Southern Highlands Writers' Festival

The festival is nearly here! Myself and a team of twitter experts will be broadcasting all of the highlights from the festival. To follow or join in on the conversation follow #shwf2013 on twitter and Facebook.

To find out more about the festival lineup and to book tickets go to www.shwf.com.au.

Poems I have Read - Taint by Grace Nicholls

Henry Louis Gates discusses the use of ‘Black’ vernacular in postcolonial literature as an act of reclaiming language and aligning the speaker with their black heritage, separate from the ‘white’ colonists (1989). ‘Black’ vernacular is used to create a ‘black’/ ‘white’ schism and is often used to highlight the different roles that ‘black’ and ‘white’ played in the process of colonialism and in the slave trade. The title of Grace Nicholls' poetry collection is written in this ‘Black’ vernacular, I is a Long Memoried Woman (1983).

However, Nicholls' poem 'Taint' is not written in this ‘Black’ vernacular. This is possibly to strengthen the theme of the poem, being ‘stolen’ for the slave trade. The speaker has been ‘stolen’ from where they belong. Language is a powerful tool in post-colonial studies, for the reasons that Henry Louis Gates explores, it is used to reclaim culture and heritage. The development of pigeon English and the handing down of this dialect through generations to form a Creole language is an important process to separate the victims of the slave trade from ‘White’ colonial powers and reclaim a cultural distinction.

On looking closer at the poem the theme of being ‘stolen’ for the slave trade becomes more complex. The speaker states that they were ‘stolen’ and ‘traded’ “by men the colour of my own skin”. The use of repetition here, as Nicholls repeats the line “by men the colour of my own skin”, emphasizes the anger the speaker has for this history of being ‘stolen’ by African slave traders. The anger is not being aimed at the ‘white’ slave owners, but at the men of the same "skin" as the speaker. The use of Western phonetics in this poem can be interpreted as a rejection of a connection to the speaker’s African heritage.

But I was stolen by men
the colour of my own skin...

But I was traded by men
the colour of my own skin
traded like a fowl like a goat
like a sack of kernels I was
traded...

Kwabena Akurang-Parry, states that some African states were involved in the trading of African’s from other states in the Atlantic slave Trade (2010). However, in his critique of Henry Louis Gates, he stresses that it is important to not except the viewpoint that “Africans” enslaved “Africans” (Akurang-Parry, K 2010). Akurang-Parry discusses the deployment of “African”, observing that in African history there is a tendency to coalesce into obscurantist (conservative/traditionalist) constructions of identities that allow scholars, for instance, to subtly call into question the humanity of “all” Africans. Whenever Asante rulers sold non-Asantes into slavery, they did not construct it in terms of Africans selling fellow Africans. They saw the victims for what they were, for instance, as Akuapems, without categorizing them as fellow Africans. Equally, when Christian Scandinavians and Russians sold war captives to the Islamic people of the Abbasid Empire, they didn’t think that they were placing fellow Europeans into slavery. This lazy categorizing homogenizes Africans and has become a part of the methodology of African history. It is through this history that Afro-Americans search for, or rebel against an African identity.

The similes in the second stanza illustrate how undervalued the speaker feels as the men trade him/her “for trinkets”. Indeed, African slaves were traded for goods such as glass beads. The use of the punctuation in this stanza, the question mark, creates a tone of disbelief and resentment, disbelief that anyone could trade her life for such little value and resentment at the middle man, who traded lives for trinkets.

But I was traded by men
the colour of my own skin
traded like a fowl like a goat
like a sack of kernels I was
traded
for beads for pans
for trinkets?

Alliteration is also used in this stanza to again highlight that the speaker’s life was reduced to the value of a ‘trinket’. The ‘K’ sound is repeated throughout the stanza: "...traded ‘like’… ‘like’ a ‘sack’ of ‘kernels’… for ‘trinkets’". The line spacing in this stanza is also important in demonstrating the emotion the speaker feels for being traded for something as little as a ‘trinket’. The word ‘traded’ is placed on a line by itself not only to focus the readers to the act of trade that has occurred, but also to symbolise the trade, separating the objects to be traded from the objects they are traded for. The space between “like a fowl like a goat” emphasises the simile of the speaker to these animals. The spacing in the items the speaker was traded for is used to slow that part of the stanza down and draw attention to the simplicity of the items and the resentment that the speaker feels.

What is a Negro slave? A man of the black race. ... A Negro is a Negro. Only under certain conditions does he become a slave. A cotton-spinning machine is a machine for spinning cotton. Only under certain conditions does it become capital. Torn away from these conditions, it is as little capital as gold is itself money, or sugar is the price of sugar. - Marx, Wage Labour and Capital (1847)

Nicholls has used a lot of alliteration in this poem. I have already shown how the letter ‘k’ is repeated to demonstrate the undervaluing of the speaker’s life that happened through the slave trade. Throughout the entire poem there is alliteration of the letter ‘t’. The letter ‘t’ appears to be dictating the themes of the poem as being ‘stolen’ and ‘traded’ by men who are not human, who do not value life, hands ‘turned talons’, the undervaluing of life, being ‘traded’ for ‘trinkets’. The letter ‘t’ takes us down the ‘trail’, the path of the trade, or of the memory of the trade and walks us to the present. ‘It’, the stealing and trading, we cannot ‘forget’, what we refuse to acknowledge in history is still there, it still happened. Finally the ‘t’ brings the reader to the end of the journey as the speaker rinses the ‘taint of treachery’, the history of betrayal and the speaker’s racial heritage. The poem moves away from an Afro-diasporic identity, allowing the speaker to create their own individual identity, which is still dictated by the past.

Southern Highlands Writers' Festival Events

The South Coast Writers Centre, in association with the Southern Highlands Writers' Festival and supported by Arts NSW, will be hosting the following three events on Saturday, July 13th at Gibraltar House in Bowral.

Seeking Horizons: Acclaimed and Local Poets in Conversation
Rhiannon Hall from the South Coast Writers Centre will be in conversation with three local poets: Mark Tredinnick, Ron Pretty and Chris Mansell, in the Gallery Room, from 2.30–3.30pm.
Fantastic Fiction
Authors Nigel Featherstone and Christine Howe will be discussing contemporary Australian fiction and their latest works with journalist and author William Verity, in the Ballroom, from 4–5pm.
Muso Musings
Musician and ABC Illawarra broadcaster Nick Rheinberger will be in conversation with one of Australia's most prolific and esteemed writers of music biographies, Jeff Apter, in the Gallery Room, from 4–5pm.
For information on ticket prices and bookings please visit www.shwf.com.au

Word Cloud

 

This is a word cloud of the text that is most frequently used on my blog. I thought it would be a bit of fun to post it. You can create your own word cloud at wordle.net.

Sydney Writers’ Festival: What are you going to see?

I think May is my favorite month of the year. I am always so excited to listen to and meet national and international writers at the Sydney Writers’ Festival. Plus, you can’t forget the books! I work all year just so that I can buy books and get them signed at writers’ festivals.

This year the South Coast Writers Centre (SCWC), in partnership with the Sydney Writers’ Festival will be hosting two excellent literary events. On Sunday the 19th of May, from 1.30-3.30pm, Wollongong’s reoccurring poetry event, Rocket Readings, will kick off the week. This year’s Rocket Readings special guests are Joanne Burns, Peter Lach-Newinsky and Ron Pretty. These three marvelous Australian poets will be reading their poetry, with Ron Pretty sharing some of his poems from his recent writing residency in Rome. These readings will be followed by Rocket Readings’ very successful poetry Open Mic section. All poets are welcome to read in the Rocket Reading Open Mic. The Open Mic will be judged by the special guest poets and will end in the handing over of the official Rocket Cup. Rocket Readings’ host, Linda Godfrey, welcomes everyone to enjoy some fine poetry in the Wollongong City Gallery. The event is free and no bookings are required.

The second event that SCWC will be hosting, in partnership with the Sydney Writers’ Festival, is the annual Celebrating the Voice Indigenous Writers’ Night (CTV). Now in its 13th year, CTV presents a brand new collection of poems, published by SCWC, entitled Dreaming Inside. Dreaming Inside includes writing by Aboriginal inmates at the Junee Correctional Centre. On Thursday the 23rd of May, from 6.30-8.30pm at the Wollongong City Gallery, Aunty Barbara Nicholson, Simon Luckhurst, John Muk Muk Burke and Bruce Pascoe will read excerpts from Dreaming Inside. These four writers tutored the inmates in the art of poetry. These writers will also be reading their own reflections on their experiences working with the inmates, which are expressed through poetry and prose. There will be book sales on the night and free drinks and nibbles. CTV 2013 will be MC’d by Associate Professor Paul Sharrad. CTV is part of the South Coast Writers Centre’s Indigenous Writing program.

This event is presented by South Coast Writers Centre, in association with the Sydney Writers’ Festival and supported by Arts NSW, Wollongong City Council and Wollongong City Gallery. Free, bookings essential, please contact SCWC on 02 4228 0151 or email director@southcoastwriters.org.au.

For more information on events that are occurring during the Sydney Writers’ Festival please check out the Festival’s website, at http://www.swf.org.au/, as well as Varuna, the Writers’ House website, for details of the Blue Mountain’s program, at http://www.varuna.com.au/varuna/. Finally, don’t forget to grab yourself a copy of the Sydney Morning Herald.


This article was first published in Tertangala - UOW's Student Magazine.

Red Room Company and Dapto High

Thank you Darcy Moore for promoting my writing on your blog!

I am looking forward to participating in the Red Room Company's project at Dapto High!

Books I have read - Red Bird by Mary Oliver

I had heard so much of Mary Oliver's writing from Mark Tredinnick,  Monica (Mon) Markovina and Phillip Hall (my Dad).

Mid last year Mon pressed Oliver's collection, entitled Red Bird, into my hands. Mon told me that I had to read it!

It has taken me a while... but finally, I have read the collection. Now that I have finished it, I wish I had of read it sooner. Mark, Mon and Phillip are right, Oliver's poetry is wonderful to read!

I read Oliver's collection in one sitting. That is unusual for me; I generally only tackle about five poems in a sitting.

There is a simplicity to Oliver's poetry. Oliver uses simple language and images, with often a conversational tone, to explore multiple themes.

She frequently writes about nature, as in the title poem 'Red Bird', where she writes of her devotion to birds and her particular admiration of the red bird:

....
Still, for whatever reason—
perhaps because the winter is so long
and the sky so black-blue,

...
I am grateful

that red bird comes all winter
firing up the landscape
as nothing else can do. (1)

The colour and warmth found in this poem is beautiful. Maxine Kumin has described Oliver as a “indefatigable guide to the natural world”. Indeed, as Kumin has identified, Oliver gives a great deal of attention to the natural world within her writing. In the poem 'Red Bird' Oliver paints a picture of the colours found in nature, of the passing of seasons and of the birds.

As well as this celebration of nature, Oliver describes a relationship between that world which we deem to be human and that which we view as animal. There is a human persona within the poem and it is through their eyes that we are viewing the red bird, as they feed all of "God's" birds (The entirety of 'Red Bird' can be read here).

Here we find another dimension to Oliver's poetry, in her exploration of the spiritual world.

One thing that I have enjoyed about Oliver's poetry is that while the spiritual that she explores is a Christian Spirituality, it is often able to be interpreted as spirituality with a little 's'. As it is a non-denominational spirituality that I believe in, I like that her poetry can be interpreted through this lens.

When Mon lent me this book one page had the corner folded over. Mon had marked the poem 'Percy and Books (Eight)'. Oliver has written a series of poems about her dog, Percy, where she again delves into a discussion about the relationship between the so called human and animal world.

Within this particular poem, Oliver humorously represents the relationship between a dog and its owner. The dog in this poem wants to be immersed into the splendor of the world outside, while the owner desires to dally in the world of books.

The poem begins: "Percy does not like it when I read a book" (29). It then describes the dog and the weather and sounds of the natural world, that can be heard from where both dog and owner sit. The owner pleads with the dog: "But Percy, I say. Ideas! The elegance of language!" (29). Without ruining the joke, the dog is not convinced of the value of books.

While the simplicity of Oliver's imagery and language make it easy for a reader, or at least for me, to loose them self in the ideas and pictures that she has captured, is it enough to explore nature as beautiful?

I have had many discussions with Phillip Hall and some with Mark Tredinnick and Mon about just such a question.

In the 21st Century we are being faced with global warming, environmental disasters (both natural and human made), and the endangerment and extinction of various plants and animals. Is it, therefore, enough to celebrate nature and explore how the perceived 'natural' and 'human' world interact, or should representations of nature be exploring the bigger issues of global warming and the threats facing both the natural and human world?

In asking the above questions I am not suggesting that Oliver should necessarily be doing these things with her poetry, or that there is not a place for the celebration of nature in poetry, but I am questioning what is poetry's role in the world?

You can buy a copy of Mary Oliver's Red Bird from Amazon here.

Here is a great interview with Mary Oliver, exploring another of her poetry collections, A Thousand Mornings.

Here are some links to Oliver's poems that can be read, for free, online:
http://www.loc.gov/poetry/180/133.html
http://rinabeana.com/poemoftheday/index.php/category/mary-oliver/
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/bio/mary-oliver#about

Mary Oliver reads three of her poems here.