Five Islands Press New Poets Tour | Hobart, August 2006 | Natahan Curnow, Kate Waterhouse, Ross Gillett, Ali Jane Smith, Gita Mammen, Francesca Haig
Half a dozen poets take their seats facing an audience of eighty or more on the Tasmanian leg of the Five Islands New Poets
tour, one that has taken in various Australian cities as well as Wellington, New Zealand. In Ron Pretty’s absence - Ron is
ill, recuperating in a Melbourne hospital - Nathan Curnow assumes the duties of compere. ‘We’d like to acknowledge Ron Pretty
publicly for all he’s done for us – and for Australian poetry – over the years,’ Nate remarks, before handing over to Kate
Waterhouse, the first reader of the session.
Kate mentions the affinity she feels for Hobart, reminding her in so many ways of her home city of Wellington. Kate’s
opening piece, a poem drawn from memories of time spent in Thailand, is followed by a couple of Wellington poems – ‘that
could equally be about Hobart, I think’ - including ‘A thrush on your verandah’, with its nod in the direction of the
supernatural. Among the most substantive inclusions in Waterhouse’s collection are her pregnancy poems …
Shaped from my body this tug of life complicates the horizon with her pure
need extracts my silent permission so that I am complicit in this required
identity
[from ‘Metamorphosis’]
… but on this occasion she forgoes them to finish with ‘Sounding’. ‘I think Tasmania and New Zealand have more whale
strandings than anywhere else in the world,’ she says, the hint of a quaver in her voice. ‘Normally, I might read my
pregnancy poems,’ she adds, ‘but as on this occasion I haven’t, perhaps Ross will?’ She glances quizzically to her
left, welcomes Ross Gillett to the microphone.
‘I think I’m bound to begin with my pregnancy poem after that introduction,’ Gillett agrees. He reads ‘Pregnancy’,
following which he continues with the reproductive theme - ‘but possibly in the wrong order’ - by launching into
‘Ejaculation’. Spontaneous laughter breaks loose at the line ‘when at last I found someone else interested enough
to be there when it happens’ - and again, a little further on: ‘look Mum, no hands’.
In his blurb on the back cover of Gillett’s collection, Kevin Brophy notes an inclination to search for phrases,
thoughts and music "that will become the fixed points by which we steer our lives"; sentiments that Brophy finds
confirmed within this collection’s inventive wordplay and imagery, elegance and grace. Many of Gillett’s poems are
thematically defined by his strong familial links as well as in his roots with the past. ‘I grew up in the western
suburbs of Melbourne where factories were pretty thick on the ground, they’re no longer there.’ Gillett concludes
his short bracket with the collection’s title poem, ‘The Sea Factory’ before introducing Ali Jane Smith.
Smith’s poetry touches many bases, moves easily through personal reflection - of a Steve McQueen epigraph, for
instance - to descriptive reminiscences of time spent in various locations (Murwillumbah, Wollongong), to the
sensual, the romantic. While others might incline to cool detachment, Smith tends more towards observation and
experience than to judgement: as a poet, she’s very much involved in proceedings….
It is all made up out of these little pieces.
Cooking breakfast, making coffee
working or looking for work
waiting for a favourite tv show to start
thinking about what to have for dinner
going out for a beer
putting off unpleasant things
trying to improve the radio reception, going to the supermarket
breathing in deeply, behaving as
if we had all the time in the world.
Smith acknowledges her appreciation of the Haig family’s generous support for the troupe of tourist poets on the
Tasmanian leg of their tour before turning to introduce Gita Mammen, ‘whose work is both challenging and extremely
pleasurable, I think you’re going to enjoy it’.
With her collection Feefafafaluda, Gita Mammen offers a wordly gaze perhaps distanced from the immediacy of
Smith who precedes her and Curnow who follows directly after. Wry declamation and acute observation take precedence
over introspection and interior monologue, reveal an eye and ear for detail and dialogue. Steeped in myth but
grounded in the litany of everyday events, in Mammen’s poetry the extraordinary becomes ordinary:
in wheelbarrows, boys trundling mothers
in donkeycarts, veiled women and their daughters
on piggyback, crones on their grandsons
they went between the landmines
all shopping for a loaf of bread
[from ‘Shopping’, pg 11]
Being charged with a political dimension as many of Gita Mammen’s poems are, it’s perhaps fitting that Gita concludes
‘with one of those that Ali might have been referring to as political. It’s a language poem, I think’, before turning to
Nathan Curnow.
Curnow has scant need for words on the page, he recites from memory: makes the microphone his own, uses it
authoritatively – leans forward, eyes on his audience as words meld in a natural, rhythmic natural flow. There’s
concern with integrity, the sense of writing as a wrestle ultimately worth the effort; arrival’s important, but no
less so than the journey. "I swallow praise / from actors, then dish some out, trying to think / of something honest."
He reads ‘Bath towel wings’, a reflection on his young daughter’s questioning of death wherein he struggles with
disarming directness, honesty and compassion to communicate to a child a parent’s perceptions. Coming through
forcefully is the bond between father and daughter - a heartfelt awareness that not all questions can be answered,
that perhaps at times the best a parent can provide is simply love and support.
I don’t want to die, she says, and if I could waive
death somehow, waive it like a day of school.
If I could write her a note or simply wrestle it,
the way I contort her into armholes.
I tell her that I love her but she’s heard it before.
She wants to know where we go after this.
She believes in Santa. I can’t let her trust Jesus.
Yes, your heart stops working and your lungs.
I want to tell her that life gets busier
which means there is less time to worry.
If there is a trick it is not to grieve too much.
The mystery must be lived, hope is important
and fear: I get the two mixed up.
[from ‘Bath towel wings]
Curnow finishes with a poem written for his grandmother, before turning to introduce Francesca Haig. ‘A formidable talent,
classy and elegant - I can say sincerely it’s a huge honour to stand here before her home crowd and introduce Francesca.’
‘It is unusual to find such acute observation and such quietly elegant phrasing in a first collection,’ notes Philip Salom
on the back cover of Haig’s collection Bodies of Water; and I agree. In Francesca Haig’s poetry there’s a hint of something
special, the sense of a remarkable talent and natural ability, of a knowingness beyond her years, an energy and vitality
bridling to be unleashed. I doubt in disclosing Francesca’s long range goal - the simple desire to fully develop her
tremendous writing gifts - that I’m giving away too many secrets.
(Link – Louise Waller’s review of Francesca Haig’s collection 'Bodies of Water'])