under attack

Last night, my poem, ‘under attack’, won the Dymocks Red Earth Poetry Award category of this year’s Northern Territory Literary Awards.

The poem, along with those of the other finalists, Kaye Aldenhoven, Karina Brabham, Penny Drysdale, Kathleen Epelde and Jennifer Mills is printed in the Awards booklet.

It is not customary for poets to write about their own poetry – commentary (positive or otherwise) is meant to come from others. But throughout the night and early hours of this morning, I have been receiving numerous messages of congratulations and queries from well-wishes via Facebook and Twitter from here in Australia as well as New Zealand and Egypt. So I have decided to not only reprint ‘under attack’ below, but also to provide a brief introduction to it.

Basically, ‘Under attack’ is a potted history of Darwin told through the life of a fictional character, Wallis. Directly opposite to where I live there is a concrete picnic table and beneath it is a small bronze plaque, of the kind usually commemorating a soldier killed in war or dedicated to a civic official. But this plaque is different. It reads:  This park seat has been donated by the Arthur family to commemorate the life of WILFRED STANLEY ARTHUR who used and minded this park during his 34 years of residency at 276 Casuarina Drive. The address on the plaque is now that of the modern apartment block where I live, looking out over the Arafura Sea and Wilfred Arthur’s park.

I tried to find out what I could about Wilfred Stanley Arthur. I wanted to know who he was and why his family remembered him most for ‘using and minding’ the narrow strip of grass between Casuarina Drive and the caramel-coloured cliffs. But my investigation stalled fairly early on. Inquiries at the Darwin city Council about the picnic table and its plaque went unanswered and the prospect of tracking down a person without birth or death date details seemed daunting.

Meanwhile, I had already begun to imagine what Wilfred’s life would have been like and the historical research became notes towards a poem. Or rather a poem series, beginning with Clyde Nevin Wallis as a young boy, looking up from his gardening to see the first Japanese planes heading towards Darwin harbour. The next two stanzas record the impact of the devastating 1974 cyclone on the Darwin community and the personal tragedy for Wallis when his wife becomes terminally ill and he is left to look after their three children. The poem ends with him as an old and senile man in a Darwin nursing home, far removed from the comfort of sun setting over the Arafura Sea.

‘Under attack’ has been through many drafts and permutations. I would like to thank my fellow poets Julie Chevalier, Dael Allison, Carol Jenkins, Linda Godfrey, Ali Smith, Kaye Aldenhoven, Annie Drum and Helen Pavlin for their feedback on this and many other poems over the years. Thanks also, to the poets who participated in the 2010 John Tranter online poetry course. And for their kind words and encouragement, I would like to thank  last year’s visiting poet and teacher, Keri Glastonbury as well as Michael Sharkey and Bronwyn Lea, poetry tutors at the Australia Poetry’s Wollongong Workshop earlier this year.

Under attack

i.m. C N  Wallis

i

Birdwatching

That one grey metal bird, he would always remember.

Swooping across the foreshore, it came

like a red-eyed oriole glossing the morning sky.

The trowel dropped from his hand. He was just a boy

and he stood watching as Japanese pilots

zeroed in on Darwin wharf.

These same grey birds hit Pearl Harbour, he would learn.

The leader’s name – like a drunken cuss

from the Nightcliff pub – Mitsuo Fuchido!

That first wave picked off hospital ships,

sitting ducks on the Arafura pond. Shrapnel stung

like pig-iron rain …

… cutting down stenographers,

dispatching mail-sorters, while post office bunkers gaped

empty as wounds.

Those long-gone dogfights rumble on, strafing his dreams

until, rolling from bed, he hunkers with a book

to sit out his phantom war in pyjamas.

ii

Aftermath, 1974

There is no one in the suburb.

Empty houses. Empty streets.

Petrol pumps stand armless,

the cars have all turned up their toes.

The grandstand’s blown to fiddlesticks,

and monsters bloat in backyard pools.

The casuarinas have all left town,

the jetty is a toothless grin.

His beer fridge has crossed the road,

and their mailbox is a toilet seat.

iii

Forgetting

He remembers palm trees pigrooting

across the horizon bent

horse shoes that Tracy rode

how life used to be, forget it

his thoughts cyclonic:

the kids had pet cockatoos (Gertie & Gertie Two)

or was that his wife? in the end she could only drink

flat lemonade they flew her to Adelaide she never came back

that’s what happens

who didn’t screw the top back on?

you’re all alone

who left the cage door wide open?

Into town each day socks sandals

government job bri-nylon shirt

inkstain pocket like a bullet hole

at lunchtime he buys cigarettes

from a shopkeeper with joss stick hair

watches hippies camp in banyan trees

goes home to milk tea cliffs

low tide leaves a rusted seabed

turns war relics into jawbones

coughs up Dinner Ale sea glass

and coral rough as infant skulls

cleans his hands white-sticky

from the jackfruit knife, prayerful

under the tap, dirty nails and nicks

from palm fronds that cut like scissors

kids in bed, he waters, patrols his front yard

the narrow roadway, the foreshore park

alert for casuarina nuts and pineapple mines.

iv

Minding the park

His mind was a park,

see-sawing thoughts in a vacant lot

Run, kids, run from Old Man Wallis.

Memories scatter

bleached and lightweight like woodchips:

there’s a daughter, gone to work for some paper

and two lads gone South.

the Greeks hounded him to sell up, they’re hardworkers

from windswept fishing villages, building’s

in their blood money. there’s little ones too

far away to remember. no-one visits.

how could he leave his park unguarded

from fish scales, lolly papers, beer cans

and humbuggers that think they own the place.

From the park in his mind, he looks out,

past the bedpans to a nylon sea

shore-lined with meal trays

at one more unbeatable sunset.

NT Literary Awards 2011

Finalists Announced

My poem, Under Attack and short story, Photographing Toast have made the shortlists.

The winners of the 2011 Northern Territory Literary Awards will be announced on the 12th of May at a ceremony held at Parliament House.

The Territory’s best poems, short stories, scripts, essays and screenplays received from across Central Australia, Tennant Creek, Katherine and Darwin have been judged from a record field of over 300 entries.

The Northern Territory Library is proud to act as custodian of these awards, and we endeavour to cultivate a prosperous creative writing industry in the Territory, and aim to inspire a new generation of writers.

The 2011 finalists are:

Dymocks Arafura Short Story Award

Barbara Eather

Blair McFarland

Stephen Francis

Bronwyn Mehan

Melinda Barlow

Michael Giacometti

Natalie Sprite

Sophie Constable

Dymocks Red Earth Poetry Award

Karina Brabham

Jennifer Mills

Bronwyn Mehan

Penny Drysdale

Kathleen Epelde

Kaye Aldenhoven (x2)

Dymocks Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Writers’ Award:

Nicole Gardiner

John Bodey

Joey Flynn

Charles Darwin University Bookshop Travel Short Story Award:

Christine Wilson

Michael Giacometti

Miranda Tetlow

Charles Darwin University Essay Award:

Adelle Barry (x2)

Jane Leonard

Kate Smith

Kath Manzie Youth Literary Award:

Stevie Cosentino

Kierra-Jay Power (x4!!)

Sophie Philip

Shannon Nendick

Laila Bennett

Darwin Festival Script Award:

Jane Leonard

Alex Ben-Mayor

Birch Carroll and Coyle Screenwriting Award:

Cameron Raynes

Philip Denson

Eleanor Hogan

All entrants in the Awards are able to access the comments made by the judges, with the aim of further encouraging and nurturing emerging talent. Entries are judged ‘blind’ and therefore are awarded solely on their literary merit.

Poets and Cyclone Carlos

How to look after your poet in the event of a cyclone:

Whilst known to address issues common to humanity

poets are idiosyncratic

and unpredictable.

For these reasons

public emergency shelters do not accept poets.

 

Poets should be clearly identified.

 

What is a poet?

A poet

observes

reflects

offers hope

critiques and seeks

asylum in

word

play.

 

Poets sometimes hump visitors.

 

During these uncertain times

poets may be at risk

from flying objects

or self injury.

 

Comfort frightened poets.

 

If you find a poet

ill-treated

exhausted

wild –

keep in a dark box

in a quiet place

 

– and call this number.

from How to look after your poet in the event of a cyclone

NT Writers 2009

Available from http://www.ntwriters.com.au

Spineless Wonders short Australian stories

COMING SOON

The first of our single-author collections of short fiction (available in both digital and print form) is in the works with a launch date soon TBA.

Our Spineless Wonders website and blog will be up and going shortly, with guest bloggers, author  interviews and audio sneak peeks.

And stay tuned for news of a short story competition which will be run as part of our annual Spineless Wonders anthology.

In the meantime, you can leave a message below or go to Facebook and click our LIKE button to make us feel welcome.

What are you reading these holidays?

I’m packing my bags for a month’s stay in New South Wales and along with swimming, socialising and attending a week-long poetry workshop in Wollongong, I’ll be reading. So here’s what I have made room for in my luggage:

• back copies of Times Literary Supplement and New York Review of Books,
• Patrick Cullen’s Between the Flags, Gretchen Schirm’s Having Cried Wolf and Elizabeth Strout’s Olive Kitteridge – stayed tuned for a post in the New Year about connected short story collections.
• Thea Astley’s The Multiple Effects of Rain Shadow and Chloe Hooper’s Tall Man -  for another post I’m planning about non-fiction and fictional treatment of similar subject matter.
• Love and Desire – the 2007 collection of 4 novella, edited by Cate Kennedy
• Griffith Review’s  and Black Inc’s anthologies of Australian Short stories.

That should keep me going until I hit the Sydney bookshops, don’t you think? Use the Comments option below to let me know what is on your list of holiday readings.

Cheers, Bronwyn

Turning Facts into Fiction with Lisa Lang

When it comes to researching, Helen Garner says we should not feel overwhelmed by facts. Be less like a timid field mouse creeping amongst the high grass and more like an eagle that soars above it, getting the lay of the land.

…often when people are writing a thesis or something that’s based on research, they become entrapped by the document, they think ‘if I can just stay inside my research I’ll be okay’ and they just creep forward step by step and what they produce is unbearably tedious and boring. So what you’ve got to do at a certain point is, as one writer I know said, ‘you’ve got to pick up your material and dance with it.’ *

It’s great advice. But what about novel writers? How should we approach the task of turning a vast field of facts, (especially those already well-documented and archived) into fiction? And how do we avoid being overwhelmed by all the careful research that we’ve immersed ourselves in (and possibly procrastinated in) for months and months?

These were some of the questions that I took along to Lisa Lang’s Facts to Fiction workshop in Darwin recently.

‘Claim the territory for your own imagination.’

Lang’s advice is to do your research first, then put it aside while you create your fictional version of events. Then, once the story is underway, there may be more directed research queries that need to be followed up. But how much research is enough? Fiction writers, she said, should conduct enough research to enable them to know what the historical setting felt like – right down to the smell of horse shit in the streets.
The key, Lang says, is ‘not to feel beholden to the facts, like they own you.’ Sticking too closely to your researched facts can mean that your writing will ‘die on the page. You need to take risks an dmake leaps of the imagination.’ To illustrate this point, Lang gave examples from Utopian Man, her recently released, Vogel-award winning historical novel about EW Cole. (You can hear Lisa Lang talk about the facts and fiction behind her novel, here on Radio National’s The Bookshow)

The How-to

Back at the writing workshop, Lang was keen to get us writing. To bring historical settings and characters to life, she said, we needed to focus on the

• decriptions using the 5 senses,
• character’s inner lives and,
• emotional drivers behind each scene.

She walked us through this process using examples from Blonde, a novel about Marilyn Monroe by Joyce Carol Oates. Next, we each wrote short scenes based around a well-known piece of Northern Territory history. (Lang has promised a return visit in 2011, so this article won’t be a spoiler.)

‘A chronology of some one’s life, from birth to death, does not make a good piece of fiction,’ Lang said. ‘So the very first step is for you to decide where to begin the story you want to tell.’

This was perhaps the most liberating part of the workshop, when Lang showed us how to ‘take ownership’ of the historical material using narrative elements such as structure and point of view. Here is where Lang’s choice of JC Oates’ extraordinary novel – with its time slips and swift changes in perspectives – really came to the fore.

Lisa Lang is not only a talented writer, but she presents an informative, entertaining and well-designed workshop. Catch her in 2011, if you can.

* I/V with Helen Garner

Light switch fiction

According to Island’s acting editor, Anica Boulanger-Mashberg, the short story ‘panders to our contemporary needs for immediacy, accessibility and diversity without ever sacrificing or compromising artistic integrity.’ This large claim is certainly true of the stories she has selected for the Spring edition.

In some of the thirteen stories in this issue, we are plunged straight into the whirl of characters’ lives, meeting them at crucial, life-changing moments. Most dramatic is Rosemary Gil’s ‘Salvage’, where we meet a father and a priest in the Flanders trenches. Less tragic, but equally engaging is a new mother’s struggle with breastfeeding and her dysfunctional relationship in Cate Kennedy’s ‘Five Dollar Family’.

In other stories there is a slow build. Kathryn Lomer’s ‘Blackberry Boys’, for instance, winds its way via psychosexual adolescence towards to a critical event. Meanwhile, in Felicity Castagna’s ‘Cold’, Sharon Kernot’s ‘Life Drawing’, Kate Rotherham’s ‘Shelter’ and Phillip Siggin’s ‘Return’, the resolutions fall somewhere between simple realisation and epiphany.

There is diversity too, in form and genre, with Diane Bell’s wry story in five parts and Alison Jones’ haunting and surreal tale.

Included in Island 122 is ‘Feeling for Light Switches’, a wide-ranging conversation about the short story form between award-winning writers, Cate Kennedy and Kathryn Lomer. Quoting poet, Billy Collins, Kennedy talks of creating a world for a reader to enter and ‘feel around for the light switch’ as they are reading.’ It’s an apt metaphor to describe the illuminating stories included in this issue.

Confessions of an Open Mic-er

The Open Mic competition at the Groove Café on Friday night can be a tough gig. It’s an outdoor venue set in a shopping mall that is a gathering place for long-grassers, Indigenous people mainly, who wander back and forth throughout the evening. Even your amplified voice can be drowned out by these passers-by who often yell out sociably to one another during your performance. Occasionally, there’ll be someone who comes up to the stage area and starts up a drunken rant at the world in general, or you in particular.

Since it was November 5, the theme of this last Off the Page for 2010 was Guy Fawkes. I thought about reading Territory Night, a poem about the chaotic and irreverent cracker night held to celebrate the Northern Territory’s independence from the administration of southern states. It’s lively, has a simple narrative and could compete with long-grassers or that other challenge to the Open Mic-er, the chatty audience who treat you like background music to their night out.

As a rule I don’t read prose at Open Mic, and prefer the compressed sound bites of poetry. But a piece of writing I thought a better fit for the Guy Fawkes theme, was from my novel about the anti-war protesters in 1916 who were setting fire to buildings on the eve of the conscription referendum. I was thinking about the scene in which Amy, a young activist is about to set a fire at the Mark Foys department store. It had fire, protest and is about a woman, not a Guy. So I cut out extraneous references and tightened the extract until it was down to three minutes.

I arrived at The Groove with both pieces and waited to see how the audience, and locals were behaving. There was music by local band, Jigsaw and visiting Vogel Award winner, Lisa Lang, was the guest writer. The remainder of the evening was given over to fifteen Open Mic performers. It seems the police had been cracking down on public drinking, and there were no outside disturbances throughout the night.

Trevor, the homeless rapper (and NT finalist in the National Poetry Slam) won first prize for Open Mic and I won second for my prose piece about Amy the incendiarist. My winnings included a ticket to Tracks Dance Company’s Allure of Paradise and a copy of See My World, Writings by young Indigenous people.

I also won a bottle of red, and as there were no police to move us on, it was shared with four other writers after closing time, in the quiet of the kids playground in the shopping mall.

RTHNX

Vigo, Spain (Photo by J Witt)

I spent a few days away from Twitter this week so that I could concentrate on my work-in-progress. But, oh how I missed my cyberspace life-line.

Enjoyed reading Ben Pobjie’s Guide to Twitter in the New Matilda and to find that I’m not alone in my obssession.

Have written a poem that tries to capture some sense of why Twitter is so fascinating.

It’s called RTHNX and appears in Issue 2 of Ricochet e-zine.

Since you asked me

photo by J Witt

Impressions of a poetry masterclass with

Keri Glastonbury

One of the participants in this workshop, held last Sunday at the Northern Territory Library, declared Michael Farrell’s wide open road to be ‘too bloody hard, mate’. She pushed her chair back from the communal table and crossed her arms.

Keri Glastonbury must have expected such a response. She’d taken the precaution of contacting Farrell, she told us, to ask him what she could say his poem was about. She told us about his poetic practices – his sampling of song lyrics and how the roll of a dice can dictate his choice of punctuation.

We chewed this over for a while, discussing trends in poetry. Glastonbury talked about the ‘lyric I’, how history had favoured coherence and accessibility and that the work of new poets like Farrell deliberately defied neat analysis.

We were provoked: Was this arrogance? Was it a wank? Or, was the author dead and a poem merely an invitation to readers to make their own meanings?

The one with her arms folded became animated at this point, recognising perennial artistic battles. She really quite liked those Ern Malley poems, she said, even though she knew they were meant to be a hoax.

I said that I write using the dice at times, and find that forcing myself to take the random into account often makes my work more interesting. I didn’t get a chance to say that I feel conflicted; that I like creating L-A-N-G-U-A-G-E poems, but don’t have a lot of patience for reading those written by others.

Back at Farrell’s poem, we had some context to work with now: the poet feels a sense of dislocation as a tourist in Japan, at seeing a koala in captivity there. We began to lever the poem open a little more, pointing to individual images that spoke to us. ‘Reflectors on the inside …’ could be describing poets, someone said. There were smiles from those who knew the lyrics of The Triffid’s song.

Some of us felt more comfortable than others with the slipperiness of this new poetics. For me, I think it’s like abstract art. If it speaks to me, I like it. I might simply like it for its shapes or colours. And if I don’t, I move to the next painting.

The two other poems we looked at (Sarah-Jane Norman’s A vanishing city and Glastonbury’s A Forest) were not as problematic for us as Farrell’s.

Norman’s subtitle, Hiroshima, August 2005 immediately cued us into a contemporary tourist’s experience of this city, so firmly set in our collective consciousness as a traumascape.  With Glastonbury’s poem, we also benefited from the contextual frame she gave us. She’d written it as part of her Asia-Link stay in Simla, the Indian hilltown and former refuge of the British Raj.

All three poems illustrated her theme of Writing Place. That is, that a poem is ‘always situated, taking place in a place, even if the final poem is erased of the spatial references’.

When it came to workshopping our own poems, we had ample cause to revisit some of Glastonbury’s themes: that we perceive place according to who we are, that places are not stable spaces and that cultures are not homogenous or contained. Cross-cultural mis/understandings are present in Kaye Aldenhoven’s what we see in country when a Wailpiri man persuades her to drive him into the bush. Caroline Reid’s Wounded, about an injured dog and her randy mate at the Fitzroy Crossing service station carries a chilling subtext of the everyday domestic violence that we see in public places. Barbara Eather’s Xenophobia captures the shock that many of us felt at some of the racist responses to recent refugee protests, coming out of what we thought were the multicultural Darwin suburbs.

‘And at the zenith of ordinary evenings of inebriation

just after the Baclava is served

they’re calling for the boats to be sunk …’

It was a thoroughly satisfying masterclass and Keri Glastonbury’s presentation was intelligent, accessible, thought-provoking and generous.