Hi all
Wow, what a cornucopia this is. All of those poems were so exciting to
read.
Andy - the way you framed place and the samples offered so much richness to
respond to.
My feedback collated below.
Emilie x
*Mary*
This feels like the most wonderful socio-poetic document and I would LOVE
to see the full exhibition. The layout on the page is great - I like what
it does to how I read the various texts. The bold text on the left hand
side is so brilliant and alive and odd and visceral. I wonder how closely
it relates to each of the books and what you found in them, I don't mind
not quite knowing because you build up such a rich world of memories,
emotions and images. Especially love:
I swallow mosquito larvae
from last night’s wine
feel my body itch
from the inside
I feed the birds
the bits of my heart
that you gouged out
Mum said
she licked her paw
then my face
wiping away marks
that were never there
*Julie*
I read this poem almost as a painting, Julie. I really liked how you took
us around the room, your 'thought place' and let the objects, colours and
images create a rich sense of place. I like that I am not sure where the
room is or whether it is at your home or somewhere else. 'I leave when the
sun does' is a delicious line, concluding the day beautifully but still
leaving so much open for more wondering and wandering. The only line I
wasn't sure about was: 'A lazy boomerang' Maybe because it's such an odd
juxtaposition that it pulled me out rather than kept me hooked (does lazy
mean it's not moving or not doing something it should?) I really like:
Day takes shape on the floor
An important green plant
and - as already mentioned - the last line.
*Maureen*
I so enjoy the frank tone of this poem, Maureen. I love how you place us in
that place of not belonging right up front and then introduce the overt
goal of the poem: (to) 'contemplate
where I’m meant to be.'
Honing in on the desk takes my focus deep into the specifics and I am both
reading your work and at my own desk, with its gouges and history. I got
slightly lost in stanza 3, it could be a matter of where words are placed
and punctuation (was the chest transported India to England and then
Australia?), and not quite sure what the 'African red, green and black, and
white label' is. Your passion for music permeates the fourth stanza and I
like how it adds an extra sensory element. I wonder if you could evoke the
sensory experience even more of what those favourite composers do to you -
how they impact your body, as well as where they take you. I really like
the last three lines and how they leave us in an ambiguous place with
echoes of very big questions around belonging. Lovely.
*Tru*
This strikes me as a wonderfully ambitious poem Tru. I love that you are
grappling with so many aspects of place: belonging, the past, the deep
sense of connection of the Indigenous elders, how to read that, how to be
part of it, a sense of separation. The jump from 'I' to 'you' from stanza 2
to 3 is slippery. Where are we? Who is being spoken to?
learning to drink your own
juice, sweat porous
as desire
is so marvellous, as is the vast sense of place you capture in just a few
lines with:
You have moved
to a cheaper town. One neighbor yells
incessantly, the other
leaves gifts on your doorstep
Then we return to the 'I' and I, as the reader, feel such a sense of
restlessness - as if nowhere can quite provide that sense of belonging. I
feel I can relate to this, as a white Australian living on unceded
Indigenous land. And i love that your poem opens up this space of
contemplation and 'not quite rightness' in subtle and unusual ways.
*Jessi*
This poem has such a cool rhythm to it, somewhere between a kid's rhyme, a
travel-log and a litany. I LOVE Its immediacy, the images and bits I can
directly relate to that pop off the page:
Here is the milk bar, jangle door, stale air
And those that make it so specifically yours that I feel I get a doorway
into your world (or the narrator's I should say, it could be a persona)
like this:
Here is Mr Orlando’s salon, sign the same since ’92.
Oh my God - Mr Orlando! How I want to visit that salon. The imagery around
hair and nails is very gritty and unusual and sings for me of something
unresolved about these memories / places - which I love. I'm not sure what
the 'little crescents' are (the bitten nails?) but I find these last few
lines very potent evocations of time, generational change and a grappling
with belonging:
(trails of cells written like a map)
and she was here, and we were here,
and I am here
*Rachael*
I had to read this poem, slowly, several times, so wonderfully dense it is
with images and thoughts and feelings. Your connection to the place is
palpable and contains both intellect and body and something much deeper as
well. I could picture the bay even though I've never been there. You bring
it to life so skillfully. I wish for one more comparison of the then and
now:
I started this poem with Whizz Fizz
and a *Historic Port Elliot* pennant. It closes
with chilli squid and a cold glass of white.
Is there an equivalent 'now' to the pennant?
I'd pretty much be copying and pasting the whole poem here to let you know
my favourite lines but absolute stand-outs are:
I float in green light over the dark weight of empty.
I’ve known this place since my skin was fresh
as the sand after a wave
Long ago, this bay was forest, these granites spat
from volcanoes
My only query is the word 'wordlessly' in the first stanza, second line. It
could be a deliberate play on words - but it pulled me out because the poem
is SO full of wonderful words about your love for the place :)
*Wahibe*
Wahibe, wow, this is a stunning poem. It's exciting, riveting, playful,
experimental, intellectual, personal. rigorous, specific and universal. It
pounds with the rhythm of your discovery of the place. It's funny and frank
as well as being mystical and like a river. Your voice is so in command of
the material - the switch from past to present, from ruminating to feeling.
I absolutely love it. That word play around apocalypse is brilliant! So
many striking words and images that you use. It feels like we are taken on
and granted a catharsis. It's both epic and contained. As you can see - I
loved it.
--
Emilie Collyer
0425 761 594
*www.betweenthecracks.net <http://www.betweenthecracks.net>*
*Twitter: @EmilieCollyer*
I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land on which I live and work. I
pay my respects to their Elders, past and present. I acknowledge that
sovereignty was never ceded and that the complexities of living on this
land that remains stolen and occupied are many and are unresolved.
