You can find details of the program here http://www.wollongongwritersfestival.com/event/
Tuesday, July 29, 2014
Wollongong Writers Festival
I'm thrilled to be able to promote the Wollongong Writers Festival, an exciting new enterprise that began successfully last year. Congratulations Chloe Higgins for doing such a fantastic job organising this festival!
You can find details of the program here http://www.wollongongwritersfestival.com/event/
You can find details of the program here http://www.wollongongwritersfestival.com/event/
Friday, July 25, 2014
In interview with Maree Dawes
In this interview, editor and poet, Rhiannon Hall talks with West Australian poet, Maree Dawes about her writing and its influences and about her verse novel, brb: be right back.
When did you develop an interest in poetry?
I used to write poetry as a child, continued through high school and early days of uni with a small group of friends – most of it very heartfelt and horrible. I did some poetry workshops, mentorships, residencies and uni studies in the nineties and had my first collection published in 2008.
Are you a communal writer? Is it important to you to workshop your writing with other poets?
I have been involved in a number of communal writing projects. one of my favourite projects was one where an artist Beth Kirkland and I had discussions about themes and topics and then did cafe performances where I wrote a page of stream of consciousness writing. Beth used a pencil to strike through most of my words leaving only a few words which she then highlighted with watercolour. Sounds complicated but the result was two stories, hers and mine.
I really value getting feedback about my work regarding what is or isn’t working, and I get this from the writing group I belong to. A workshopping process where more of the content comes from others is not something I’ve done, I guess unless it’s a shared project I like what appears in the final copy to be my own work.
Who are some of your favourite poets and what is it that has drawn you to their work?
Dorothy Hewett’s poetry – her work was so experimental and feminist – and her poems about the wheat–belt are special to me because we inhabited the same landscape in different generations.
Dorothy Porter – I have to make myself read her work slowly, especially the verse novels. I just want to gobble up those seductive words … but slow reading illustrates again and again how a few words can push out the sky and make whole worlds of experience appear. Robert Grey makes everything come alive, with his perfect word choices and his balance of natural and made environments. Jordie Albiston, because I can only watch in awe at what she does with form – and while I’m watching the form she trips up my heart. Barbara Temperton for her imagery, getting to the emotional centre of things and the perfect length of line. Alvin Pang, to remind me that the city is also a landscape and Caroline Caddy who reminds me that sight is not the only sense.
What an unfair question … this answer could go on all night. I’ve also enjoyed national collections like Australian Love Poems and The Best Australian Poems.
Wednesday, July 16, 2014
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.
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
BRB A Verse Novel by Maree Dawes
I was thrilled to be contacted early last year by Bronwyn Mehan from Spineless Wonders. She emailed me a copy of the brb manuscript, asking for a manuscript assessment. I was over the moon to have been even considered for such a task. I carefully read and reread the manuscript, compiling a report about how the verse novel was working on a whole and my response to specific poems. Bronwyn was encouragingly pleased with my report and forwarded it to Maree Dawes. These two talented women then asked me if I would be interested in the task of editing the manuscript with Maree. I was really worried that taking on this task would be too much for me, given how busy I was with uni and with my work out the South Coast Writers Centre, but being me, I just couldn't turn down such an exciting and valuable opportunity.
Although I wrote no poetry of my own last year, I greatly enjoyed discussing word choices, line breaks and the overall plot of brb with Maree Dawes. Maree was open to the opinions of a novice such as myself and we had a bit over 6months worth of emails, Skype chats and many different versions of the manuscript covered in track changes going back and forward between us. I am very pleased with how this verse novel finished up! Maree is a wonderful writer who captured the complexities of relationships, both online and in real life, with all of the angst, lust and compromises that are inevitable.
Purchase your copy of brb here:
Check out some fabulous reviews of brb on the following blogs and websites:
You can read an interview I did with Maree Dawes, post publication, here:
Here is an interview between a dear friend and talented writer, Maureen Flynn and Maree:
Another interview with Maree Dawes:
Barbara Temperton launched BRB in WA and you can read her speech here:
Here's a link to Maree's website and Facebook page:
Monday, June 30, 2014
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.
Saturday, April 19, 2014
sweetened in coals by Phillip Gijindarraji Hall
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.
Friday, March 28, 2014
Books I have read - To Kill a Mockingbird
I finally read To Kill a Mockingbird in January. I felt that I should read this classic novel before I started teaching, because it had been put to me as one of those novels that every English teacher has to have read. After finishing it, I wish I had of read it sooner!
It is interesting what makes a novel a classic. Stories like Anna Karenina have never been able to capture my attention, but the characters, themes and setting of To Kill a Mockingbird had me enthralled!
The themes of racial descrmination and inequality, of differences between people and prejudice are eternal themes that will make this book always relevant and important!
There are many great book reviews out there of To Kill a Mockingbird for you to explore.
Here are some cool teaching resources to accompany the text:
http://smago.coe.uga.edu/VirtualLibrary/Duke_2009.pd
http://resources.mhs.vic.edu.au/mockingbird/
https://www.pearsonschoolsandfecolleges.co.uk/Secondary/Drama/14-16/NewWindmillsFiction/Resources/P-T/Mockingbird_web.pdf
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)