Canberra might be the national capital, with the numerous major national cultural institutions this entails, but as befits a medium-sized university city, it has a lively local cultural scene as well. Amongst that heady mix is Smiths Alternative, a venue, ostensibly a bookshop and bar, that puts on everything under the sun - from bands to burlesque, from craft to poetry. As a result I found myself there on a chilly winter night for the open mic poetry reading. In parallel with a long career in the arts and culture sector over many decades, I have also produced a substantial creative writing output throughout my life. This has ranged across articles, short stories, installations, songs, websites and digital media, but my all-time favourite is poetry.
Over the last two decades, as publishing outlets have diminished, I have turned my attention to focus on my extensive suite of blogs. The main one, indefinite article, publishes irreverent articles about contemporary Australian society, popular culture, the creative economy and the digital and online world – life in the trenches and on the beaches of the information age.
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| Reading on stage at Smiths Alternative. |
This is complemented by balloon, which floats thought bubbles for our strange and unsettled times – short quirky articles about the eccentricities of everyday life, almost always with a sense of short black humour; handwriting which sprays homegrown graffiti from the digital world – writing, rhyming and digital animations, including my extensive travel writing; tableland, about food, produce and cooking, land to table – the daily routine of living in the high country, on the edge of the vast Pacific, just up from Sydney, just down from Mount Kosciuszko
More recently this has been supplemented by travelling light, a personal view of the light – and sometimes heavier – matters that come up in daily life and make us sit up and take notice, whether travelling, coming home or thinking about travelling.
I have also branched out, with a presence on popular writers outlet, Substack, where I also publish my 'indefinite article' material.
A poet at 50With this in mind, my latest foray into the world of public art was a short reading at the regular open mic poetry night at Smiths Alternative in Civic in the heart of Canberra's wintry city. Because it was the King's birthday, the theme of the evening was 'republic'. I like to think that all my writing is about re-public – taking back the private spaces stolen by privatisation and neo-liberalism and placing creativity and culture where they belong – in the public sphere.
Booing Vice-President Vance
The treason songs of my youth
are echoing in my head
a new Olympic sport has appeared
booing the Vice-President
meanwhile
the barbarians are studying history
and learning Latin
More happy and more succinct
Requested to describe her state of mind
my ageing mother-in-law
replied ‘happy’
Asked to supply more detail
she added
As she became older
she became both more happy
and more succinct
In concluding my set I introduced the last piece of writing I read, 'I’d like to finish with a poem that used to be a song from when I – like everyone else at some stage in their life – was in a band. The band is gone, but the words are still here.'
Distant Relations
Went to a party
everyone was
smiles
spaced out on valium
& linoleum tiles
everyone knew someone
and someone knew them
romance, quiet dance
bourbon and gin
once we were lovers
now we're just friends
distant relations
in your bed
young boys meet young girls
then they have kids
pay bills, make wills
play losing bids
once we were lovers
now we're just friends
distant relations
in your bed
fast cars, slow glance
no fancy frills
take a chance, move fast
it's not speed that kills
once we were lovers
now we're just friends
distant relations
in your bed
distant relations
in your bed
See also
Island on fire‘On an island you’re never far from the sea – that is unless the island is huge, like Australia. In tiny Tasmania, perched like an afterthought at the foot of Australia, even the mountains in the centre are not far from the ocean raging around them – just as in the distant homeland from which those who settled it came. On the main island, though, everywhere is a long way from everywhere else. Two islands, very different in size, in many ways with both similar and different histories. Both on fire. But this not just about the fires – it’s about what happened in front of the fire, the life lived in a time of warming and burning, even if it sometimes felt like a rehearsal for the end of the world’, Island on fire.
‘Smoking baby cigars in the dark of the backyard. Like some Cuban presidente haranguing the crowd with reminders, I proffer a list of romantic anniversaries, our May 4th movement, our July 12th uprising – our moment when everything became new’, I smoke baby cigars.
Cut back to black
‘Cut back to black, thin chill drizzle mid-winter – infinite regression on petrol’. Also called ‘Revhead heaven’, Cut back to black.
Coming back to these stones
‘Coming back to these stones – in the sandy dry reaches of the Coorong in South Australia’s South East birds flicker across the flat water like beads of run-away mercury’, Coming back to these stones.
Landscapes in a rear vision mirror
‘Heading at a moment's notice into Broken Hill, breaking several traffic laws on the Barrier Highway, in the rear vision mirror the land kept switching colours’, Landscapes in a rear vision mirror.
Stopping by Lake George
State of origin
Multimedia piece developed with visual artist, Deborah Faeyrglenn, State of origin looked at where we come from, where we go next and where we truly belong. In this work the writer and visual artist combined word, image and computer technology to make visual music. Words and images moved across the computer screen, with no fixed address, State of origin.
The lost art of conversation
Installation, developed with visual artist, Deborah Faeyrglenn, on words, meaning, reflection and infinite (or at least, partial) regression. Three tall thin vertical mirrors stand against the wall, covered in bursts of words. Three matching paper shadows flow out from the wall along the floor. Words on the mirrors flutter and blur into shadows, The lost art of conversation.
balloon
A fictional narrative work in the form of a website, the website as writing. About the adventures of a refugee from the big city who sets up the High Country Thought Balloon Company. A series of brief vignettes about the characters, situations and stories which intersect the path of the balloons as they soar across the skies of the Southern Tablelands and Snowy region. It is about changing perspective, balloon.
Malacoota Inlet
‘Shutdown in a flat, wet land, the line beween sea and sky where grey meets grey, where stricken yachts come in’, Malacoota Inlet.
Sitting on twigs
‘Sitting on twigs in the flat lands, in a piece of country loaded with meaning, like a tightly coiled spring’, Sitting on twigs.
Signature of water
A series of artworks as part of the Waterworks exhibition at Goulburn Regional Art Gallery responding to the shared task of facing up to life on our dry continent. It ranged from short, minimalist animations, using cartoons, to hyperfiction drawing on the styles of crime novels. It was a mix of poetry, storytelling, images and sounds which were heavily influenced by the styles of popular culture and the urban and rural landscapes around us, Signature of water.
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