Bundanon Poetry Workshop, January, 08

Hi everyone,

I'm sorry I can't get to meetings this year - from the blog I can see you're having a great time - and I miss it.

I promised some of you information about the Bundanon Workshop that I attended in January. It was totally inspirational and I would urge people to apply for the next one. You're meant to have a book of poems published, but I was selected on ten pages of poems - and there were others attending who had not published a book.

There were 20 participants with four established poets as lecturers/tutors - Jennifer Harrison (love her poetry and a wonderfully generous person), Ron Pretty - also very helpful and generous), Susan Hampton and Michael Sharkey.

Normally this workshop is run at Wollongong Uni (and it may return there next year - I don't think it's been decided yet) - we were so lucky in being able to stay on the Boyd property in an amazing Murcott designed complex with Boyd paintings in our rooms and magnificent views over the Shoalhaven River. As a result, my poetry was heavily influenced by Boyd's work and I have become fascinated by the strength and diversity of his art.

It was an eight day workshop. Each day began with workshopping poems we'd brought with us - or new ones if we'd written any - five students/one tutor. After morning tea, we had a lecture - interesting topics - Cliche/Repetition/Surrealism. After lunch a seminar where we worked on the lecture topic in a practical form. We had from 4.00 - 7.00 off each day when we wrote, walked, swam or rested. At night we had structured readings - our own poetry - or the tutors read from their current works - or we shared our favourite poems.

For me, it was inspirational in every way but particularly in meeting so many wonderful poets, having my mind stretched in so many directions, in the friendships and contacts made. It took quite a while to come back to the real world. If anyone would like further info, give me a call on 9592 2523. Hope to see you at Fed Square.

Suzanne

Poetry at Fedsquare

I have been following up on the poetry at Federation Square and as a result the members of Coast Lines have been invited to read/perform their poetry as part of the April program. The woman who organises these monthly readings would like me to send some examples of our work and have a time frame for our reading as there is a schedule to follow.

The first hour will be talk/reading from one or two established poets or the works of chosen poets and the second hour can be all Coast Lines if we so wish, (10 five minute readings by each member)

If you are interested could you either email me a poem or bring a copy to our meeting next Wednesday. I need to get back to Lella asap because if we don't want the hour, she needs to organise to fill it some other way.

Details are Saturday April 12th in the Atrium at Federation Square from 2.oopm to 4.oopm. Also any who have produced books of poetry are encouraged to bring them and they will be promoted during the program.

See you Wednesday
Tricia

I think whaling is a pretty good guess for the riddle. Another might be nuclear bomb.

Geoffrey,

 I just love that line about the vacuum cleaner being dragged around like a fat puppy!!

Cecilia,

Is the riddle about whaling???

Cheers,

Jacqui

Still thinking about the riddle Cecilia -is it connected to Reconciliation, Apology Day...? Clearly a nasty business anyway....

Here are some thoughts stimulated by Tricia and Karen's poems:

MONDAY MORNING

Wake to magpie chortles,

duet of doves

And sun dappled ceiling.

Get up?

No. think -

Shower, dress

Empty dishwasher

Breakfast: prepare, eat, clean – up

Bathroom: clean

Vacuum cleaner: drag around house like fat puppy

Garden: sweep leaves

Lunch: prepare, eat, clean up

Gutters: check

Sweep leaves

Sweep leaves

Sweep leaves

Dinner: prepare, eat, clean - up

Rubbish bins: drag out

Dishwasher: stack.........

Dear God!

No wonder so many of us die in bed!

have a guess

Well done Geoffrey. The poem reads wonderfully. Photographs give the acute sense of time, place and mystery. And what a full explanation to answer the query. Can you bring along hard copy of this in case members are not on the blog.

Karen, you inspired me to write a riddle. Open to all what am I talking about?

Here it is -

Elephant in the Room

Poised, elegant, taking
a lengthy swan dive
softening into a rising bubble
hitting hard, now awash with
blood, carnage left, stunned
but not for long,
now rampaging everywhere
big, black and biting
horrified impotence
history convulses
the knife is set to cut
poised it now spreads poison.

Cecilia - Okay what is this about?

A poem to share...

Tricia's poem reminded me of one I wrote a couple years ago.

How Busy Am I?

Herds of dust bunnies galloping in plain sight busy
write your name on top of the dresser busy
make a wig from bathtub hair busy
climb blue -bagged newspapers like stairs busy
scuffed shirts, stained shoes and
unwashed dishes under the bed busy
alien creatures in a beer-less fridge
volcano of laundry erupting from basement busy.

You say, Cleanliness is Next to Godliness.
I say, How Many Books Have You Read Today?

Karen

I was very sorry that I had to miss our first meeting but thank you all for your comments on “Mulka’s Cave”, which June kindly read for me. I’ve made some changes to the poem and hopefully I have managed to improve it!

The feelings and thoughts that gave rise to “Mulka’sCave” are not particularly original but to me they are very poignant. The cave was one of two or three places that I’ve visited in Australia where I have felt a very strong sense of the cultural and spiritual abyss that separates the traditional aboriginal world from our own.

Perhaps I am idealizing traditional aboriginal societies and their beliefs but from
what I have seen and read, however naïve their beliefs may appear to us, they
did not fall into the error of thinking that they were separate from the natural world or superior to it – let alone thinking that they were in some way ”in charge” of it!

Mulka’s Cave is near Wave Rock in South – west WA. It is named after a legendary aboriginal man who became a tribal outcast and met a violent death but I’m not sure about the authority of the legend or whether it is truly connected to the handprints. Before the local area was settled I imagine that the cave would have been screened by trees and bushes – it would have been part of the natural pattern of the landscape –significant to the local people, certainly, but not an exhibit.

I felt that not only had the real significance of the cave been lost or forgotten but also the sense of it being an integral, part of the natural world.

The exposed cave is now approached by an ugly steel ramp (no doubt for safety reasons). As is so often the case with sites like Mulka’s Cave, the “sheltering trees” have been felled to make for easier access and to make way for the complex, sophisticated - and spiritually meaningless - structures of “our” world: car parks, toilets, kitsch souvenirs and food from the other side of the world. (Though actually most of these are not at the cave but back at Wave Rock – so I’ve taken some poetic licence there!)

What has been lost – or destroyed – in this process seems to me to be irreplaceable.

MULKA'S CAVE

A once sacred place

stripped, exposed

and violated.

Gaping nakedly.

We hesitate, peering in -

embarrassed, maybe by such simplicity

seeing prints of hands – and nothing more.

What brought them to this place?

Who were the last man and child,

to fill their mouths with thick, sour ochre

And lifting up their hands

spray their presence on this rock?

Lost, the memory, and the meaning.

Lost, the joy of man and child, hand in hand,

flesh and bones breathing in the sun,

blood beating through ancient veins

as they breathed at one the with sheltering trees

and winds’ sigh.

Dingoes stripped and scattered their bones

trees drank their sap,

ants devoured their last fragments

and no trace left but the handprints,

only the handprints.

And a vacancy – an eternal absence,

a gap in nature.

Turning our backs, we return along the metal ramp,

past the felled trees and the toilet block,

to the souvenir shop, Made in China,

and the bistro, offering Mediterranean Cuisine.