional ecology’. For me it’s a capacity, simultaneous with his geomorphological understanding, astute metrics and attention to imagistic detail, to love and cry on the page, to be embarrassed on the page, to be clearsighted on the page about danger and risk, but to include wist and sentiment and the plangent among its palette, to invoke Gaia in full lament of our destructive idiocy, and to hell with the consequences. For me this makes Fire Diary not only the work of a wordsmith I admire but of a mature person, someone who’s lived and decided to live on. It is a mature book, not only in this personal sense but I think its intellectually grown-up as well because it is such an emotionally intelligent collection. I sense a lack of fear behind the writing of these poems that perhaps, amongst other things, a musical ear and private suffering can give you - it gives Mark access to his art, and a sense in it of him living his own dedicated life, perhaps not his first life, perhaps even his second or third, - ‘Your new life’s just your old life with a book in its hand’ - but a life therefore he has made himself, a poetry he has both chosen and laid himself open to, with the inspiration of the earth, I must say, like olivine-rich basalt at its core.
In these poems there are the strains of making a living – ‘writing 50 dollar poems at a 1000 dollar desk’ - a hint of Francis Webb’s idea of the poet as Franciscan jongleur or fool, as he struggles to write in his home shed which once housed the fundamental productivity of cows; the primary relief and joy he finds in his wife and children, in sex and fatherhood; and also the preternatural him, in the midst of writing the poems. Of course there is literary lineage, there are in these poems what George Steiner would call ‘real presences’, or what Jed Rasula in his recent groundbreaking study of ecological imperatives in American poetry, would call ‘compost’ – there’s Robert Frost and Robert Gray, Walt Whitman and Rumi and Charles Wright, there’s an enormous North American influence actually, a deciduousness you could say - he’s at his most vernacular in his wit but quite trans-Pacific in his cadence - and there’s always an Asiatic spareness, which at least implies the minimal – he’s too loquacious to be a minimalist proper, but there are the open empty spaces on the page winking at the reader…….
And there’s also GS, the writer and academic George Seddon, who Mark has spoken to me about in our conversations, a huge figure I know in his coming-into-a-voice, a mentor of landprints, and who is mentioned here in the fifteenth Eclogue – ‘The places don’t sing,/ GS said to me once; in particular they don’t sing you-/ George, a father to me, who died in his garden last week/a man with a river in him when we met, until we fished it out, and I’m still in it/They don’t sing, GS; they just are, That’s how they sing, and that’s what they teach’
That is a lesson which is perhaps never fully learnt but which speaks of a rich bequest, a basically Copernican lesson so crucial in the current plight of nature that we trash. And a lesson recast here by the poet, in homage and well aware of its lyric lineage – Wallace Stevens’ Idea of Order At Key West, Robert Duncan’s Often I Am Permitted To Return To A Meadow, to name just two.
So Fire Diary is a moment I think, at the risk of coming on too grand, a distinct moment in the timeline of our poetry here, where the astringent drywitted truth of this worn-back place comes together with the succulent riparian eloquence of a man prepared not just to quip or allude or re-arrange or meditate, but to openly sing and cry. There’s a lot of people who have been waiting for this book to appear for years. I know Mark has. But good things take time. As a man in Borneo said to me once – the good life moves at the pace of the river.
Lastly, I want to say that the title piece, Fire Diary, a talismanic poem I think which may well grace poetry anthologies for years to come, demonstrates best the value at the heart of this collection – in short, Fire Diary, the poem and the book, shows us exactly how much we have to fear, and why we should not fear it. Quite an achievement really, the achievement of a poet. It’s cause for celebration tonight. Well done Mark. Thanks, and congratulations.
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KRIS HEMENSLEY & LIBBY HART
"THIS FLOATING WORLD" : A CONVERSATION*
KH : Congratulations on your new book! As my own publishing reduces so my admiration for other writers who continue to publish & perform increases. It even excites my curiosity for reentering the fray myself!
In your written inscription in my comp of This Floating World (Five Islands Press, '11) , you thank me for "agreeing to take the journey" with you... 'Journey''s a good word... a journey, like this conversation... We can never assume we've begun at the same place though we may hope, eventually, to find ourselves on the same page! And being writers as well as readers we're even more eccentric in our disposition than the impartial reader. Our partiality is formed by our own journeys (--suddenly remember here Pound's great word "hewn", from Whitman's wood?)...
LH : I think every book is a journey the author/poet takes. It starts at that most embryonic stage where a few words begin to form and continues on until these and many other words are polished, printed and then bound, until it is officially called “a book”. Interwoven in all of this are the many footsteps, forward marches, U-turns, compass readings and standing-still moments taken to produce the work. Then a “reading” journey begins when it becomes independent and exposed in the world. But This Floating World is also a journey in itself because the songline of the same name, which makes up most of the book, is an aural map of the island of Ireland...
KH : And Poetry forces one to agree to yet another embarkation --more than a nibble & a taste since this book isnt a miscellany but a sequence... I'd love to hear you read How Like --it's a poem outside of the central sequence, --and maybe those first poems are the proem?-- And it's simultaneously physical & mental --palpable (of the real world) & poetical --it contains the beautiful, it alludes to properties of language --it usefully leads one's reading in different directions...
LH : I find it interesting that you selected How Like for me to read from the individual poems at the beginning of the book. This poem actually has nothing to do with Ireland, but it does contain similar themes the songline encapsulates. The poem was written for Bob Dylan and it is included in The Captain's Tower: Poems for Bob Dylan at 70 (published by Seren Books, Wales). The premise of the anthology is basically 70 poems by 70 poets to celebrate Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday last month.
How like
And I am wondering about your face,
how it alters when a mood takes hold.
Such a changeling
like a sparrow, like a burning flutter,
higher and higher up into the tree.
Like a breath by cold night,
the crispest revelation breaking ice.
What is left is the warmest sensation at the pit of stomach.
How like a stretched metaphor you are,
how like broken branches from an apple tree.
Like its fallen fruit half-eaten by animals.
How like a mystery,
entangled by the twang of a country that can’t own you.
How like an endless path of thought.
How like a mesmeriser
with the power of foresight.
How like his instruments buzzing blackly across my mind.
How like the concept of the wheel,
of the science of silence.
How like etcetera in the tall, green grasses.
How like a slipperiness of truth slithering by and by.
How like the moon in all of its tiredness,
of the river who waits for the clearest direction to your door.
*
During the editing process, Lyn Hatherly (of Five Islands Press) chose a very small handful of poems to be included at the beginning of the book. I was interested to see that she had selected this poem because it goes very well with the themes of the songline as it reiterates the idea that ‘we are all made of stars’, that we are connected to all things and to each other. My main aim for this poem was to say that although we are flesh and blood we are also the trees, the moon, the river, the birds and so on.
KH : I love "like a sparrow, like a burning flutter", and "like a stretched metaphor", and "like etcetera in the tall green grasses", and "like a slipperiness of truth slithering by and by"...
Can I share with you my stance at the beginning of my own serious writing, in the 1960s, when I would have been appalled by such a poem! I'd decided I was against metaphor, eschewing its obvious vehicle 'like'. I was for the concrete & against the poetical. In the '70s I wrote a prose-piece for the poet Alexandra Seddon, called The Danger of Like. I feared the trap of endless analogy, of the poetic cliche. I much preferred the idea of an equation or relation...
Of course I must remind myself that the literal subject of the poem is, as you say in the opening couplet, "And I am wondering about your face, / how it alters when a mood takes hold..."
And this combination of the literal, natural subject & cadence, and the metaphorical/analogical is probably your 'crucial contradiction' (as I call it), --essential to the edge or frisson of your poems...
As I say, I gradually yielded! Twenty or so years ago the lid came off & I became a poet --as you've always been!
*
I read your first book, Fresh News From the Arctic, when it was published by David Reiter's Interactive Publications in 2006, and then forgot about it until late last year when we were reintroduced at that most dramatic time in the life of this bookshop... And I couldnt help misreading the title as French News From the Arctic because of the way we could use 'French' as the particular sensibility it is --symbolistic, aware of language as its material, as its terrain, unlike our time's empirical, naturalistic style --unlike so much English-language poetry, despite the centrality of such wondrously 'French' (metaphorical, adjectival, analogical) writing --Shakespeare to Hopkins --Shakespeare, who is at the heart of English poetry, or let's say British poetry, so we could include the 19th Century's great gift of Gerald Manley Hopkins...
I think there are clues in Fresh News to the journey, the different kind of journey of This Floating World --or does a line like "I was leaving the known" speak to both books?
So, do you have a 'French' attitude rather than 'English/Australian'?
LH : I don’t see my work as being influenced by French poetry, although I am an admirer of it. If anything I have a European focus to my work. I guess that’s an unfashionable thing to say, but Europe is where my head is most of the time. I have to be open about that. And because of this I am drawn to European writers and to an overall sensibility that could be defined as European.
In terms of mainland Europe I would say that Russia has been a profound influence on me. And obviously I am drawn to Irish poetry and also to Scottish poetry. I think the key for me is I love colder weather. If you give me plenty of sunshine on a calm and pleasant day it’s not going to do a thing for me. What I love most is drama in the landscape – raging winds, a roaring sea and buckets of rain. I love the commotion of it and its mystery. I am most happy with all of this whirling around me and perhaps that is why I am so drawn to places like Russia and the Arctic, as well as Ireland. And obviously the Russian and Celtic psyches are things I can relate to very much, so these elements help me to connect to these landscapes and their people.
KH : Tell me about the Irish journey now, the language & the subject... In my head are other Australian-Irish poets, Robyn Rowland, obviously, Colleen Burke, Buckley, of course. (This is the third time I've formally addressed the subject : the Irish- Australian symposium at Queens College/University of Melbourne late 90s; and the examiner's report I wrote on Maria Hyland for Marion Campbell; and now today.) And would you read Wind-bent grasses...
LH : Regarding Wind-bent grasses, Figure at window, Dog : the songline (This Floating World) was born from an extensive road trip I undertook when I first visited Ireland in 2005. Wind-bent grasses and Figure at window, as well as Dog were things I witnessed and interpreted on my first day. And I must say that the majority of the journey the songline takes is part of the road trip’s route undertaken at that time. We began our journey in Belfast and moved west and down through much of the Republic.
The wind-bent grasses at Ballintoy are long and uncut by human or sheep. On the day I visited Ballintoy there was also a wild and whistle-soaked wind that made their plight in the world so much more dramatic and forsaken. Additionally the Portrush voice conveys what I saw from my hotel window that evening. I think this part of the songline is not complete unless I can also read Dog for you this afternoon.
*
Wind-bent grasses – Ballintoy
I’ve been sweating and weeping
against the bridge of days like a mute,
singing only to dogs.
If nothing else, they come to me
with their wet noses
snorting around,
digging up my very soul.
Let me speak
for it has been so long
since I’ve let my voice shine.
Give no mind to that mad wind
too full of itself. Listen only to me.
Catch my intentions in your hands,
grab them from that whistle-soaked air.
Don’t move away
let my words be heard,
it’s been too long in the waiting.
*
Figure at window – Portrush
The red tail lights of cars
move away from the town.
They leave in twos like devils’ eyes
down and down the cliff.
Looking north,
all this allegorical darkness.
It’s full and full-blown,
hiding those Portrush clouds.
What is it that the old man said?
That the north is where the devil lurks
catching the unwary in their tracks.
The small door in the church
was kept open for him.
It swung with a groan so fresh
like a child just home from school.
And now the legs of small dogs skedaddle
black and white in their pairs
with only the street light to guide them.
Small animated bodies
windblown by the Atlantic
with their man hunched over,
a cigarette in hand.
They’re going against the wind now, deep into it,
with those devils’ eyes so close behind.
*
Dog
I look up
at the nostrils of him,
wide with in-breathing.
His Irish legs keep walking him and walking me.
An Irishman needs his shoulders to walk.
Hunched over, it’s a process of swinging the arms,
swingin’ until the only thing that’s real is going forward.
Hard and soft, and hard again,
pressed flatly into wind like it’s a tug at something real.
It’s the black night we’re fighting, that we press through.
*
KH : Aware of the Irishness now --the oral oomph of the Irish (& the Scottish & the Welsh), which English poets of those British Isles find amazing & imposing whilst holding it slightly away --their continuing suspicion of everything from Yeats to Dylan Thomas... Specifically Irish in you... Remember Heaney on the Gaelic : I dont write in Gaelic, he says, but if it wasnt for the Gaelic my English would be different...
*
The songline, as you call it, which I've always associated with terra firma, is water-bound, all the way through --right from your quotation of Leanne O'Sullivan, "The ocean itself is flesh / and the delicate psalm of the heart is / beating somewhere in the core"... Your songline reminds me of both mysticism's songs to the beloved, and of actual flesh & blood's relations...
It's ghostly & physical simultaneously... And the Irish landscapes echo the speaker as her, his, their voices echo it... "The Floating World : earthly plane of death & rebirth"...
I've thought of this poem as water-bound but it's just as much wind-blown isnt it?
LH : I thought long and hard about publically describing This Floating World as a songline because of the associations the term holds within Australia, however after much deliberation I decided to proceed for two reasons. This work travels through the landscape identifying place through the voices that speak; therefore readers are able to interpret and trace locations accordingly. The other and more personal reason is that I respond much more to the Irish landscape than I do to Australia. In fact I take great spiritual solace from it and if we must get into specifics I consider Ireland as “Country”. It is a very special place for me.
Australia was experiencing severe drought the first few times I travelled to Ireland. Ireland in contrast is so full of water. There is a great deal of seepage through its bogs, loughs, waterfalls, holy wells and so on. And it is a relatively small island with shoreline wrapped in waves. Rain and mist are also never too far away. Given this I created a songline that follows the direction of the wind or rain. If a reader were ever to follow the narrative with a map they’d probably ask, ‘What on earth is she doing?’ because in some areas the voices go back and forth due to these elemental forces. The wind is a faithful presence in Ireland, especially in the west, and I wanted to address both this and the mutability of the island.
*
The other woman
The weather is like a ghost tonight
embracing all things,
yet our breath covers distance.
And breath is touch.
It comes like storm, full with lightning
full with high cloud cramming the sky.
And this breath comes like wave,
rolling over and into this room
like a king tide sinking the night.
This breath is like moonlight,
falling across my cheek, and then onto lips
in all its elucidation.
And this breath speaks,
this breath that finds me in the darkness.
This breath that falls and is fallen.
*
Man in Pub and Woman Responds : yes, there are different tones of voice in the work to suit each occasion or place. Man in pub is based in Strabane, a border town where not a lot happens. The only thing really to do in a place like this is to go to the pub for a drink and this invariably means there might be a bit of flirting going on as well.
*
Man in pub – Strabane
These are love’s borders.
And here is a hand.
It becomes a thought
too full of going forward.
*
Woman responds
Desire is on his mind
when these fingers talk.
Love is on my mind
when I reach out to hold their words.
I become a murmur
not meant for translation
as his fingers curl
into the very heart of things.
*
As with many voices in the work the Tourist in Limerick is actually my own voice speaking. I have visited Limerick a couple of times since but my first visit was especially fraught because we had pre-booked hotel rooms in the wrong side of town. I have since learnt that this particular pub has a notorious reputation – and you have to remember also that Limerick’s nickname is Stab City. In all my years of travelling it was the first time I ever seriously considered leaving to find other accommodation, but I persevered. Even so there was a point where I went up to my room and looked down at what was happening on the street. After that it was all I could do to lie down on the bed and write out my frustrations.
*
Tourist – Limerick
The cry of a gull from God-knows-where
And the church bells
And the cars forever passing
And the girl screaming at the stopped car
And the horns tooting
And the girl saying: That’s crap, that is
And the little man in the passenger seat laughing his head off
And the lights of Paddy Power, all bright and shiny
And the smell of coal-smoke
And the cheap hotel room
where 1,000 other people have rested their sorry souls
And the broken tiles in the shower
And the chenille bedspreads
And the lace curtains that embrace the smell of cigarette smoke
And the red-emblazoned newsagent across the way
And the slick of the road as cars drive by like one endless engine
And the L-plate drivers who park their cars like dodgems
And the presence of a lack of presence
(and all that is left is desperation)
Here, a young girl scurries with a 12-pack of toilet rolls
against the roof of a pram
There, an old man sways in a gale all of his own making
*
Going back to our words on Ireland and Irish “seepage”, it is interesting to note that Australia and Ireland share a serpent mythology. The serpent of the Dreaming is masculine, however the serpent in Ireland is representative of the mother goddess. It is said that she went underground with the introduction of Catholicism and the late poet Michael Hartnett explained once that only a select few can feel her vibrations. I think this is very interesting on many levels and obviously it helps to reiterate my creative notion that Ireland is unanchored, that it sways in its sleep and so on. I must also say that in ancient times Ireland was referred to as the far island of the ocean. Something, I think, that is still fitting in many ways. Given this I will finish up with a poem that illustrates this:
Woman drawing the curtains of her bedroom– Carrick-on-Shannon
My thoughts are with you tonight,
they belong where your feet walk.
They go down to the river
its bend, the curve of serpent
slunk beneath.
Body of water,
a wetness, sucking. A splash, a drop.
Her belly swollen and swallowing,
sinking down with a swish of tail.
Blubbing and lugging
this weighted island-world,
a push of girth
netting our own wet bodies
of muscle and tide,
the heart-thump of land
unanchored below feet.
This island of the ocean,
how it sways us to sleep
with its breath of undertow,
its guardians of storm above our heads.
Their hint of speech falls on sodden ground,
near-words reach me.
*
The acknowledgements at the back of This Floating World are extensive, but I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank Lyn Hatherly for putting up with me. I think we worked really well together and it was a pleasure to work so closely. Thank you also to Katia Ariel and Kevin Brophy, and to Susan Fealy who had input during the early stages of the editing process.
I’d also like to thank Samantha Everton whose wonderful photograph, Solitude, graces the cover of This Floating World. When I came upon this photograph I actually lost my breath and hoped upon hope that Samantha would agree for us to reproduce it for the book. Thankfully she did and I will be forever grateful to her for that because it is a bright ruby jewel of a thing that has become a wonderful talisman for the next journey this little book will take.
Thank you Kris for launching This Floating World today and for Lyn Hatherly for introducing us. Thank you also to Sean Kenan and Graeme Newell for their wonderful music and to everyone for being here today. Thank you.
oOo
[*The Conversation is a recreation from notes, memory & afterthoughts of the event at Collected Works Bookshop, June 18th, 2011.]
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CONTRIBUTORS :
GREGORY DAY lives in Aireys Inlet, country Victoria. Several novels including The Patron Saint of Eels, & The Grand Hotel. His website is, http://www.merrijigwordandsound.com
[MARK TREDINNICK, author of The Blue Plateau : A Landscape Memoir (UQP, '09), Fire Diary (Puncher & Wattmann, '10), The Little Red Writing Book ('06) amongst others. See, www.marktredinnick.com.au
LIBBY HART edits an international online mag, 5 Poetry Journal, wch can be viewed via her blog, theworldasaroom.blogspot.com
The Uncool Eloquence Of Mark Tredinnick
(Address given at the Melbourne Launch of Fire Diary
at Collected Works Bookshop on May 27, 2011.)
I always think that a good book is not one which you necessarily enjoy but one that you remember. Likewise, the test of a poem for me is often something similar – not necessarily a matter of subject or style, nor metrical pyrotechnics or even the cleverness of its intellectual riffing, and definitely not its erudition or intertextuality, which too often are worn like the watch on a busy man’s wrist, or the mobile phone that goes off in a movie. The question for me, the measure of these things, is somehow about about the ear and the tongue - has the poet a capacity to make a line, or even an image or a joke, that I want to say again, that resounds in the ear and is pleasurable well afterwards, even becoming necessary to repeat. By heart, as the saying goes. By heart.
This very requirement points to the unusual, and probably unfashionable quality in Fire Diary, the eloquence of Mark Tredinnick. Fire Diary is full of memorable image, joke and line. As Pound would say, perhaps a bit disingenuously for him, it has ‘a quality of affection that carves the trace in the mind’. No mean feat. This is the first thing that struck me about the book, and soon I found myself thinking of it in geological terms as some kind of magnetic anomaly in the poetry world. Or in ecological terms, as charismatic fauna. It was the nature of its cadence. Its ability to be poetry with all the rigour that that implies, and to communicate vocally from the page. It was its preparedness to take on the mantle, the reality of its voice.
The narrowness of my view, and I do admit it’s narrow, is such that whenever I read an Australian writer, poet, novelist or otherwise, there is a way in which I am looking for the role he or she might play, not so much in the national conversation, but in a kind of parallel national constellation of artists. I think I listen out for a pitch with something unusually real about it, something inexplicable too that I can’t trace through the grids of reason and therefore something symbolic of the mysteries of existence. Something both of, and beyond, the muck and verbiage, the bowel movements of the consumerist media. I need to situate the voice too in relation to what for me remains an unfederated landscape – this still moving continent.
It’s because this country we’re on is such an old distillery, such a strong and, in terms of biodiversity, such a copious drop, that I’m always fascinated to observe the ways in which we’re still getting to know it, even those whose families have lived here for thousands of years. To me Mark’s particular talent, and a very distinct one I see it as in the Australian context, is his ability to write from a fair dinkum knowledge of that landscape, a micro to macro understanding of it, and then to transform that experience of the world into a properly epigrammatic line, such as – ‘who we are is who we’re not. Whatever it is we’re part of’ - or, ‘The night smells like any one of a dozen childhood camps/in which the present has pitched her tent’ or ‘mortality is the price we pay for form’, or ‘the world is a mystery occluded by reality’ or, the soul will always choose a holy mess above a tidy fraud’, or even, referring no doubt in this case to the ignorance of those who can’t distinguish symbolism from historical fact in the Book of Genesis, – ‘seven days is all eternity for a people with no memory’. In this ability to harness aphorism and resonators Mark blends a great gift for listening with lyrical ears to the outdoor tunings of existence. He does it with a defiant neo-romantic belief, it’s a kind of heroic dare I’d say, a belief, or at least, in his words, a ‘trying to believe’, in a world intact, in the beauty of the processes of the universe, the brokenness of wholeness, as opposed to dogmas of wholesomeness, the world both violent, rapid and glacial, and sweet.
Now coming from a man literate in geology, in astronomy, in ornithology and meteorology – which he would call the study of ‘blue machinery’ - but also in the death of species and the self generating masochism of post industrial capitalism - ‘there aren’t many wild places left: death is one’ -, this belief in the sanctity of nature, which is everywhere implied in these poems, this almost boyish heartfeltness integrated with the grown-up accomplishment of his poetic craft, is quite special. With these talents converging Mark becomes a singer, motivated by, and loyal to, the impulse of beauty in the world, because, once again in the words of his book: ‘no-one reads poetry to learn how to vote. Verse can’t change/the future’s mind. You write it like rain; you enter it like nightfall’.
And here’s another one – ‘Let your mind be like the fox you caught earlier eating pizza from a box/on the porch in the dark: go hungry, but not too hungry. Know a gift/ when you see one. Take it but leave the box. Turn but don’t run’. Again, a quality I’d like to re-emphasise about Fire Diary, beyond its pretty uncool delivery of wisdom into the ironic heart of contemporary poetry, - is how well Mark knows the world of which he speaks. He lives in the NSW southern highlands, closer to the sunrise than where I live on Victoria’s southwest coast, and there’s obviously more European trees, but nevertheless there is sometimes a unifying sense amongst those of us who live outside the urban areas of Australia that the very nomenclature of the landscapes we inhabit make some of our work seem a little intransigent or even obscure to editors living in the big cities. Sometimes when urban editors see bluestone laneways we see the basalt the lanes were cut from. There are many things in the daily life of the natural world which don’t make the news or the cultural tourism brochures, nor David Attenborough or even YouTube – and which, when described and reembodied in words and then sent away to town, can seem just like a sword stroke in the water.
But here in Mark’s book is not only an overcoming of that difficult translation, but also an exactness about the phenomenological experience of the emotionally struck human figure in the massive midst of stars, birds, storms, dawns, trees both European and Indigenous and rivers both fucked up and restored. That’s another dubious view I personally suffer from – I squint at nature poems sometimes, seeking out, with an initial lack of trust I must admit, the proof that the poet is not just some subjective romantic, that the poet truly knows the hill of which he or she speaks, not just as fodder and not just as an artefact, as a living hill that I might know too, experientially, not only by the digestion of Common and Latin names, not by a grasp even of geomorphology or the igneous past, but as a personal witness in time, a witness to the particular music of wind amongst its trees, the emotional feel of a possum landing, as Mark writes – ‘like ordinance on the roof’, the leadlighting of cicada wings, the mad scale of plovers, - all these things are in Fire Diary - Mark captures the sound of plovers so surprisingly with the question that I’ll always ask now when the plover calls - ‘why will a river not stay in the ground?’
Fire Diary is in this sense the real deal, the craft-quality of it is a given in Mark’s case and of course there’s not too many first books of poetry of which you could say that - this book has, both superficially and profoundly too, been a long time coming.
What Fire Diary has above all, what I admire about it so much, and why I’m so glad to help launch it here in the south, is its personal vulnerability - Mark himself I think calls it a ‘confessional ecology’. For me it’s a capacity, simultaneous with his geomorphological understanding, astute metrics and attention to imagistic detail, to love and cry on the page, to be embarrassed on the page, to be clearsighted on the page about danger and risk, but to include wist and sentiment and the plangent among its palette, to invoke Gaia in full lament of our destructive idiocy, and to hell with the consequences. For me this makes Fire Diary not only the work of a wordsmith I admire but of a mature person, someone who’s lived and decided to live on. It is a mature book, not only in this personal sense but I think its intellectually grown-up as well because it is such an emotionally intelligent collection. I sense a lack of fear behind the writing of these poems that perhaps, amongst other things, a musical ear and private suffering can give you - it gives Mark access to his art, and a sense in it of him living his own dedicated life, perhaps not his first life, perhaps even his second or third, - ‘Your new life’s just your old life with a book in its hand’ - but a life therefore he has made himself, a poetry he has both chosen and laid himself open to, with the inspiration of the earth, I must say, like olivine-rich basalt at its core.
In these poems there are the strains of making a living – ‘writing 50 dollar poems at a 1000 dollar desk’ - a hint of Francis Webb’s idea of the poet as Franciscan jongleur or fool, as he struggles to write in his home shed which once housed the fundamental productivity of cows; the primary relief and joy he finds in his wife and children, in sex and fatherhood; and also the preternatural him, in the midst of writing the poems. Of course there is literary lineage, there are in these poems what George Steiner would call ‘real presences’, or what Jed Rasula in his recent groundbreaking study of ecological imperatives in American poetry, would call ‘compost’ – there’s Robert Frost and Robert Gray, Walt Whitman and Rumi and Charles Wright, there’s an enormous North American influence actually, a deciduousness you could say - he’s at his most vernacular in his wit but quite trans-Pacific in his cadence - and there’s always an Asiatic spareness, which at least implies the minimal – he’s too loquacious to be a minimalist proper, but there are the open empty spaces on the page winking at the reader…….
And there’s also GS, the writer and academic George Seddon, who Mark has spoken to me about in our conversations, a huge figure I know in his coming-into-a-voice, a mentor of landprints, and who is mentioned here in the fifteenth Eclogue – ‘The places don’t sing,/ GS said to me once; in particular they don’t sing you-/ George, a father to me, who died in his garden last week/a man with a river in him when we met, until we fished it out, and I’m still in it/They don’t sing, GS; they just are, That’s how they sing, and that’s what they teach’
That is a lesson which is perhaps never fully learnt but which speaks of a rich bequest, a basically Copernican lesson so crucial in the current plight of nature that we trash. And a lesson recast here by the poet, in homage and well aware of its lyric lineage – Wallace Stevens’ Idea of Order At Key West, Robert Duncan’s Often I Am Permitted To Return To A Meadow, to name just two.
So Fire Diary is a moment I think, at the risk of coming on too grand, a distinct moment in the timeline of our poetry here, where the astringent drywitted truth of this worn-back place comes together with the succulent riparian eloquence of a man prepared not just to quip or allude or re-arrange or meditate, but to openly sing and cry. There’s a lot of people who have been waiting for this book to appear for years. I know Mark has. But good things take time. As a man in Borneo said to me once – the good life moves at the pace of the river.
Lastly, I want to say that the title piece, Fire Diary, a talismanic poem I think which may well grace poetry anthologies for years to come, demonstrates best the value at the heart of this collection – in short, Fire Diary, the poem and the book, shows us exactly how much we have to fear, and why we should not fear it. Quite an achievement really, the achievement of a poet. It’s cause for celebration tonight. Well done Mark. Thanks, and congratulations.
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KRIS HEMENSLEY & LIBBY HART
"THIS FLOATING WORLD" : A CONVERSATION*
KH : Congratulations on your new book! As my own publishing reduces so my admiration for other writers who continue to publish & perform increases. It even excites my curiosity for reentering the fray myself!
In your written inscription in my comp of This Floating World (Five Islands Press, '11) , you thank me for "agreeing to take the journey" with you... 'Journey''s a good word... a journey, like this conversation... We can never assume we've begun at the same place though we may hope, eventually, to find ourselves on the same page! And being writers as well as readers we're even more eccentric in our disposition than the impartial reader. Our partiality is formed by our own journeys (--suddenly remember here Pound's great word "hewn", from Whitman's wood?)...
LH : I think every book is a journey the author/poet takes. It starts at that most embryonic stage where a few words begin to form and continues on until these and many other words are polished, printed and then bound, until it is officially called “a book”. Interwoven in all of this are the many footsteps, forward marches, U-turns, compass readings and standing-still moments taken to produce the work. Then a “reading” journey begins when it becomes independent and exposed in the world. But This Floating World is also a journey in itself because the songline of the same name, which makes up most of the book, is an aural map of the island of Ireland...
KH : And Poetry forces one to agree to yet another embarkation --more than a nibble & a taste since this book isnt a miscellany but a sequence... I'd love to hear you read How Like --it's a poem outside of the central sequence, --and maybe those first poems are the proem?-- And it's simultaneously physical & mental --palpable (of the real world) & poetical --it contains the beautiful, it alludes to properties of language --it usefully leads one's reading in different directions...
LH : I find it interesting that you selected How Like for me to read from the individual poems at the beginning of the book. This poem actually has nothing to do with Ireland, but it does contain similar themes the songline encapsulates. The poem was written for Bob Dylan and it is included in The Captain's Tower: Poems for Bob Dylan at 70 (published by Seren Books, Wales). The premise of the anthology is basically 70 poems by 70 poets to celebrate Bob Dylan’s 70th birthday last month.
How like
And I am wondering about your face,
how it alters when a mood takes hold.
Such a changeling
like a sparrow, like a burning flutter,
higher and higher up into the tree.
Like a breath by cold night,
the crispest revelation breaking ice.
What is left is the warmest sensation at the pit of stomach.
How like a stretched metaphor you are,
how like broken branches from an apple tree.
Like its fallen fruit half-eaten by animals.
How like a mystery,
entangled by the twang of a country that can’t own you.
How like an endless path of thought.
How like a mesmeriser
with the power of foresight.
How like his instruments buzzing blackly across my mind.
How like the concept of the wheel,
of the science of silence.
How like etcetera in the tall, green grasses.
How like a slipperiness of truth slithering by and by.
How like the moon in all of its tiredness,
of the river who waits for the clearest direction to your door.
*
During the editing process, Lyn Hatherly (of Five Islands Press) chose a very small handful of poems to be included at the beginning of the book. I was interested to see that she had selected this poem because it goes very well with the themes of the songline as it reiterates the idea that ‘we are all made of stars’, that we are connected to all things and to each other. My main aim for this poem was to say that although we are flesh and blood we are also the trees, the moon, the river, the birds and so on.
KH : I love "like a sparrow, like a burning flutter", and "like a stretched metaphor", and "like etcetera in the tall green grasses", and "like a slipperiness of truth slithering by and by"...
Can I share with you my stance at the beginning of my own serious writing, in the 1960s, when I would have been appalled by such a poem! I'd decided I was against metaphor, eschewing its obvious vehicle 'like'. I was for the concrete & against the poetical. In the '70s I wrote a prose-piece for the poet Alexandra Seddon, called The Danger of Like. I feared the trap of endless analogy, of the poetic cliche. I much preferred the idea of an equation or relation...
Of course I must remind myself that the literal subject of the poem is, as you say in the opening couplet, "And I am wondering about your face, / how it alters when a mood takes hold..."
And this combination of the literal, natural subject & cadence, and the metaphorical/analogical is probably your 'crucial contradiction' (as I call it), --essential to the edge or frisson of your poems...
As I say, I gradually yielded! Twenty or so years ago the lid came off & I became a poet --as you've always been!
*
I read your first book, Fresh News From the Arctic, when it was published by David Reiter's Interactive Publications in 2006, and then forgot about it until late last year when we were reintroduced at that most dramatic time in the life of this bookshop... And I couldnt help misreading the title as French News From the Arctic because of the way we could use 'French' as the particular sensibility it is --symbolistic, aware of language as its material, as its terrain, unlike our time's empirical, naturalistic style --unlike so much English-language poetry, despite the centrality of such wondrously 'French' (metaphorical, adjectival, analogical) writing --Shakespeare to Hopkins --Shakespeare, who is at the heart of English poetry, or let's say British poetry, so we could include the 19th Century's great gift of Gerald Manley Hopkins...
I think there are clues in Fresh News to the journey, the different kind of journey of This Floating World --or does a line like "I was leaving the known" speak to both books?
So, do you have a 'French' attitude rather than 'English/Australian'?
LH : I don’t see my work as being influenced by French poetry, although I am an admirer of it. If anything I have a European focus to my work. I guess that’s an unfashionable thing to say, but Europe is where my head is most of the time. I have to be open about that. And because of this I am drawn to European writers and to an overall sensibility that could be defined as European.
In terms of mainland Europe I would say that Russia has been a profound influence on me. And obviously I am drawn to Irish poetry and also to Scottish poetry. I think the key for me is I love colder weather. If you give me plenty of sunshine on a calm and pleasant day it’s not going to do a thing for me. What I love most is drama in the landscape – raging winds, a roaring sea and buckets of rain. I love the commotion of it and its mystery. I am most happy with all of this whirling around me and perhaps that is why I am so drawn to places like Russia and the Arctic, as well as Ireland. And obviously the Russian and Celtic psyches are things I can relate to very much, so these elements help me to connect to these landscapes and their people.
KH : Tell me about the Irish journey now, the language & the subject... In my head are other Australian-Irish poets, Robyn Rowland, obviously, Colleen Burke, Buckley, of course. (This is the third time I've formally addressed the subject : the Irish- Australian symposium at Queens College/University of Melbourne late 90s; and the examiner's report I wrote on Maria Hyland for Marion Campbell; and now today.) And would you read Wind-bent grasses...
LH : Regarding Wind-bent grasses, Figure at window, Dog : the songline (This Floating World) was born from an extensive road trip I undertook when I first visited Ireland in 2005. Wind-bent grasses and Figure at window, as well as Dog were things I witnessed and interpreted on my first day. And I must say that the majority of the journey the songline takes is part of the road trip’s route undertaken at that time. We began our journey in Belfast and moved west and down through much of the Republic.
The wind-bent grasses at Ballintoy are long and uncut by human or sheep. On the day I visited Ballintoy there was also a wild and whistle-soaked wind that made their plight in the world so much more dramatic and forsaken. Additionally the Portrush voice conveys what I saw from my hotel window that evening. I think this part of the songline is not complete unless I can also read Dog for you this afternoon.
*
Wind-bent grasses – Ballintoy
I’ve been sweating and weeping
against the bridge of days like a mute,
singing only to dogs.
If nothing else, they come to me
with their wet noses
snorting around,
digging up my very soul.
Let me speak
for it has been so long
since I’ve let my voice shine.
Give no mind to that mad wind
too full of itself. Listen only to me.
Catch my intentions in your hands,
grab them from that whistle-soaked air.
Don’t move away
let my words be heard,
it’s been too long in the waiting.
*
Figure at window – Portrush
The red tail lights of cars
move away from the town.
They leave in twos like devils’ eyes
down and down the cliff.
Looking north,
all this allegorical darkness.
It’s full and full-blown,
hiding those Portrush clouds.
What is it that the old man said?
That the north is where the devil lurks
catching the unwary in their tracks.
The small door in the church
was kept open for him.
It swung with a groan so fresh
like a child just home from school.
And now the legs of small dogs skedaddle
black and white in their pairs
with only the street light to guide them.
Small animated bodies
windblown by the Atlantic
with their man hunched over,
a cigarette in hand.
They’re going against the wind now, deep into it,
with those devils’ eyes so close behind.
*
Dog
I look up
at the nostrils of him,
wide with in-breathing.
His Irish legs keep walking him and walking me.
An Irishman needs his shoulders to walk.
Hunched over, it’s a process of swinging the arms,
swingin’ until the only thing that’s real is going forward.
Hard and soft, and hard again,
pressed flatly into wind like it’s a tug at something real.
It’s the black night we’re fighting, that we press through.
*
KH : Aware of the Irishness now --the oral oomph of the Irish (& the Scottish & the Welsh), which English poets of those British Isles find amazing & imposing whilst holding it slightly away --their continuing suspicion of everything from Yeats to Dylan Thomas... Specifically Irish in you... Remember Heaney on the Gaelic : I dont write in Gaelic, he says, but if it wasnt for the Gaelic my English would be different...
*
The songline, as you call it, which I've always associated with terra firma, is water-bound, all the way through --right from your quotation of Leanne O'Sullivan, "The ocean itself is flesh / and the delicate psalm of the heart is / beating somewhere in the core"... Your songline reminds me of both mysticism's songs to the beloved, and of actual flesh & blood's relations...
It's ghostly & physical simultaneously... And the Irish landscapes echo the speaker as her, his, their voices echo it... "The Floating World : earthly plane of death & rebirth"...
I've thought of this poem as water-bound but it's just as much wind-blown isnt it?
LH : I thought long and hard about publically describing This Floating World as a songline because of the associations the term holds within Australia, however after much deliberation I decided to proceed for two reasons. This work travels through the landscape identifying place through the voices that speak; therefore readers are able to interpret and trace locations accordingly. The other and more personal reason is that I respond much more to the Irish landscape than I do to Australia. In fact I take great spiritual solace from it and if we must get into specifics I consider Ireland as “Country”. It is a very special place for me.
Australia was experiencing severe drought the first few times I travelled to Ireland. Ireland in contrast is so full of water. There is a great deal of seepage through its bogs, loughs, waterfalls, holy wells and so on. And it is a relatively small island with shoreline wrapped in waves. Rain and mist are also never too far away. Given this I created a songline that follows the direction of the wind or rain. If a reader were ever to follow the narrative with a map they’d probably ask, ‘What on earth is she doing?’ because in some areas the voices go back and forth due to these elemental forces. The wind is a faithful presence in Ireland, especially in the west, and I wanted to address both this and the mutability of the island.
*
The other woman
The weather is like a ghost tonight
embracing all things,
yet our breath covers distance.
And breath is touch.
It comes like storm, full with lightning
full with high cloud cramming the sky.
And this breath comes like wave,
rolling over and into this room
like a king tide sinking the night.
This breath is like moonlight,
falling across my cheek, and then onto lips
in all its elucidation.
And this breath speaks,
this breath that finds me in the darkness.
This breath that falls and is fallen.
*
Man in Pub and Woman Responds : yes, there are different tones of voice in the work to suit each occasion or place. Man in pub is based in Strabane, a border town where not a lot happens. The only thing really to do in a place like this is to go to the pub for a drink and this invariably means there might be a bit of flirting going on as well.
*
Man in pub – Strabane
These are love’s borders.
And here is a hand.
It becomes a thought
too full of going forward.
*
Woman responds
Desire is on his mind
when these fingers talk.
Love is on my mind
when I reach out to hold their words.
I become a murmur
not meant for translation
as his fingers curl
into the very heart of things.
*
As with many voices in the work the Tourist in Limerick is actually my own voice speaking. I have visited Limerick a couple of times since but my first visit was especially fraught because we had pre-booked hotel rooms in the wrong side of town. I have since learnt that this particular pub has a notorious reputation – and you have to remember also that Limerick’s nickname is Stab City. In all my years of travelling it was the first time I ever seriously considered leaving to find other accommodation, but I persevered. Even so there was a point where I went up to my room and looked down at what was happening on the street. After that it was all I could do to lie down on the bed and write out my frustrations.
*
Tourist – Limerick
The cry of a gull from God-knows-where
And the church bells
And the cars forever passing
And the girl screaming at the stopped car
And the horns tooting
And the girl saying: That’s crap, that is
And the little man in the passenger seat laughing his head off
And the lights of Paddy Power, all bright and shiny
And the smell of coal-smoke
And the cheap hotel room
where 1,000 other people have rested their sorry souls
And the broken tiles in the shower
And the chenille bedspreads
And the lace curtains that embrace the smell of cigarette smoke
And the red-emblazoned newsagent across the way
And the slick of the road as cars drive by like one endless engine
And the L-plate drivers who park their cars like dodgems
And the presence of a lack of presence
(and all that is left is desperation)
Here, a young girl scurries with a 12-pack of toilet rolls
against the roof of a pram
There, an old man sways in a gale all of his own making
*
Going back to our words on Ireland and Irish “seepage”, it is interesting to note that Australia and Ireland share a serpent mythology. The serpent of the Dreaming is masculine, however the serpent in Ireland is representative of the mother goddess. It is said that she went underground with the introduction of Catholicism and the late poet Michael Hartnett explained once that only a select few can feel her vibrations. I think this is very interesting on many levels and obviously it helps to reiterate my creative notion that Ireland is unanchored, that it sways in its sleep and so on. I must also say that in ancient times Ireland was referred to as the far island of the ocean. Something, I think, that is still fitting in many ways. Given this I will finish up with a poem that illustrates this:
Woman drawing the curtains of her bedroom– Carrick-on-Shannon
My thoughts are with you tonight,
they belong where your feet walk.
They go down to the river
its bend, the curve of serpent
slunk beneath.
Body of water,
a wetness, sucking. A splash, a drop.
Her belly swollen and swallowing,
sinking down with a swish of tail.
Blubbing and lugging
this weighted island-world,
a push of girth
netting our own wet bodies
of muscle and tide,
the heart-thump of land
unanchored below feet.
This island of the ocean,
how it sways us to sleep
with its breath of undertow,
its guardians of storm above our heads.
Their hint of speech falls on sodden ground,
near-words reach me.
*
The acknowledgements at the back of This Floating World are extensive, but I’d just like to take this opportunity to thank Lyn Hatherly for putting up with me. I think we worked really well together and it was a pleasure to work so closely. Thank you also to Katia Ariel and Kevin Brophy, and to Susan Fealy who had input during the early stages of the editing process.
I’d also like to thank Samantha Everton whose wonderful photograph, Solitude, graces the cover of This Floating World. When I came upon this photograph I actually lost my breath and hoped upon hope that Samantha would agree for us to reproduce it for the book. Thankfully she did and I will be forever grateful to her for that because it is a bright ruby jewel of a thing that has become a wonderful talisman for the next journey this little book will take.
Thank you Kris for launching This Floating World today and for Lyn Hatherly for introducing us. Thank you also to Sean Kenan and Graeme Newell for their wonderful music and to everyone for being here today. Thank you.
oOo
[*The Conversation is a recreation from notes, memory & afterthoughts of the event at Collected Works Bookshop, June 18th, 2011.]
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CONTRIBUTORS :
GREGORY DAY lives in Aireys Inlet, country Victoria. Several novels including The Patron Saint of Eels, & The Grand Hotel. His website is, http://www.merrijigwordandsound.com
[MARK TREDINNICK, author of The Blue Plateau : A Landscape Memoir (UQP, '09), Fire Diary (Puncher & Wattmann, '10), The Little Red Writing Book ('06) amongst others. See, www.marktredinnick.com.au
LIBBY HART edits an international online mag, 5 Poetry Journal, wch can be viewed via her blog, theworldasaroom.blogspot.com
Thursday, June 9, 2011
THE DORSET JOURNEY, 2011 : LAO LEG
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[Top, K H at Wattay International Airport, Vientiane; April 8th, '11; second, KH perusing Rasi's photographs at French Centre, Vientiane; third, KH at the Living Museum, Vientiane. Snaps by Cathy O'Brien.]
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PROEM
April 7,'11
Approaching departure. The aisle seat chosen at STA this morning has mysteriously become a window seat. This is OK as long as no one takes the middle of the 3 seats. (I'm praying!)
Neatly attired businessman (from the look of his newspaper, Vietnamese) installed in my aisle seat. Stiff neck installed like a javelin down my right shoulder. I've struggled with it for two weeks and though i enjoyed my sessions with the osteo, it's distressingly present.
*
The flight begins. Suddenly remember i was writing The ABC Book [prose pieces] back in '75, to & fro London. Day-time flight window-seat view revealing plains of cloud -- frozen seas -- glaciers -- fantastic. Discover head-phones. Select 'Western Classical' : Chopin, Mazurka in C Sharp Minor, Op 63 # 3. No such facility 36 years ago. Allowed to be a 29 year old 'student' one enjoyed the modest service -- sometimes, for example, when menu didnt facilitate, cheese sandwiches etc brought by hostess angels.
Can i revive one of the characters of my book back then? Minovlar Ed? -- my hommage to John Riley (he was alive then).
*
Dinner is served! Potato salad thank you! Perceptively the hot meat dish is removed by the hostess. Wine sir? I'd like a red wine too (like my neighbour, the Vietnamese businessman, who fell asleep as he read his newspaper -- would that that was a dream! -- i mean, what sleep wld follow Ho Chi Minh City stock-exchange?) -- Ed says, I never had kids myself but... He's moved --not "to tears" but an absolutely sympathetic amusement. The baby (he's a toddler, son of Indian couple) has the widest brown eyes -- Ed wld talk to him with extended blinks & smiles, on the edge of telepathy -- but the toddler has other thoughts -- I wanted to call him Sachim -- a compliment, madame -- no, thought as much, wldnt know Tendulkar from Boycott -- But, not so fast Ed, --Tendulkar is a national hero, more than --& i loved him too --our Geoffrey, -- especially as a commentator let alone man in boater in South of France, notorious romance? -- someone (Melbourne poet Nick Whittock perhaps) will know.
*
Steal another red wine. Present the G & T plastic cup wch is twice as big as the little glass the first one came in. Chopin's Largo in C Minor through the headphones. Ed says i'm walking on those pompety-poms -- left leg, right leg. But now it's Trois Ecoissaises # 2, G M Op 72 # 4 -- Ah, trippity, trippity. Listen up : he was never a hippy. Who we talkin abaat? (is that Eliot enough for you?) Ed or meself, Christy?
*
Dark -- lights out -- I can see by the light of the tiny screen -- Ah, Fantasie Impromptu in C -- all my life -- whenever i hear it, "all my life" --
Anthony Bourdain's in me now. I want cognac! The perfect nightcap -- & cheese & biscuits -- NOW!
*
What's the difference? Nocturne in E Flat very similar to which track?
Ed's been to the galley -- brandy? -- cognac? -- Cheeky hostess asks wld you like them mixed together? --
Last time i fly so high, Ed thinks whilst smiling enigmatically --
*
Oooh he's got a nerve -- he can hold a note -- Nocturne in C, Op Posthume -- an insult to say 'trill'? --
Thin arms hidden in big jacket -- fingers with long nails poking out of sleeves --
Chopin for a day & a night --
*
But where are we now? Which jet-liner captain's porthole of the Earth?
*
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik -- we've changed (Karajan : Romance) -- The concert's only in my ears -- You can la-la-la to Eine Kleine, but... An adamant Ed : Whatabout Thais? Sacrilege! --
*
Suvarnabhumi Airport, Bangkok
What else but Thai massage -- head & shoulders, 400 baht or $US18. Not the severe work-out of 2009 but recalcitrant muscles required some punishment. Foot massage beside me was in dreamland as the masseuse stroked & kneaded his feet & calves. Clients three times as many women as men, & only one male masseur.
*
Hmong woman in turban-hat & something like a dreadlock marks out her territory, walks around like a rooster or the vainest sentry -- walks in & out of other people's conversations, participates in their hilarity but finally sits by herself, laughing at a joke that's on the rest of the world.
Years pass. Little whore in zebra-stripe one piece, silver heels, lies across two chairs, thighs parted, & the unsuspecting Frenchman, content to watch BBC World News, is suddenly aware of the gesture meant for whomever is sitting where he does. He turns away, drinks from water-bottle. The little whore sits up, looks around, lies down again, peekaboo -- perhaps catch a fallang in Bangkok, albeit at the airport. A touch of Steinbeck's Sweet Thursday in the apparent naturalness of this theatre. She's doin what she's doin & everyone's just getting on with it...
*
WW2. The propellors of Lao Air are giving the blitzed Englanders another shiver. Third World patch-up is the rare contradiction to contemporary western-style slick. The propellors are like hornets at the edge of my eye, window-side. Plane taxis forever around immense Suvarnabhuni. The little plane shudders like a bomber. Ho Chi Minh trail here we come.
Canals? Paddies? Wonderful waterlogged segmented farmland. Above the clouds. City's radial design. The Infinite City.
*
Vientiane notes
Friday, 8th April, '11
At I:Cat Gallery. Five oclock pm. Cat excuses herself to ride bike to pharmacy 10 minutes away. I'm left 'in charge' of the Gallery. I will take my job very seriously. When we arrived here by taxi from the airport around midday (--wonderful to be met : Catherine waving from upper level window as i looked up instinctively, on my stroll from runway to airport building --i waved, continued walking with red backpack & brown shoulder-bag, suddenly normal as off the train from Melbourne to Bendigo) --fatigued as i was from the flight & the frustrations in transit at Bangkok & again at Vientiane, couldnt resist inspecting everything she had up on the walls not to mention the tables & shelves of publications (books, cards including Bernard [Hemensley]'s Stingy Artist ephemera) --"Somerset Maugham, eat yr heart out!" i exclaimed --perhaps Mr Patrick not Somerset Maugham -- : an art gallery wch has its own integrity (well, art & literature's), but situated here in up-market (?) area of quintessential ex-colony --bustling & post-colonial but not sufficient to alter the basic vibe. Even now, with the home-time traffic --mostly motorbikes, old cars, small trucks-- one's able to take it easy --the warm temperature, the country-town atmosphere.
*
Saturday, 9th April, '11
*
C O'B : The temptation of a breeze... but then it withdrew...
K H : The Church of Latter Day Somerset Maughams...
[Late morning drink at the French bar whose reputation is for dinner but not lunch, tho' the young manager wearing Ramones t-shirt, offered us 'le snack' of crab sandwiches. We declined, explaining that for us snack would be bowl of peanuts to accompany the beer. He was somewhat miffed which we attempted to mollify by enthusing about his non-stop playing of The Doors in the bar!]
*
2pm. At I:Cat. Already a busy day. First stop, the French doctor --but the famous physio, Max, renowned for his sore-spot patches, wasnt there. In Thailand for the weekend. When he returns i'll be in the air again! The very nice Lao doctor gave me her opinion (muscular rather than malignant) but stressed she wasnt a physio. She offered a steroid which i superstitiously declined. She didnt charge me a fee though i offered. Conclusion : suffer until England (and it is pinging!) & consult doctor there.
Visited the "Living Museum"/ temple. Cathy tells me that a colleague recently claimed the normal temple protocols didnt apply, but she contradicted her : this museum still facilitates worship, it's a living museum. When the official at gift table roared at visitors one of whom was flashing her camera, scaring them out of the prayer area beside the magnificent buddha (where i'd awkwardly followed Cathy in her oblations, stiff legged, sore backed, even dropping my candle at the alter), the point was proven!
The only exhibition we saw today was by Lao photographer Rasi, at the French Centre. I thought the images were aerial shots --motorway, landscape, at night from aeroplane window. But Cathy laughed at me : they are lotus plants, without flower, modelled on Monet's water-lillies! Hmmm --of course!
*
Sunday, 10th April, '11
Sitting up in bed within the mosquito net pyramid (remembered from my '09 stay). Two comfortable nights so far except last night for maybe an hour, awoken by the loud drone & roar of --what? --low flying aeroplane? trucks? I imagined army trucks racing through Si Meung, which is Cathy's district, to the airport or the border --a war or coup or crack-down! --perhaps inspired by conversation with Cathy's German friend, writer & photographer Martina Sylvia Khamphasith, about the world political situation and her estimation of Laos "open hand" strategy --taking something from everybody so that nobody takes precedence thus keeping them all at bay.
Not long after we'd returned from morning walk, yesterday, in search of galleries, none of which were open just like '09, including what used to be Mr Patrick's gallery, now even more of a joke than it was becoming then (says Cath) --we'd sat down at I:Cat for a little peck of bread, olives, fetta, the large pot of Vegemite i'd brought her from Melbourne, & the inevitable pot of tea, when we had a visitor. Second of the day --Cath's gallery is open between 4 & 6 this weekend, as it was on Friday --(first visitor was Kate who'd picked book up from Collected Works for Cathy a year ago) -- Martina, who stayed for the rest of the day.
They had their photos (haiku-photos for postcards) to discuss, and Cat showed her the new phone recently purchased in Bangkok. Martina wanted our photo then modeled Cat's blue sun hat -- G & T, snack, photos & laughter.
We decided on Martina's recommendation to eat at French place she knew well. Lao & S.E. Asian has been her daily fare for twenty years so European at every other opportunity! Villa-style --veranda, where we sat, + inside restaurant. Pleasant if not sensual humidity; sandles, t-shirt, three-quarter pants; palms, bamboo, cigars : introduction to the Indo-Chinese novella... Cathy & Martina ordered pumpkin & cheese souffle respectively; i had mushroom & garlic pasta. We shared 2 tall bottles of Beer Lao. Gregarious & voluble French, British, Indian, Lao diners around us. Teachers, families, NGOs. Beautiful service from local kids learning the haute-cuisine restaurant ropes.
On long walk back to Si Meung --more or less in straight line with the French consulate dominating the streetscape, Cathy darting in & out of illumination & darkness with her camera like a rudder or persicope while Martina & i walked slowly beneath the rain trees. I asked Martina if she thought she'd ever return to Europe. She described the same dilemma as i've experienced : one could never afford such a lifestyle back home, not in Europe, not in England. Although Oz far dearer than S E Asia, it's also cheaper than Northern Europe. And Cathy confirms it for Laos vis-a-vis Australia : on less pay than a beginner Australian teacher she can afford her palatial apartment-gallery in Vientiane which would be impossible in Melbourne. Are we fortunate or doomed?!
*
Monday, 11th April, '11
Cat & i had recouperative day yesterday on eve of journey to Europe. One outing & that was to Qung's around the corner for a late lunch (declined invitation for breakfast there with Mai & friends, whom i first met here in '09 & saw last night at the French restaurant). Cathy's well known there of course. The old owner, "J.B.", Vietnamese, sat with us, told us his life story & also a prophecy perhaps from our lady of Lourdes --the Earth will almost be destroyed by another planet in 2013. Other elements of the prophecy have already ensued, e.g. catastrophes, wars, diseases. A complex man tho' perhaps similar contradictions are the rule here. In '09, Cathy showed me the free school he had for local kids, at the back of the laneway cafe, which he's given up now. He hasnt been well --heart did he say? Worked for the Americans, & the British (& the French?), speaks five languages in addition to ("my native tongue") Vietnamese. Invaluable.
Superb food. I had noodles & veg; Cathy, the sticky-rice she adores & veg. Shared. Another tall bottle of Beer Lao, two glasses. Changed places around little table --J.B. brought us special chairs --Cat didnt want the full blast of air from fan but no worries for me! In fact, the temp. around 30C throughout my stay has been perfect. I experienced the heat once, the day of the visit to the Living Museum/Temple (Wat Phrokeo) --the sudden sting after hours of exposure. But next day i didnt show any sign of burning, though yesterday i had less energy (pun : burnt out). Dragged myself around. Content to be in the I:Cat gallery most of the day.
*
Bangkok
Pleasant flight in the little plane from Vientiane. Apparently Australian Embassy would once advise against travelling on Air Lao. But it's OK now, Cathy adds. Hostess forgot my breakfast box & obviously didnt hear or rejected my request for cup of tea. Very Lao.
We werent confident of finding a tuk-tuk so early in the morning but there they were --walked around the corner from I:Cat, past the temple (the first Cathy took me to in June '09). Brief exchange with workers she knew then a tuk tuk found us. Cat bargains dramatically --the fare is agreed. A long drive to the Airport. Early morning Vientiane --many people walking, exercising --unheard of a few years ago Cat says --health-conscious Western model (or Chinese?) amusing to us obviously in need of same!
No one in the airport concourse --graciously received & ushered through the immigration & embarkation controls --kop jai & Happy New Year! --Pi Mi Lao has begun --everyone in good mood. Before we left I:Cat the monks walked past on their alms trail. Auspicious.
*
Here at Suvarnabhum went straightaway to Thai International desk --got our boarding passes and then Cathy had her return flight times (Heathrow to Bangkok) changed. No fuss. She has a certain way & the luck goes with her! The later flight means we have all of next Saturday to get to London from Weymouth-on-the-Nod!
Last night Cath insisted we go to the temple to have the buddha we bought for Bernard [Hemensley] blessed. Initially thought we'd missed the opportunity for a blessing --the temple proper had closed --but then we saw the old monk (large man, abbot-like) sitting in his pavilion to the side of the temple in the forecourt. Cathy knows exactly what to do --exemplary courageous!
She steps up into the small pavilion facing the decorated or covered Buddhas alongside the temple wall. Drops to her knees, bows head, gives the sleeping buddha statue, which we bought at the Living Museum/Temple previous day, to the monk, an old Buddha himself. She makes her request or it is implicit in her actions. He examines the statue, turns it over, then launches into talking/singing chant. Halfway through the ceremony a Lao family joins her, --they pray, make their offering to the monk. He takes their gift, continues chanting over the buddha statue. Cathy comes away happy at task acquitted. She's scrupulous about custom/tradition. Lao convention that artefacts must be blessed to retain significance. My understanding is that the statue is an icon, a reflection of God, a palpable connection to the divine. We feel blessed too for our journey to England. Actually, the wish or prayer I made at the Living Museum (Cathy prompted me) was that our visit to Bernard in his house would be a happy one.
Sunday, May 22, 2011
THE MERRI CREEK : POEMS & PIECES, # 23, May 2011
PAUL HARPER
THREE POEMS
*
apps
history teaches us
to walk to paris on a fishing boat
with mercury retrograde
recipes for ice so rarely include
a detailed analysis of the advantages
to miniscule machines in bike path gridlock
or descriptions of that hill
where morning is first measured
& any linkage to rachmaninovs recent status
is to our minds self evidently spurious
we suggest a working party
a petition
an online survey
at very least a stern letter to the editor
perhaps a new chef
perhaps sunset over the oasis
idols revelling in the luxuriant garlands
of arrested early childhood development
oOo
local or general
we will always have the irreducible complexity
of weddings on a paddle steamer
the interminable wait for a new suit
beneath the glistening slate roof of the fossilised house
the ironing
the unclaimed spliff in the breast pocket of a blue shirt
discussion of bourgeois economics insinuating itself into a gleaming
aluminium egg
a sculpture partially eclipsed by snow from a mind known for its disinterest
not only in central european but also & perhaps particularly
alpine democracy
we will always have the emergent properties
of one day cricket in a convent
the rush of late wickets
the terror of a lost limb
the night out that ends with poetry
our backs toward the ocean in a hermit kingdom
little red riding hood botoxed for the mysterious woodsman
enthusiasts trusting a high school crush on the girl who can tie herself
through a wall with her own golden tresses
is based at least in part on the benevolent fallacy her blue echo
arrives last monday
oOo
another day on earth
venture with us to a land of sunshine
behind the waterfalls sparkling curtain
a simple rope trick
& we leave that sheepish mask
at the bottom of the stairs
in a drear grotto
with as much time as we need
to find that bowl
of very specific
if unspecified shape
in some quarters this is known as keeping a lid on things
in others two chairs
or mountains mountains mountains
before the space race
it was not uncommon to flit from one thing to the other
scanners riled parlours & dinner parties
with their erudite contributions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PHILLIP KANLIDIS
THREE POEMS
*
1
Talking about the immense scope of the universe
And the length and depth of the world
Of the lifespan of huge trees,
And typically apologising profusely -
I told Virginia about the ants by the freeway
She had seen the dying bees
And how the ants were acknowledged
As being , as entities
Rare living things
Beautiful cosmos
She agreed
And said , write a poem , we'll talk about it.
It was Christmas time and everyone was thinking deeply
The weather was warm and people were celebrating
Virginia was playing the temptress in a passion play
In front of 3000 people
And taking counselling, sorting out experiences.
Virginia , tall as the sky
Unique , bold and valiant
Infinitely worldly and wise
A modern day Saint with long brown hair and jeans
On a personal quest
Dealing with contradictions
Guided by the deep impulse of light
Steadfast in her pursuit of well being
Who does not suffer fools , let alone me
And she passionately strums her guitar
Singing songs of hope and inspiration
Let it be better , in the future
It can only get better , once the plan is in place.
In the city somewhere , Lee was sleeping on cardboard
Barefoot with rags over her head
Drinking cheap wine and thinking sad stories
With 20 dollars in her pocket , a gift from a friend
Whom she hugged and kissed in desperation.
I confirmed Alex's deep strong aura
Almost an overpowering silent presence
And likened hers to sea currents
I was concerned for all , hoping for individual success en masse
In a determined attempt for psychic alignment
For a better domination and overall effect
Where emotions are thoughts
And atomic molecules can be volitionally directed
When white matter expands and flowers
With wishful evolving neuroplasticity
Aiming for holistic geometrical harmony
Against all odds , trauma and despair
Without losing any sleep
Where some parts of the world were collapsing
While in others there was hope
And some special places were mysteriously shining
With an inspired contentment aglow with warm brilliance and peace
My legs were stronger but I was going in for the chop
Another one of those guided near death experiences
"You're shouting into the phone...", Virginia said quietly , wary of my excess
I tried to control my nervous volume
And gulped for breath.
oOo
2/
On Christmas Eve , the gargoyle busker acting like a stone sculpture
Entranced a crowd with his antics on Swanston Street.
I rolled by and caught his still eye and tipped my hat
He acknowledged with a wry smile and salute.
On Christmas Day
Mum found a small brown bird in the yard
Its leg was injured , and couldn't fly
Others birds were picking at it.
She took it in and fed it porridge
Put it in a basket to rest
And later put it outside again,
But it kept coming to her,
From around the front
Onto her shoulder.
Mum saved it
She said , "I am its mother."
oOo
3/
On the day before New Year's Eve
When it was bright and hot
I got off the bus
With a rolled up film poster of Enter The Void in my bag
And went by the path next to the freeway.
A large, scrawny , scraggly rat
Came out of the long grass and followed the footpath
At a leisurely pace in front of me
To the ramp road
It waited for traffic to pass
Then crossed onto a grassy patch on a traffic island.
I followed , on my way home.
The rat was wobbling sideways but kept up pace
I followed it around the grass
then it impatiently crossed the busy wide road
I was concerned for this wily rat
As it made its way across three lanes of tarmac
But in the last dreadful lane
Got clipped by the spinning wheel of an accelerating car
And lay there writhing , tail flickering
This was the worst I could imagine
I was helpless
then another car suddenly squashed it completely
that was the end of the adventurous grey rat
Who had travelled so far
Where was it going?
There was still another four lanes of traffic to go
And beyond that more concrete.
I was sad for this unlikely little creature
Though bush rats in the city are out of favour
I considered an untimely fatal accident
Of one of the smaller things
And the terrible road
What a way to see out the end of the year
With a poor squashed rodent
Amongst the merciless turning
Relentless charging noisy traffic
An unforeseen death one day before New Year
The word rat in Greek is arooraeo
*
[2010]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FRASER MACKAY
Three Poems
*
sahasrara
yellow pollen edges the spring pools
enjoying the interval
unravelling theandric threads
the universe's great joke;
hey you!
can you hold this for a minute?
ah the poignancy of failure
a bitter little dessert
with a twist of Rumi
but to linger a while longer
in your fine company
o press me closer
to your voice
to hear again
your rippling arpeggios
and relieve this hard rock
that weighs on my tongue
oOo
snaking home
word-shedding
the well chronicled
minutiae of addiction
in the usual font
dream hands reach out
but my attentive heart advises
you've been gone now
a tidy week
across the doona
a harvest moon
drapes its casual arm
tomorrow you'll be here
approximately
avoiding heart-spaces
our life slipping
with every relocation.
under a black hill
the future leans
precariously skyward
plunged deep in arrhythmia
I lurch around this broken mind
another skulking fox night to endure
wide awake imagining your headlights
snaking through the pines.
oOo
the tangled orchard
coffee-pot, pain-cracked enamel
shadows dance the river stones
in the tangled orchard
a woman scatters grain
the hens scratch and scrabble
stepping backward for a look
worlds fall from her skin
a twinkle still in the ashen sky
knowing attachment
will inevitably bring loss
storm birds rise -- wheeling south
over Black Hill.
*
[these poems are from the collection New Skin (Greendoor Publishing), 2010]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTRIBUTORS
PAUL HARPER's poems appeared in Poems & Pieces # 21
PHILLIP KANLIDIS is a visual artist & filmmaker, lives in Melbourne.
FRASER MACKAY lives in Central Victoria; a music/spoken-word performer. Link to fraser@greendoorpublishing.com. See www.greendoorpublishing.com. Published by Deakin Literary Society, Going Down Swinging.
THREE POEMS
*
apps
history teaches us
to walk to paris on a fishing boat
with mercury retrograde
recipes for ice so rarely include
a detailed analysis of the advantages
to miniscule machines in bike path gridlock
or descriptions of that hill
where morning is first measured
& any linkage to rachmaninovs recent status
is to our minds self evidently spurious
we suggest a working party
a petition
an online survey
at very least a stern letter to the editor
perhaps a new chef
perhaps sunset over the oasis
idols revelling in the luxuriant garlands
of arrested early childhood development
oOo
local or general
we will always have the irreducible complexity
of weddings on a paddle steamer
the interminable wait for a new suit
beneath the glistening slate roof of the fossilised house
the ironing
the unclaimed spliff in the breast pocket of a blue shirt
discussion of bourgeois economics insinuating itself into a gleaming
aluminium egg
a sculpture partially eclipsed by snow from a mind known for its disinterest
not only in central european but also & perhaps particularly
alpine democracy
we will always have the emergent properties
of one day cricket in a convent
the rush of late wickets
the terror of a lost limb
the night out that ends with poetry
our backs toward the ocean in a hermit kingdom
little red riding hood botoxed for the mysterious woodsman
enthusiasts trusting a high school crush on the girl who can tie herself
through a wall with her own golden tresses
is based at least in part on the benevolent fallacy her blue echo
arrives last monday
oOo
another day on earth
venture with us to a land of sunshine
behind the waterfalls sparkling curtain
a simple rope trick
& we leave that sheepish mask
at the bottom of the stairs
in a drear grotto
with as much time as we need
to find that bowl
of very specific
if unspecified shape
in some quarters this is known as keeping a lid on things
in others two chairs
or mountains mountains mountains
before the space race
it was not uncommon to flit from one thing to the other
scanners riled parlours & dinner parties
with their erudite contributions
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
PHILLIP KANLIDIS
THREE POEMS
*
1
Talking about the immense scope of the universe
And the length and depth of the world
Of the lifespan of huge trees,
And typically apologising profusely -
I told Virginia about the ants by the freeway
She had seen the dying bees
And how the ants were acknowledged
As being , as entities
Rare living things
Beautiful cosmos
She agreed
And said , write a poem , we'll talk about it.
It was Christmas time and everyone was thinking deeply
The weather was warm and people were celebrating
Virginia was playing the temptress in a passion play
In front of 3000 people
And taking counselling, sorting out experiences.
Virginia , tall as the sky
Unique , bold and valiant
Infinitely worldly and wise
A modern day Saint with long brown hair and jeans
On a personal quest
Dealing with contradictions
Guided by the deep impulse of light
Steadfast in her pursuit of well being
Who does not suffer fools , let alone me
And she passionately strums her guitar
Singing songs of hope and inspiration
Let it be better , in the future
It can only get better , once the plan is in place.
In the city somewhere , Lee was sleeping on cardboard
Barefoot with rags over her head
Drinking cheap wine and thinking sad stories
With 20 dollars in her pocket , a gift from a friend
Whom she hugged and kissed in desperation.
I confirmed Alex's deep strong aura
Almost an overpowering silent presence
And likened hers to sea currents
I was concerned for all , hoping for individual success en masse
In a determined attempt for psychic alignment
For a better domination and overall effect
Where emotions are thoughts
And atomic molecules can be volitionally directed
When white matter expands and flowers
With wishful evolving neuroplasticity
Aiming for holistic geometrical harmony
Against all odds , trauma and despair
Without losing any sleep
Where some parts of the world were collapsing
While in others there was hope
And some special places were mysteriously shining
With an inspired contentment aglow with warm brilliance and peace
My legs were stronger but I was going in for the chop
Another one of those guided near death experiences
"You're shouting into the phone...", Virginia said quietly , wary of my excess
I tried to control my nervous volume
And gulped for breath.
oOo
2/
On Christmas Eve , the gargoyle busker acting like a stone sculpture
Entranced a crowd with his antics on Swanston Street.
I rolled by and caught his still eye and tipped my hat
He acknowledged with a wry smile and salute.
On Christmas Day
Mum found a small brown bird in the yard
Its leg was injured , and couldn't fly
Others birds were picking at it.
She took it in and fed it porridge
Put it in a basket to rest
And later put it outside again,
But it kept coming to her,
From around the front
Onto her shoulder.
Mum saved it
She said , "I am its mother."
oOo
3/
On the day before New Year's Eve
When it was bright and hot
I got off the bus
With a rolled up film poster of Enter The Void in my bag
And went by the path next to the freeway.
A large, scrawny , scraggly rat
Came out of the long grass and followed the footpath
At a leisurely pace in front of me
To the ramp road
It waited for traffic to pass
Then crossed onto a grassy patch on a traffic island.
I followed , on my way home.
The rat was wobbling sideways but kept up pace
I followed it around the grass
then it impatiently crossed the busy wide road
I was concerned for this wily rat
As it made its way across three lanes of tarmac
But in the last dreadful lane
Got clipped by the spinning wheel of an accelerating car
And lay there writhing , tail flickering
This was the worst I could imagine
I was helpless
then another car suddenly squashed it completely
that was the end of the adventurous grey rat
Who had travelled so far
Where was it going?
There was still another four lanes of traffic to go
And beyond that more concrete.
I was sad for this unlikely little creature
Though bush rats in the city are out of favour
I considered an untimely fatal accident
Of one of the smaller things
And the terrible road
What a way to see out the end of the year
With a poor squashed rodent
Amongst the merciless turning
Relentless charging noisy traffic
An unforeseen death one day before New Year
The word rat in Greek is arooraeo
*
[2010]
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FRASER MACKAY
Three Poems
*
sahasrara
yellow pollen edges the spring pools
enjoying the interval
unravelling theandric threads
the universe's great joke;
hey you!
can you hold this for a minute?
ah the poignancy of failure
a bitter little dessert
with a twist of Rumi
but to linger a while longer
in your fine company
o press me closer
to your voice
to hear again
your rippling arpeggios
and relieve this hard rock
that weighs on my tongue
oOo
snaking home
word-shedding
the well chronicled
minutiae of addiction
in the usual font
dream hands reach out
but my attentive heart advises
you've been gone now
a tidy week
across the doona
a harvest moon
drapes its casual arm
tomorrow you'll be here
approximately
avoiding heart-spaces
our life slipping
with every relocation.
under a black hill
the future leans
precariously skyward
plunged deep in arrhythmia
I lurch around this broken mind
another skulking fox night to endure
wide awake imagining your headlights
snaking through the pines.
oOo
the tangled orchard
coffee-pot, pain-cracked enamel
shadows dance the river stones
in the tangled orchard
a woman scatters grain
the hens scratch and scrabble
stepping backward for a look
worlds fall from her skin
a twinkle still in the ashen sky
knowing attachment
will inevitably bring loss
storm birds rise -- wheeling south
over Black Hill.
*
[these poems are from the collection New Skin (Greendoor Publishing), 2010]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTRIBUTORS
PAUL HARPER's poems appeared in Poems & Pieces # 21
PHILLIP KANLIDIS is a visual artist & filmmaker, lives in Melbourne.
FRASER MACKAY lives in Central Victoria; a music/spoken-word performer. Link to fraser@greendoorpublishing.com. See www.greendoorpublishing.com. Published by Deakin Literary Society, Going Down Swinging.
Sunday, May 1, 2011
THE DORSET JOURNEY, 2011 : A CONVERSATION WITH THE STINGY ARTIST
KRIS & BERNARD HEMENSLEY
[20 April, 2011]
K.H. : So what is the 'Abbey' part of 'Goldy Abbey'?
B.H. : It's gone... it's the 'Hermitage' now.
K.H. : 'Goldy' of course is self-explanatory...
B.H. : From 'Goldcroft Road', plus 'gold' is a nice metaphor.
K.H. : What is the hermitage?
B.H. : It's just my place... people always equated my place with wherever I was working...
K.H. : Is this where the hermit lives?
B.H. : it's where a hermit lives, where he would like to live, he's still on the path –maybe he's an Anchorite! --I've always thought of that –I don't think it'll ever happen now : a self-limiting definition which suited the agoraphobic I was –just practice & meditate & see where that led...
K.H. : I always liked the conceit of the 'Abbot of Goldy'... I was interested in the possibilities of a certain kind of fantasy... like, to take on a role or image which did express a sense of who one was or would like to be?
B.H. : Yes, of course. You & Robin [Hemensley] dubbed me the Abbot because of my meditation practice –at one time it was three hours a day –on & off since 1970. You grow into who you're meant to be, both by the way people see you & how you see yourself. And now I feel I've got the life I always wanted & dreamt about. I'm 'busy' for up to 20 hours every day.
K.H. : So, what is this house?
B.H. : One concept derived from Robin's description of 'art houses' in Belgium, when he lived there in recent years : people would visit a house, the whole of which was an exhibition. My idea was that anything & everything in the house was for sale, including the house! Apart from that it's a place for quietness & contemplation, no longer following any one tradition but with its roots in Buddhism & Zen.
K.H. : The whole house is a living gallery –no dedicated exhibition or shop space?
B.H. : Yes, the whole house as home & studio...
K.H. : Regarding the Buddhism & et cetera : from the look of it –the vast library of contemporary & mostly American & Japanese literature –the tradition you refer to must also be based in the themes & practice of the poets, I suppose the West Coast poets?
B.H. : Not totally –I'm still interested in the New Englanders : Ted Enslin, William Bronk, Cid Corman, Larry Eigner, Wendell Berry. Otherwise it was West Coast, Japanese. The first book to get me going was Paul Reps' Zen Flesh, Zen Bones –my copy is the 1961 Anchor Books p/b edition –bought in the mid to late '60s. The reason for getting it was probably the influence of Dad's collection of of Yoga & esoteric books –also the Master Theiron magazines!
K.H. : Yes, and that's a whole other story!
B.H. : Yes, still very interesting. Dad was ahead of his time –auras, colours, diet –all of the New Age interests predated by Master Theiron!
K.H. : What would you like to happen in this house?
B.H. : I'd like it to bring into focus my interests, in the company of other people.
K.H. : So, is it a kind of b & b for esoterics?
B.H. : Only in a very private way –not open slather. It's not business! By invitation only --via family or my own connections...
K.H. : The obvious connections between literature –or let's say poetry --& Buddhism, say, appear to me, as I look around the house, to be Gary Snyder, the Beats –which aint exactly what you'd expect in an English country garden?!
B.H. : It's not what any other local expects either. My nearest English 'collaborator' is Owen Davis, who lives in Bournemouth, 30 miles away, who's into Bukowski, Kerouac, Patchen, Snyder, jazz... He seems to be following another direction now though these are still references in his head.
K.H. : Yes, I remember interviewing Owen in 1987, at Cemetery Lodge just down the road when you lived there. I had an old tape-recorder & a kind of commission from John Tranter, then with the ABC, to record some interviews with English poets to offer a picture of the contemporary situation in the UK. Pretty eccentric though : Owen Davis, Paul Buck, F.T. Prince! Nothing came of it! Actually, I'm a bit confused about the date, because I also interviewed Nicholas Johnson. Perhaps it was Owen & Paul in '87, and Frank & Nicholas in 1990? We sold a copy of Owen's Che Hamzah's Monkey, which you published (Stingy Artist, '88), at Collected Works recently-- nice poems –
B.H. : Yes, Catherine [O'Brien] thought so too –she bought some copies for I : Cat Gallery (in Vientiane). Also Cralan Kelder, on the phone recently from Amsterdam, said he was very taken by those poems...
K.H. : Ah yes, Cralan Kelder [his collection Give Some Word, from Shearsman, UK, 2010] –he'd contacted me via email having found the Poetry & Ideas blog –he's interested in Franco Beltrametti and read references to Franco in my article on Cornelis Vleeskens. And I put him in touch with you as immense stockist of Black Sparrow / Bukowski titles & everything else. And so you were able to send him the two publications of Franco you've produced...
B.H. : Yes –Three for Nado (Stingy Artist / Last Straw Press, UK, 1992) & Two Letters to Nado (Stingy Artist Editions, 2010). Nado was my nickname and in Japanese means “et cetera, et cetera” (as described in one of the Franco letters.
K.H. : It doesnt refer at all, then, to Franco's character Nadamas, in his novel of that name, a section of which I published in my mag, Earth Ship, back in '71 or '72?
B.H. : I didnt think of that --I dont know...
[Break for lunch : bottle of Old Thumper, Bernard's home baked bread, spring onions, cheddar cheese, hommous.
Bread : organic almost 100% wholemeal flours consisting of kamut, wheat, barley, molasses, barley malt, sunflower seeds, fennel seeds, salt, dried yeast, warm water, olive-oil, oat flakes decoration.
Beer : Ringwood Brewery's Old Thumper --”A Beast of a beer” --wonderful picture of boar on label, full frontal & tusked. Alc., 5.6% vol.
“Hampshire's New Forest was historically the hunting ground of legendary fierce wild boar, the prize kill of many an English king. Ringwood Brewery celebrated this heritage with a real beast of a beer in 'Old Thumper'. It delivers a deep brown strong ale with a spicy fruity hop aroma and a warming nutty finish. The distinctive taste has made it a champion Beer of Britain, popular at home and abroad.”]
oOo
[via telephone & email, 1st of May, 2011]
B.H. : Coming from a background of residential social care-work, I naturally tend towards providing a nurturing environment at Goldy. How necessary do you think that might be for writers & artists?
K.H. : I'd like to pull your question into a slightly different discussion, namely the kind of therapeutic occasion such a residence might enhance and whether the making of art, the writing of poetry, benefits from nurture! The thing is, you are making an environment at Goldy, which includes its whole house library of poetry & related literature, and, importantly, or important to you, the food you provide & its informing philosophy. You are simply but thoroughly the host. The environment itself is what will or wont nurture your guest or guests. Being a host to such visitors is not social work in the way your professional background understood it. As you say, the house is where you'll “bring into focus [my] interests, in the company of other people.”
B.H. : It's a resource for writers & artists containing an extensive Zen & Buddhist library. And I'd like to offer a healthy, mainly plant based diet. I have also imagined a Zen sitting group. And do you think a structured environment is necessary?
K.H. : Your artist & writer guests (I'm sure you include readers in that swag) might not of course be Zennists or Buddhists, but they'd be accepting of such as the accent of the place. Fundamentally for visitors it'll be a rather special pied a terre. I wonder if you ever came across the term “eco-monastery”? It was used by John Martin & others in the early '80s here, to describe places which tried to live up to (Deep) ecological principals and to be a combination of retreat & sanctuary. The structure youre wondering about is surely more a general environment or ambiance than a workshop with curriculum!
I actually feel there's a connection between your place in Weymouth, Catherine [O'Brien]'s I : Cat Gallery in Vientiane, Laos, and our Collected Works Bookshop in Melbourne. Cathy told me today that she's been congratulated on her gallery's “independence”. I think that means she just gets on with it : providing a space for poetry, art, film events, and a guest-room, for which she takes the responsibility. She's not waiting on other people or organizations' say-so. I:Cat is becoming known in Vientiane but not at the cost of her personal freedom. This her life, her contribution to the creative life where she lives & works. As you say for Goldy, it's not a business! The same at Collected Works : we are a bookshop in the marketplace, but our economics are about surviving & maintaining a particular kind of creative, literary space, not being a commercial success per se.
B.H. : Based on what youve seen of Goldy on your visit, do you think rapprochement between local & international is possible?
K.H. : Well, without being cute, the existence of your house in Weymouth is that rapprochement in practice! And the contradiction of terms, local & international, is only formal; that is to say, it's not mutually exclusive, nor ever was (as if, as said elsewhere, the Ecole du Paris wasnt local)! If you mean, how will you connect with the local when what you've experienced of the local (Weymouth, Dorset, England et al) doesnt connect with you? --then you have to expand your physical/social ambit as well as your definition, otherwise wither on the vine of mutual exclusivity!
When I've asked the question, most recently in context of our Dharma Bum correspondence (elsewhere in this blog), I only ever thought in terms of connections. At the same time, Weymouth isnt Melbourne, Vientiane, California or Japan in its external forms & expressions, but must be connected as yet another place in the world with the potential for authentic encounter & practice!
[Stop, for walking in one hemisphere, sleeping in the other.]
oOo
(edited Kris Hemensley, Melbourne)
Wednesday, April 6, 2011
THE MERRI CREEK : POEMS & PIECES, #22, April, 2011
C. D. BARRON
3 POEMS & A LETTER
oOo
THE PALM
"Nevertheless the truth that is in the intellect, some is simple and some is complex."
Joseph Delmedigo, 1629
A star-fish
suckered with hope
as a garden postponed
A helmet of shady thoughts
for an artist's hand splayed
brittle as bread-sticks
A hallowed mountain
feathered with eyelashes
as a lost piece of puzzle
A fragment of moss
on which sits an angel
waving a periwinkle
A sealed fountain self-effaced
a broken bell upturned
holding seventy paradoxes
A palm at the end of the mind
beyond bitter waters
and a desert of moon
[2009/11]
oOo
NEW MOON/Aspasia of the Archway
Self reflection
is the praxis of hypostatic unity
trinity in foil
res before convexity
finding your arche become
more knowing than epochal being
Beautiful you say
now shut up
and let the order begin
in wirkel
in gedichte
in principium
Only without principle can we properly live
self complacency our best hope
syllogisms full of bellis and systematic abuse
bending in haecceity catoptric for life
luteo scorpio this iron stillness is like hell
father fear the enemy in dwelling
[9/1/00/11]
oOo
POSHLOST
"before us the future looms dark, and that we can scarcely...."
Gogol, Dead Souls
Birds
fly through water
like silver
in transaction
whether this be deep
or the half life
is not the question
A half moon
like horns on the head
makes for better sacrifice
than the horizon of Marduk
his slavish destruction of chaos
causes us to forget cuppeity
and the filial tussle with quintessence
[2/'11]
oOo
CORRESPONDENCE :
Thoughts arising from a reading of Kris Hemensley article on Grossinger: -
Basically I hold to the anarchist's tenet, that we are best not to be overly-concerned with endings as to do so is to be purloined by "means". Rather concentrate on the paradoxes and interactions of our times beyond solution. Perhaps the Homeric encounter with Calypso speaks best, where one sought, whether reasonably or unreasonably, release from specific mystification for a better journeying. Interestingly, the release was only made possible by Hermes, the mercurial one. For some the vessel of journey may itself bear the veiling name, as with Cousteau, the deep sea explorer: for for some there is no release, life is forever mystery, as with a mirroring sea. In contrast the seduction of the portal accepts some pre-existant framing which may or may not prove useful. Indeed a port-hole as opposed to a starboard hole, would surely have direct linkage with left brain/right brain posturing, which is where I come undone.
Goethe's "gross natural array" has long been seen as obdurate, and it may or may not have something to do with politics. I haven't read Williams' "Kora in Hell" but would be most interested, as formative work usually holds some germ that is enlightening. The present re-appraisal of Goethe's criticisms of Newton I find fascinating. But God forbid some elected or unelected ecclesia have power to declare one or other invalid. We would do well to preserve the Manichees and their unmediated black and white, at the same time, wisely and yet with relish, explore outside possibilities while we have the chance. Why should one exclude the other? Thank goodness for pamphlets and blogs which give rise to dialogue, to disclose, to explore, to express unwillingness to have wool pulled over our eyes, however charmingly . Yet the poet is not always sooth-sayer. I believe, perhaps you think wrongly, that his training should be sufficient to allow him to express untruth with positive outcome. This may be to launch again the good ship Calypso, and furthermore to pit poetry against reason for yet another season. It may possibly even force the composers of music into their diatonic vs chromatic camps again.
[22-1-11]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VERA DI CAMPLI SAN VITO
3 Poems
oOo
Burnley Oval
An orange halo wavers around the streetlight –
a gelatinous moon.
Walk past the children's playground, into the middle.
Let your eyes adjust to the dark.
Now you’re exposed like the whitewashed wooden posts.
Listen to the boom gates clang, train rumble past.
Continue on, away from the houses and the street, where it's darker still.
Beside the tracks looms the stump of the corroboree tree.
Circle it once.
Sense the warmth of its fire-blackened trunk, the didgeridoos, the chanting.
Turn one-eighty degrees to see the moon risen
and ready to burst over the city's skyline.
You could almost howl.
oOo
Heptonstall
Up a steep cobblestoned lane, flies suck
the sun-withered corpses of black slugs.
Gaping ruins of a thirteenth century church
overlook a yard of fallen slabs.
Through an iron gate into a high-walled field
half-filled with graves, only you
the trees and the tombstones are standing.
Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted.
The wind picks up a heap of clouds
shoves them across the sun and cools your sweat.
You shiver and start back down.
oOo
Blackberries
“They don’t break ‘em like they used to,”
Mother said, picking blackberries at noon.
We’d gone to the edge of the cliff
where the brambles were thick.
“In those days we kept killer goats, ate anything,
chomped these bushes down to the ground.”
I pictured their cast-iron guts.
Mother licked blackberry juice from her fingers,
her voice as bitter as the juice was sweet:
“Afterwards we’d stamp on what was left with bare feet.”
----------------------------------------------------------------
CAROL JENKINS
The Tassajara Way or Refrigerator No.5
I had my first heart attack at nineteen. I was making bread in a narrow kitchen that faced west. The louvres were closed so that everything hot in an Adelaide summer Saturday, everything compressed and still in the quiet of the inner city block, could build in the room. So the yeast could get cracking.
I was working with scholarly diligence from the Tassajara Bread Book, making a bread sponge - that slurry of yeast, warm water and flour that has nothing in it to inhibit the yeast’s multiplication. The Tassajara Bread Book promised me this would be an investment in gluten development. I wish I still had this book, with its paper bag brown cover, Moorish font, and thick pages that almost had the texture of a dense sourdough. It persuasively explained a system for the care and nurturing of bread that everyone should read, and the chapter on sour dough was excellent.
I was by myself for the weekend, my first term in a new university and a new city. Don’t ask why I was there, nineteen, no friends and no money, living in a semi with a lover who was conspicuously absent and a friend of his trying to make the most of this.
Emeric lived next door, in the ‘mirror’ semi – number 22. Canadian, he said was a geologist, and perhaps he was. What he was definitely, was hunting for company. Anytime someone called in to visit at 22A, he’d slouch over to give his long Canadian vowels a run. At fifty or more, he was in the process of realising he had been jilted by his much younger girlfriend. Maybe she had figured out that the gris eminis and convivial conversation, boiled down to the unforgivably boring much quicker than they should have. I had the idea that he lived on money sent to him from his mother who had a cherry orchard in Canada. Whatever work had bought him to Adelaide, the vicarious grip on youth that prolonged his stay had trailed off to something asymptotically flat. Eventually his mother paid for his ticket home and he announced that was returning to Canada, like he was doing her a favour. In this circumstance, where I could see the end of him in sight, and that he had promised I could have his fridge when he left in 2 weeks, I didn’t mind when he appeared at the back door asking for a cup of tea.
I still have the drop side table he had his elbow on as he sat drinking the tea in the kitchen. The bread sponge was working up at a great rate and I watched it seethe upwards in the bowl as I drank my tea, my back jammed against the makeshift kitchen bench that swayed like a boat and flaked off flat shards of slate.
I can’t remember anything specific Emeric said on that day, until he said It’s very hot in here and I don’t feel so well. He didn’t look well. A fine beading of sweat was starting to slide down his forehead. I suggested in an off-hand manner that he sit in the front room for a while. It was dark and cool in there, in the way of a south facing room with front verandah that had not seen a beam of sunlight since the roof was put on in 1890. And I could get on making bread without his expert commentary.
Emeric went to cool down. I turned my attention back to converting the sponge to dough. It was rye bread, a putty grey coloured flecked with brown. It was a true gaseous mass and the spoon made slurpy belching noises as it broke through pockets of carbon dioxide. The gluten had come into itself and the dough followed the spoon’s progress like fond glue. It smelt sour, and fecund: productive. It was a pity to overwhelm it with oil, salt and more flour but the way ahead was the Tassajara path and I was on the road to bread.
Emeric reappeared in the kitchen. I was interested to see that people really did go grey and he was now one of them. Some distant part of my brain caste a clinical eye on his greyness, the funny hunched way he was standing and I suggested that he take 2 or 3 aspirin straight away. In hindsight this was excellent advice, if a little spooky in its unconscious choice of the need for something to thin the blood. Emeric went home.
A little while later while I was pummelling one load of dough, with another great mass growing like an opera chorus in its bowl, I heard Emeric singing. He sang quite a bit and very badly. My reflex was to turn a deaf ear. But this song had an odd rhythm and after a bit, I made myself listen to the words. Rather, the word, for it was just the one word repeated in rising scale. HELP.
The evidence that been churlishly, unconsciously collecting about Emeric’s bodily state seemed to rush with me as I did the loop out of my back door, around the fence, up the path and into his house. One look at Emeric flat on his bed with blue lips was enough to consolidate my suspicions. I said Emeric I think you’re having a heart attack. No, he said, he had pains, pins and needles in his arms. Sounded more and more like a heart attack. I said I would run to the phone box and call an ambulance. The idea that he needed oxygen, with its suggestion of mouth to mouth, shot me out of the room.
As I ran out of his door I realized my bread dough would need punching down, so I ran back into my kitchen and thumped the hell out of it, turned and ran out again, heading for phone booth a couple of blocks away. I didn’t have far to go, as I capitalized on fellow in the next block who was watering his garden, and begged the use of his phone. With the ambulance on its way I ran back to Emeric’s house.
The ambulance came very quickly, I had opened Emeric’s front door so they charged in like a movie. They asked him if he had had heart attack before. No, No he was saying as if to save himself. They had Emeric on the trolley and out the door while I was still loitering in his filthy kitchen. There was an unpleasant stale smell of dirty socks and sauerkraut.
There is an almost macabre fascination, standing in the kitchen of person who has been taken away by a wailing ambulance. I looked around in an interrogating way, at the dregs in coffee cups, then I opened the fridge. There was not much in it, jars of cheap red fish roe, sauerkraut, a bottle of milk that was mine, beer, mustard, wilted vegetables. A cold chop on a plate, much greyer than Emeric. Emeric did a line in damp dog-eared third hand books, with wrinkled corners and cracked paper spines, that would put most people off reading for life. On a kitchen shelf next to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged was a cookbook that caught my eye. The title of it went along the lines “How to Cook so you don’t have another heart attack”. I scrutinized the shelves more closely, this was the only cook book there. It seemed a bit of a giveaway to me. Was this his second heart attack? Was it vanity or some dreadful denial that had prompted Emeric to whisper emphatically to the ambulance officers that he had never had a heart attack. Perhaps he had experienced twinges and the cookbook was some sort of cut-rate insurance.
I thought about cleaning up, but decided against it. I went back to my place and the bread dough.
It turned out that Emeric’s heart attack might have been fatal. He spent a week in intensive care, before graduating to a ward. I got a message from his ex-girlfriend, who came with her friends to clean up his house, that he would have to delay his flight to Canada for six weeks. It would be weeks before he got out of hospital. I was annoyed, this meant that my two week wait for the fridge would slide into six week wait. But then I figured if he was in hospital he didn’t need a fridge. It was a heavy old lumbering fridge and I got my boyfriend and his mate, who was getting more desperate, to move it. It always smelt faintly like stale sauerkraut. But a fridge is a useful thing.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTRIBUTORS :
C D BARRON & CAROL JENKINS have been this way before [see the name index for appearances in previous issues]. Chris is surely due for a book soon, and Carol, if she can spare the time from her River Road Press [Australian poets on CD] publishing, due for a second. VERA DI CAMPLI SAN VITO has been on the edges since it began and at last tips into it. Before returning to Australia a few years ago, she worked at the Poetry Cafe in London. Why did I think she was an assistant at the Poetry Library on South Bank? Occasionally publishes & reads on the Melbourne circuit.
--Now I have a 'plane to catch!
K.H., ed--
April 6th, 2011.
3 POEMS & A LETTER
oOo
THE PALM
"Nevertheless the truth that is in the intellect, some is simple and some is complex."
Joseph Delmedigo, 1629
A star-fish
suckered with hope
as a garden postponed
A helmet of shady thoughts
for an artist's hand splayed
brittle as bread-sticks
A hallowed mountain
feathered with eyelashes
as a lost piece of puzzle
A fragment of moss
on which sits an angel
waving a periwinkle
A sealed fountain self-effaced
a broken bell upturned
holding seventy paradoxes
A palm at the end of the mind
beyond bitter waters
and a desert of moon
[2009/11]
oOo
NEW MOON/Aspasia of the Archway
Self reflection
is the praxis of hypostatic unity
trinity in foil
res before convexity
finding your arche become
more knowing than epochal being
Beautiful you say
now shut up
and let the order begin
in wirkel
in gedichte
in principium
Only without principle can we properly live
self complacency our best hope
syllogisms full of bellis and systematic abuse
bending in haecceity catoptric for life
luteo scorpio this iron stillness is like hell
father fear the enemy in dwelling
[9/1/00/11]
oOo
POSHLOST
"before us the future looms dark, and that we can scarcely...."
Gogol, Dead Souls
Birds
fly through water
like silver
in transaction
whether this be deep
or the half life
is not the question
A half moon
like horns on the head
makes for better sacrifice
than the horizon of Marduk
his slavish destruction of chaos
causes us to forget cuppeity
and the filial tussle with quintessence
[2/'11]
oOo
CORRESPONDENCE :
Thoughts arising from a reading of Kris Hemensley article on Grossinger: -
Basically I hold to the anarchist's tenet, that we are best not to be overly-concerned with endings as to do so is to be purloined by "means". Rather concentrate on the paradoxes and interactions of our times beyond solution. Perhaps the Homeric encounter with Calypso speaks best, where one sought, whether reasonably or unreasonably, release from specific mystification for a better journeying. Interestingly, the release was only made possible by Hermes, the mercurial one. For some the vessel of journey may itself bear the veiling name, as with Cousteau, the deep sea explorer: for for some there is no release, life is forever mystery, as with a mirroring sea. In contrast the seduction of the portal accepts some pre-existant framing which may or may not prove useful. Indeed a port-hole as opposed to a starboard hole, would surely have direct linkage with left brain/right brain posturing, which is where I come undone.
Goethe's "gross natural array" has long been seen as obdurate, and it may or may not have something to do with politics. I haven't read Williams' "Kora in Hell" but would be most interested, as formative work usually holds some germ that is enlightening. The present re-appraisal of Goethe's criticisms of Newton I find fascinating. But God forbid some elected or unelected ecclesia have power to declare one or other invalid. We would do well to preserve the Manichees and their unmediated black and white, at the same time, wisely and yet with relish, explore outside possibilities while we have the chance. Why should one exclude the other? Thank goodness for pamphlets and blogs which give rise to dialogue, to disclose, to explore, to express unwillingness to have wool pulled over our eyes, however charmingly . Yet the poet is not always sooth-sayer. I believe, perhaps you think wrongly, that his training should be sufficient to allow him to express untruth with positive outcome. This may be to launch again the good ship Calypso, and furthermore to pit poetry against reason for yet another season. It may possibly even force the composers of music into their diatonic vs chromatic camps again.
[22-1-11]
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
VERA DI CAMPLI SAN VITO
3 Poems
oOo
Burnley Oval
An orange halo wavers around the streetlight –
a gelatinous moon.
Walk past the children's playground, into the middle.
Let your eyes adjust to the dark.
Now you’re exposed like the whitewashed wooden posts.
Listen to the boom gates clang, train rumble past.
Continue on, away from the houses and the street, where it's darker still.
Beside the tracks looms the stump of the corroboree tree.
Circle it once.
Sense the warmth of its fire-blackened trunk, the didgeridoos, the chanting.
Turn one-eighty degrees to see the moon risen
and ready to burst over the city's skyline.
You could almost howl.
oOo
Heptonstall
Up a steep cobblestoned lane, flies suck
the sun-withered corpses of black slugs.
Gaping ruins of a thirteenth century church
overlook a yard of fallen slabs.
Through an iron gate into a high-walled field
half-filled with graves, only you
the trees and the tombstones are standing.
Even amidst fierce flames the golden lotus can be planted.
The wind picks up a heap of clouds
shoves them across the sun and cools your sweat.
You shiver and start back down.
oOo
Blackberries
“They don’t break ‘em like they used to,”
Mother said, picking blackberries at noon.
We’d gone to the edge of the cliff
where the brambles were thick.
“In those days we kept killer goats, ate anything,
chomped these bushes down to the ground.”
I pictured their cast-iron guts.
Mother licked blackberry juice from her fingers,
her voice as bitter as the juice was sweet:
“Afterwards we’d stamp on what was left with bare feet.”
----------------------------------------------------------------
CAROL JENKINS
The Tassajara Way or Refrigerator No.5
I had my first heart attack at nineteen. I was making bread in a narrow kitchen that faced west. The louvres were closed so that everything hot in an Adelaide summer Saturday, everything compressed and still in the quiet of the inner city block, could build in the room. So the yeast could get cracking.
I was working with scholarly diligence from the Tassajara Bread Book, making a bread sponge - that slurry of yeast, warm water and flour that has nothing in it to inhibit the yeast’s multiplication. The Tassajara Bread Book promised me this would be an investment in gluten development. I wish I still had this book, with its paper bag brown cover, Moorish font, and thick pages that almost had the texture of a dense sourdough. It persuasively explained a system for the care and nurturing of bread that everyone should read, and the chapter on sour dough was excellent.
I was by myself for the weekend, my first term in a new university and a new city. Don’t ask why I was there, nineteen, no friends and no money, living in a semi with a lover who was conspicuously absent and a friend of his trying to make the most of this.
Emeric lived next door, in the ‘mirror’ semi – number 22. Canadian, he said was a geologist, and perhaps he was. What he was definitely, was hunting for company. Anytime someone called in to visit at 22A, he’d slouch over to give his long Canadian vowels a run. At fifty or more, he was in the process of realising he had been jilted by his much younger girlfriend. Maybe she had figured out that the gris eminis and convivial conversation, boiled down to the unforgivably boring much quicker than they should have. I had the idea that he lived on money sent to him from his mother who had a cherry orchard in Canada. Whatever work had bought him to Adelaide, the vicarious grip on youth that prolonged his stay had trailed off to something asymptotically flat. Eventually his mother paid for his ticket home and he announced that was returning to Canada, like he was doing her a favour. In this circumstance, where I could see the end of him in sight, and that he had promised I could have his fridge when he left in 2 weeks, I didn’t mind when he appeared at the back door asking for a cup of tea.
I still have the drop side table he had his elbow on as he sat drinking the tea in the kitchen. The bread sponge was working up at a great rate and I watched it seethe upwards in the bowl as I drank my tea, my back jammed against the makeshift kitchen bench that swayed like a boat and flaked off flat shards of slate.
I can’t remember anything specific Emeric said on that day, until he said It’s very hot in here and I don’t feel so well. He didn’t look well. A fine beading of sweat was starting to slide down his forehead. I suggested in an off-hand manner that he sit in the front room for a while. It was dark and cool in there, in the way of a south facing room with front verandah that had not seen a beam of sunlight since the roof was put on in 1890. And I could get on making bread without his expert commentary.
Emeric went to cool down. I turned my attention back to converting the sponge to dough. It was rye bread, a putty grey coloured flecked with brown. It was a true gaseous mass and the spoon made slurpy belching noises as it broke through pockets of carbon dioxide. The gluten had come into itself and the dough followed the spoon’s progress like fond glue. It smelt sour, and fecund: productive. It was a pity to overwhelm it with oil, salt and more flour but the way ahead was the Tassajara path and I was on the road to bread.
Emeric reappeared in the kitchen. I was interested to see that people really did go grey and he was now one of them. Some distant part of my brain caste a clinical eye on his greyness, the funny hunched way he was standing and I suggested that he take 2 or 3 aspirin straight away. In hindsight this was excellent advice, if a little spooky in its unconscious choice of the need for something to thin the blood. Emeric went home.
A little while later while I was pummelling one load of dough, with another great mass growing like an opera chorus in its bowl, I heard Emeric singing. He sang quite a bit and very badly. My reflex was to turn a deaf ear. But this song had an odd rhythm and after a bit, I made myself listen to the words. Rather, the word, for it was just the one word repeated in rising scale. HELP.
The evidence that been churlishly, unconsciously collecting about Emeric’s bodily state seemed to rush with me as I did the loop out of my back door, around the fence, up the path and into his house. One look at Emeric flat on his bed with blue lips was enough to consolidate my suspicions. I said Emeric I think you’re having a heart attack. No, he said, he had pains, pins and needles in his arms. Sounded more and more like a heart attack. I said I would run to the phone box and call an ambulance. The idea that he needed oxygen, with its suggestion of mouth to mouth, shot me out of the room.
As I ran out of his door I realized my bread dough would need punching down, so I ran back into my kitchen and thumped the hell out of it, turned and ran out again, heading for phone booth a couple of blocks away. I didn’t have far to go, as I capitalized on fellow in the next block who was watering his garden, and begged the use of his phone. With the ambulance on its way I ran back to Emeric’s house.
The ambulance came very quickly, I had opened Emeric’s front door so they charged in like a movie. They asked him if he had had heart attack before. No, No he was saying as if to save himself. They had Emeric on the trolley and out the door while I was still loitering in his filthy kitchen. There was an unpleasant stale smell of dirty socks and sauerkraut.
There is an almost macabre fascination, standing in the kitchen of person who has been taken away by a wailing ambulance. I looked around in an interrogating way, at the dregs in coffee cups, then I opened the fridge. There was not much in it, jars of cheap red fish roe, sauerkraut, a bottle of milk that was mine, beer, mustard, wilted vegetables. A cold chop on a plate, much greyer than Emeric. Emeric did a line in damp dog-eared third hand books, with wrinkled corners and cracked paper spines, that would put most people off reading for life. On a kitchen shelf next to Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged was a cookbook that caught my eye. The title of it went along the lines “How to Cook so you don’t have another heart attack”. I scrutinized the shelves more closely, this was the only cook book there. It seemed a bit of a giveaway to me. Was this his second heart attack? Was it vanity or some dreadful denial that had prompted Emeric to whisper emphatically to the ambulance officers that he had never had a heart attack. Perhaps he had experienced twinges and the cookbook was some sort of cut-rate insurance.
I thought about cleaning up, but decided against it. I went back to my place and the bread dough.
It turned out that Emeric’s heart attack might have been fatal. He spent a week in intensive care, before graduating to a ward. I got a message from his ex-girlfriend, who came with her friends to clean up his house, that he would have to delay his flight to Canada for six weeks. It would be weeks before he got out of hospital. I was annoyed, this meant that my two week wait for the fridge would slide into six week wait. But then I figured if he was in hospital he didn’t need a fridge. It was a heavy old lumbering fridge and I got my boyfriend and his mate, who was getting more desperate, to move it. It always smelt faintly like stale sauerkraut. But a fridge is a useful thing.
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CONTRIBUTORS :
C D BARRON & CAROL JENKINS have been this way before [see the name index for appearances in previous issues]. Chris is surely due for a book soon, and Carol, if she can spare the time from her River Road Press [Australian poets on CD] publishing, due for a second. VERA DI CAMPLI SAN VITO has been on the edges since it began and at last tips into it. Before returning to Australia a few years ago, she worked at the Poetry Cafe in London. Why did I think she was an assistant at the Poetry Library on South Bank? Occasionally publishes & reads on the Melbourne circuit.
--Now I have a 'plane to catch!
K.H., ed--
April 6th, 2011.
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