Little Mountain Readings - Poetry Workshop

Saturday 15 November, 10.00 am–1.00 pm – Ron Pretty will lead a poetry workshop, Drafting: A Creative Process, at Sturt Cottage, Mittagong. 

Participants will explore ways of developing a first draft into a fully crafted poem. The workshop will explore the creative aspects of the process, including line breaks, language, imagery and structure. 

Participants are asked to bring several of their current poems. 

Fees (including tickets for the Little Mountain Readings in the afternoon) are $85 full fees, $65 Friends of Sturt and SCWC members and $45 for under 18s. 

Bookings essential on (02) 4860 2083 (Sturt Cottage). Information on (02) 4228 0151(South Coast Writers’ Centre).

Southern Highlands Writers Festival

Saturday the 21st of July I headed off to the inaugural Southern Highlands Writers' Festival. It was a great day, with the highlight being Paula McLean's conversation with Mark Tredinnick titled 'Poetry in Motion'.

Paula began the chat describing poetry as like a window to the world, which Mark responded, "well a window is the obvious place for one to observe the world from". Tredinnick then read out his poem 'Catching Fire; or, The Art of Sitting', which is coming out in Meanjin in December. Mark pointed out the squarish, window-like shape of the poem. Mark told us that there is a stillness to 'Catching Fire...', not just in what the speaker says:

And I watch her steal her own silent show, doing
Nothing, immaculately, among the silver leaves.

 but also in the language. You will have to keep an eye out for his poem to find out what was meant by that.

Mark said "poetry can return us to the world by allowing us to remember... return us to the larger than human world by seeing but not judging...". Although he did point out that of course there is always a level of judgement in the language used in the poem.

Mark believes that poetry is 'speech music'; "poetry is an architecture of sound and visual design... You can't write a poem without thinking about the form". Mark quoted Picasso: "the work of art is never finished, it's just abandoned". In other words, Mark said, "there comes a time where you walk away from a poem, when you are over it, and it is time for the next poem".

Mark told us that: "a poem practices in language what meditation practices in silence. A poem is language awake to its connections... language is usually functional, but in poetry it goes beyond this...".

Mark described poets as 'anchorite', "a poet is outside of society and place... a poet is critic and loving observer...".

"Poetry allows a poet to remember belonging and hopefully assists the reader to also remember". By this Mark is talking about theories of belonging going back to Thoreau and Heidegger's ideas that by belonging to a place people will want to preserve that place.

"A poem is never more finished than a window, so you just draw the blind at the end of the day and re-open it the next day, and then one day you just leave it open. We are given the world and it's through poetry that we give it back".

Please note that all quotes are transcribed and may not be exactly what was said on the day.

One Long Summer Afternoon

I have been busy working on my honours thesis the last couple of weeks, so much so that I haven't been able to find any inspiration for writing poetry. So, I have instead been reading. I thought I should share some readings of poetry with you.

David Tacey believes that “…good poetry (contemporary and traditional), is written from a spiritual perspective, and is often a celebration of the spirit of life, society and experience” (2004, p55). For Tacey literary theory has for too long practised secular readings of poetry, neglecting and sometimes refusing to acknowledge the spiritual undertone of much poetry, and it is this spirituality that Tacey believes attracts general readers to poetry (2004). In this sense, Tacey argues that literary critics have been interpreting poetry in a way that opposes a general reader’s interpretation. Tacey views the Australian natural landscape as a key source of spiritual reverence in the twenty-first century stating, “…in Australia, the country of reversals… the celestial realm appears to be ‘below’ us, in the earth itself, in the soil, rocks and plants of this ancient land” (2000, p94). By this premise place-poetry in Australia must be spiritual, displaying a level of intimacy between the poet, speaker, reader and the natural subject of the poetry. One example of such a poem is Australian poet Bruce Beaver’s poem ‘One Long Summer Afternoon’. It is set in Bundanoon, in the Southern Highlands and is aesthetically motivated, describing the visual appeal of lilacs: “…The lilac / lulled me away from dusty heat / to scenes as distant as another / life…” (Beaver 1991, p250). Beaver’s poem is transcendental in that the lilac transports the speaker to another space, where the speaker “…hovered half-in half-out of / myself…” (1991, p250). The representations of nature within Beaver’s poem are used as a metaphor for the speaker’s emotional experience of 'the country'. These emotions are linked to the place, but remain human-centred. The speaker is in awe of the space but is not concerned with the human impact on that space as the speaker drives past cow and sheep farms. Although the speaker does not openly acknowledge, for example, the devastation that hard-hooved cattle may have on the Australian earth does that mean that there cannot be a message of preservation taken from the poem? Jonathan Bate writes that “[i]f mortals dwell in that they save the earth and if poetry is the original admission of dwelling, then poetry is the place where we save the earth” (2000, p283). For Bate place-poetry does benefit the natural place that it engages with, through a connection of the heart with place, and by modelling relationships of praise, spirituality and respect for the natural environment. It is my contention that messages of dwelling are conveyed through recognition of a level of spirituality, or the sacredness of nature, within the poetry. In this sense Beaver's poem, where the speaker is in awe of the lilac flower and surrounding nature of Bundanoon, carries in it an underlying message of preservation. In this time of increasing environmental crisis messages of sustainable living are important for the continuum of species of flora and fauna that may be under threat from climate change and various agricultural, mining and development practices.