Tasmanian Poetry Festival inspires

I was privileged to attend the Tasmanian Poetry Festival on Friday 4th and Saturday 5th October, 2019, in Launceston. 

The two half-day poetry workshops on Friday were great. Gina Mercer's "Mesmerizing Monologues" workshop gave us the opportunity to read different types and examples of monologue poetry and start writing one of our own. It's a great form and it was fun to play with different voices. 

Chrys Salt (pictured below), who came over from the UK, taught us about performing poetry. She gave us some excellent tips and tricks on reading or performing our poetry in a riveting way. With her direct, engaging and honest manner, Chrys coached us to improve our emotional expression, pace, voice projection and ability to "scoop" lines from the page and deliver them with eye contact to the audience. I learnt so much, and applied it in the open reading on Saturday morning which led to some great audience feedback afterwards. 

Gina and Chrys both gave great performances on the Saturday morning. Chrys used her set to deliver a series of powerful poems about the Iraq war, some of which used the technique of refrains to masterful effect. It was great to be there for Esther Ottoway's first open reading in a long time, and I enjoyed the other poets too, including Ross Donlon's ode to washing machines! 

The Friday night opening launch was great, with Rees Campbell reading some beautiful Tasmanian-based poems and Greg North bringing the house down with some hilarious performance poetry about fracking, carpets and sticky tape! 

The Poetry Cup on Saturday night saw a diverse range of poets try and beat the one-minute timer. My poem about trying to break my relationship with sugar went down well, (thanks to my friend Jen's help with work-shopping it in her kitchen that afternoon) although I ran out of time to deliver the last two lines. Nancy Corbett won the audience over with her gorgeous poem about wanting to save the world. 

The Sky Falls Down: An Anthology of Loss launch

The Sky Falls Down: An Anthology of Loss was launched at the Fullers Bookshop in Hobart on the 26^th June, 2019. Edited by two dedicated and inspirational writers, Terry Whitebeach and Gina Mercer, it was great to hear them talk about their passion for the project when they spoke at the launch. It was a real labour of love and I treasured being able to celebrate the finished product with them and a packed room full of other people. I read out my suite of poems titled Vacant Seats, which was published in the book, and explores the emotional impacts that infertility can have. I received lots of warm comments from people afterwards who appreciated or could relate to the poems.   

One description of the anthology reads: "In this compelling collection, eighty-nine writers traverse their particular territory of loss and bring back travellers' tales. Their skillfully crafted accounts are insightful, inspiring, amusing, heart-breaking, resilient and, above all, damn good reading."

'This beautiful collection of writings explores the landscape of loss. It will meet you where you are. You'll find yourself reaching for particular pieces that somehow articulate how you're feeling, even before you've found the words to express it yourself... May this book become both a friend and a warm companion.' - Petrea King, Quest for Life Centre

You can buy copies here, here or from your bookshop.

Students of the Anthropocene

A poem I wrote inspired by the youth uprising around the world on Friday, 15th March 2019. Unfortunately ABC news Tasmania did not bother to show us that 1.5 million students went on strike in more than 2000 locations in 123 countries on that day. Including over 100,000 marching in Milan (Italy) and Montreal (Canada). 

Students of the Anthropocene

by Susan Austin

we concern ourselves with today as well as those pesky tomorrows

as much as we try, we fail to placate the advancing sea,

the flourish of coal-defending mockery in our highest halls enrages

for decades you marketed the system as natural,

with in-built mechanisms for righting itself

but the climate changes, ecosystems scream in the face of all you say

take your slogans of fairness with you as you retreat

we know the size of the pie you smuggled

behind your video-monitored double gates

we’re led by the young who teach themselves the science

we down tools, pens, don’t log in today

we storm the streets and send you on your apocalyptic way.

Salmon ponds

After sharing some of my recent poems about parenting with a fellow poet of mine, she said she was surprised at the tone and content of them, that the photos I posted on Facebook gave off a lovely, smiling, happy impression of our lives and she would never have guessed I was finding motherhood challenging. I laughed and then shared the following poem that I had written about the difference between a photo on Facebook and the underlying experience. Facebook is a strange, complicated thing and I won't launch into a discussion about it here, but I thought I would share that poem. When I read it at the Seasonal Poets event a few people came up to me afterwards and told me they could relate :-) 

Salmon Ponds

gorgeous sibling Facebook photos

matching navy track pants,

one with pink beanie and pom-pom on top, one with white wispy hair

arm around the other’s shoulders, looking at the camera, smiling cutely

it was freezing

my hands turned to ice in ten minutes

it was day eight of husband being away for work

it was an outing planned for the sanity-salvaging forty-five minute drive there and back

it was the morning after being up through the night with toddler teething troubles,

woken early by daughter with phantom wet undies

it was after toy pram fights and three time-outs before packing the bag

on the way there, after wrestling son into seat with some force,

after stopping numerous times to cajole him to put arms back in straps,

after he removed shoes and socks which had been a struggle to put on,

after he ripped a page out of my favourite childhood book,

it was pointing out cows and swans,

explaining paper mills and singing along as the frog jumped out of the pond

on the way home it was relieved silence as they both slept and I wondered

how to resuscitate my mood, where to suture my patience,

how a simple outing could have been so onerous.

it was only the small things,

the fights over fish feed,

pellets flung to the ground as one snatched a cup from the other,

the anxiety of watching a toddler saunter close to the edge

the slow-motion response to my “Look! A fish jumped!”

“Look! A fish swimming, see its colourful tail swishing!”

my pointing and exclaiming

which failed to assist them to ever spot the fish

the fact that neither ate their treat – maple syrup pancakes –

so I ate them all and felt sick and bulky,

that son started pulling apart the already-ripped back of his highchair

and wouldn’t desist,

that he cried out repeatedly to be let down when I was still sipping my tea,

that they took turns banging their spoons on the table,

the trip to the loo with me wrestling him away from bin, toilet paper, tap, soap,

grabbing him up as he commando-crawled across the dirty floor to evade me,

the second trip to the loo thirty minutes later which resulted in no more three-year-old wee

just more two-year-old wrestling

the fights over sandwiches, drink bottles

the leisurely walk along the creek where I was hoping

to stretch my legs, get a slight pace going to warm up,

but where I had to stop every metre

because son refused to sit in pram,

wouldn’t walk in the right direction

or actually follow any instructions to leave the gate open /

don’t climb through the creek fence / hurry up

and daughter refused to hop out when I did finally convince son to hop in.

It’s just little things, over-reactions,

inflated expectations, taking things too seriously,

but look, here are my adorable children

smiling sweetly at the camera, her arm around his shoulders

beside the glistening pond –

(at least I got a good photo)

imagine if you will, the lovely time we had.

I'm still here!

Wow where has time gone over the last four years? I’ve now got a four-and-a-half year old daughter and a son who is turning three next week, I guess that’s where the time has gone! It’s also been buried by mountains of colds, flus and bugs that seem to chase little children and their families around relentlessly. I’ve written a poem about what I’ve been doing, called “Have you been doing any writing?” and it was chosen by the Communion Literary Journal and included in Volume 6, December 2016. You can find it here, if you scroll down past my “interview”. https://walleahpress.com.au/communion6-Susan-Austin.html

I really enjoyed being a featured reader at the Seasonal Poets event at Hadley’s Hotel in May this year, alongside Gina Mercer and Ben Walter. It was good to present some new work and get some positive feedback on it from members of the audience, and it was special to share the stage with two people who I very much admire and who have helped me enormously on my poetry journey. It was great to hear that this fantastic quarterly event is going to continue despite the loss of Tasmanian Writers Centre funding. Hopefully as the kids are getting older and my husband is travelling less often for work, I might be able to get along to more of them!  

I’m also happy to have joined a new poetry workshopping group and am finding the monthly meetings very inspiring and productive. Hopefully I’ll be able to devote more time to poetry and post more often as the intensity of the early years of raising small children begins to lighten a little.

Beaconsfield Festival of Golden Words

On the weekend I attended the first Beaconsfield Festival of Golden Words (in Northern Tasmania) as a guest poet. It was a great writer’s festival – well organised and with lots of interesting sessions. I loved the fact that most of it was free, thus enabling anyone to attend. It was also good to go somewhere different and to support the local economy in a struggling area, although not really that practical as there wasn’t much accommodation around and we stayed half an hour’s drive away – making the logistics a bit challenging for my partner to look after our 6 month old baby in between breastfeeds (not a common issue for attendees I suppose!)

I was a little disappointed that there was only one panel on poetry in the main program, out of about 32 sessions. Although there were also two poets’ breakfasts, they were at 7:30am in the morning on Saturday and Sunday, a bit of an ask for people staying a distance away to get to. Also they were at a café with only limited seating, whereas the non-poetry events were held in big marquees. Is the marginalisation of poetry at these events because poetry isn’t that appealing to people or do the organisers underestimate the interest that there might be, were the events to be included in the main program? It was an issue with the Tasmanian Writer’s Festival last year too I felt. But as this was only my second writers’ festival (aside from the Tasmanian Poetry Festival, where there is a feast of poetry on offer and no marginalisation to be had!) I don’t know if this is a trend.

Anyway, I enjoyed the poet’s breakfast (and was sad to miss the Saturday one). Cameron Hindrum did a fab job at organising and MC'ing as usual and I got some nice feedback on the poems that I read, including the new one I wrote about baby-gazing. Ben Walter and Gina Mercer’s poetry was excellent as always, and it was great to experience the quirky and energetic poetry of ‘Fakington Wilde’ for the first time – I loved his poems about money, about the girl and dog on the scanner ads and mobile phone culture. I bought his new book even though the title (Space travel for idiots) and the cover (fried eggs and bacon) were not appealing!

I enjoyed the other sessions I was able to get to. I saw most of the ‘Poets do it differently” session with Tim Thorne, Sherryl Clark and Cameron Hindrum. This inspired me to read more verse novels and look up some of their favourite poets which were mentioned.  

‘The Author-Editor Relationship’ session was interesting. Apparently editors are underpaid and under-recognised for the work they do. I’ve been interested in learning more about editing and so was pleased to hear them explain about the different aspects of it, like development editing, structural editing and line editing. Picking up subtle repetitions of words or phrases, slightly incongruous pace changes and other issues throughout a manuscript would take some practice and training, and a bit of an obsessional personality. It seems like some authors have great communication and trusting relationships with their editors whereas others run into conflicts and issues.

I saw a bit of ‘Tasmania – the tipping point’ with Rodney Croome etc, although having read the Griffith Review book, didn’t pick up much that was new.

I saw half of Alex Miller’s interview. He came across as a very interesting person. I was impressed with his courage in giving up his career to become a full-time novelist, basically becoming as he termed ‘unemployable’ by letting his resume take a dive into piecemeal unskilled evening work so he could write during the daytime, not knowing if he would succeed or not. His books usually take years to write although the last one just took 10 weeks. He doesn’t sketch out a whole plot or anything beforehand, but sees where the characters and the story take him as he goes along.

I really enjoyed the session ‘The Internet is your friend – I think’ with Wendy Harmer, Danielle Wood, Matthew Lamb Sherryl Clark and the chair, Tristan Banks, who did a fantastic job. The pros and cons of web technology were discussed with lots of humour and energy from the panel. Basically it can be very useful to writers when it comes to research and marketing and interacting with readers etc but it can also be overwhelming and a major procrastination problem. It sounds like managing the news blogsite ‘The Hoopla’ is loads of work (and it sounds interesting – wish I had more time to read blogs and online news/discussion sites).

I saw a little bit of Philip Nitschke’s interview, when he encouraged everyone in their later years to go and get themselves some of the euthanasia drug before they get into a situation where they need a loved one to get it, thereby putting the loved one at risk of prosecution after the act. He spoke about having to help someone die and how harrowing that was the first time. He talked about the trouble with developing criteria for who should be able to access euthanasia and how if someone was making an informed, rational decision to die (like the woman who was adamant she wanted to kill herself when she was 80 and the woman who wanted to die when her husband did), then they should be allowed to. As a mental health professional who has spent a lot of time trying to prevent people from suiciding, I found this kind of argument very confronting.

I don’t have much to say about the ‘Why Tragedy Attracts Us’ session with Hannah Kent, Rohan Wilson and Poppy Gee. I have read Rohan’s book (and been on a panel with him before, therefore have heard him speak about his book before) and am interested to read Hannah and Poppy’s books.

‘Our Black Past – Aboriginal stories that had to be told’ was interesting. Dr Kristyn Harman spoke about her book which looked at the way some Aboriginals, Maoris and native South Africans got trapped in the convict system. She said that Aboriginal convicts often suffered and died quickly after being imprisoned, so much so that in the 1800s there was a Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in custody which recommended that they be released as soon as they showed signs of being sick. Also interesting was the discussion by Henry Reynolds about how preposterous it was that so much commemoration goes on in Tasmania about the Boer War but officials do not recognise the war that went on between the white invaders and Aboriginal peoples. Professor Peter Stanley explained that he had tried to get the National War Memorial to acknowledge these wars but because they did not involve official Australian soldiers, they refused. Discussion included teasing out the issues around why there is so little acknowledgment of these wars, and one main reason is that this would mean highlighting the fact that Aboriginal people never gave up their sovereignty and a proper treaty is needed.

Well, that summarises the main things I got out of the weekend. It was great to have some time to consider some big issues, see some famous authors, mix with some lovely poets, see somewhere different, and what’s more, baby Kate slept all the way there in the car and almost all the way home!

Thanks to Session for the pic.

Poets and Painters

I was privileged to be invited to take part in a fantastic exhibition which paired 32 poets and 32 painters together to create art and poetry. The works were displayed at the Bett Gallery in North Hobart for a few weeks in August. The launch was a memorable event - the little gallery was heaving with people who squeezed inside and spilled out onto the pavement on a cold and rainy winter's night, and the power went off for ages (as it did for the whole block) so people were using their phones as torches to look at the works and most of the speeches and poetry readings were held in the light of a couple of battery-powered lamps. I was paired with the talented painter Amanda Davies, who ended up creating a vibrant work using colour panels to reflect the emotions and images in my latest collection of poems.

You can read a review of the exhibition (which kindly mentions me) by Adonis Storr on the IslandMag.com here: Poets and painters

and you can see the artwork by Amanda Davies here: Amanda Davies and the poem I wrote which accompanies it here: Things that make me happy