Inspiring through poetry: An article in the Southern Highalnds News

Penny Bell wrote this fabulous article about me for the Southern Highlands News.

POET and high school teacher Rhiannon Hall says that her initial love of poetry began with her father reading poetry to her as a child.

He also writes poetry, which no doubt set a good example, but Rhiannon's path to finding her voice was not as straight as perhaps her father may have wanted.

Teenage depression made her take a detour.

She hated high school and dropped out in year 10.

"I needed freedom to find my own way," she said.

And find her own way she has.
...

After leaving school, she moved to Moss Vale, supporting herself working in hospitality.

By 22, she tired of the long hours and physical work, and enrolled in an Arts Degree at University of Wollongong, Southern Highlands Campus in Moss Vale.

"Having a Uni around the corner made it possible to juggle everything and the staff there were so encouraging," she said.
...

Once she found her confidence there was no stopping her, and she went on to do an honours degree and a Diploma of Education at the Wollongong university campus.

These days she is so busy teaching the next generation how to write that she finds it difficult to find the opportunity to write herself.

"I always have ideas for a poem in my mind but it is not until I can find a quiet space that I can concentrate on the image and express it," she said.

Despite the competition for her time, she still manages to run an annual event called 'Little Mountain Readings', held in November at Sturt Gallery, Mittagong.

Last year she organised Peter Lach-Newinsky and Lorne Johnson, both established poets from Bundanoon, to be guests at the event.

This year she hopes to have her Dad, Phillip Hall, as guest poet.
...

- Penny Bell

For the full article: http://www.southernhighlandnews.com.au/story/3916376/inspiring-through-poetry/?cs=262

Phillip Hall - Sweetened in Coals

Phillip Gijindarraji Hall, Sweetened in Coals

“This book is a stunning achievement.” – Bonny Cassidy

Phillip Hall has long been an antipodean follower of Henry David Thoreau and John Muir. He has worked as a wilderness expedition leader in Australia for many years writing his nature and environmental poetry in his spare time. For over ten years his poetry has been published in numerous literary journals including Antipodes, Meanjin, Overland, Plumwood Mountain, Quadrant and Southerly.

Phillip now works in remote Indigenous education in Borroloola, the Northern Territory’s Gulf of Carpentaria, where he continues to run camping and sports programs designed to teach emotional resiliency, cooperative group learning and safe decision making. He has immersed himself in Indigenous Culture and Story and has been welcomed into Gulf life with the most amazing generosity and warmth. He has been made a Gudanji man; known also by his skin name of Jabala and his traditional or bush name of Gijindarraji where he is a member of the Rrumburriya clan; he is Jungkayi (custodian) for Jayipa.

Read more http://antipodesjournal.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/phillip-gijindarraji-hall-sweetened-in.html

Sweetened in Coals

Alan Wearne will launch Phillip Gijindarraji Hall’s first collection of poetry at the University of Wollongong. The collection, sweetened in coals, explores “ways of responding to place; listening to Country in a way that esteems the Traditional Owners and interrogates colonialism’s crooked paths,” Hall said.

Please come along to the foyer of building 25 at Wollongong University on Friday the 4th of July from 4:30-6pm for a discussion and reading.

sweetened in coals by Phillip Gijindarraji Hall

I am so proud of my dad! Phillip Gijindarraji Hall has had his first poetry book published, sweetened in coals, with Ginninderra Press. This amazing collection has been in the making for a long time, part of it came about as a result of Phillip's Doctorate in Creative Arts at the University of Wollongong.

This is poetry that dances like the brolga: in praise of wading waist deep in the mountain river's 'nourishing brown flow'; of parcelling freshly caught barra in paperbark before 'sweetening in coals'; of a campfire crackling in 'plumes of rising heat'. Hall raises the flag to Indigenous survival, listening to Country in a way that esteems the traditional owners and interrogates colonialism's crooked paths. This is poetry that keeps us sensitively engaged and committed from beginning to end.

'Every day twenty-first century Australia needs urgent corrections to that ongoing virus of phoney patriotism continuing to infect it. The plain-speaking, closely observed poems of Phillip Hall go a mighty long way in tending to that need.' - Alan Wearne

'Hall is a striking imagist, moving us toward a Thoreauean poetic of sauntering and ambient perspective. Sweetened in Coals is a stunning achievement.' - Bonny Cassidy

Phillip will be at the University of Wollongong in July reading poetry from his collection, which will be launched by Alan Wearne. I will post more details about the launch shortly. Thanks in advance to the South Coast Writers Centre and the University of Wollongong for hosting this launch.

To purchase the book visit Ginninderra Press.