Stefanie Bennett—poetry, 'The Vanishing'

BENNETT, Stefanie—poetry, ‘The Vanishing’

Stefanie Bennett—poetry, 'The Vanishing'
Stefanie Bennett—poetry, 'The Vanishing'

BENNETT, Stefanie—poetry, ‘The Vanishing’

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The Vanishing is Stefanie Bennett’s nineteenth collection of poetry. Over 40 years she has acted as a publishing editor, tutored in The Institute of Modern Languages at James Cook University, contracted as a writer in the commun­ity, and worked with Art’s Action for Peace. Contrary to popular belief, Bennett has no university degree, never attended high school, and did not finish her primary education. At the age of eleven the self-made poet ran errands [paid for by various business houses] and found employment as an assistant in her mother’s hairdressing salon. Of mixed ancestry (Italian/Irish/German/Paugussett-Shawnee), she was born in Townsville, North Queensland, Australia.

 
 

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(From a review by Simon Eales — Cordite Poetry Review, 18th January 2016)

 


Treating Bennett as a visionary poet, we can discern an isotope of essentialism in The Vanishing. Her poems are titled for us to be led in this direction. ‘Kinship,’ for example, gives the reader access to the feeling of kinship, setting an archetypical scene of warmth and comfort at the hearth, or around the campfire, while reinforcing instincts for togetherness, sensuality, and our commingling with ‘the elements.’ Each poem is linked to its neighbour in a similar way. The poem following ‘Kinship’, called ‘Smoke’, can be read as a reconstitution of kinship’s overflow (the fire around which we develop kinship produces smoke). This poem produces an imperative that seems to resonate through the collection. It’s a Jacob’s Ladder to the Tower of Babel. Poets not feeling well, as one line suggests, is indicative of ecological sickness. Bennett’s answer is to remain receptive, ‘stay / Sober. Stay serene. / Play / Pat-a-cake / With the screech-owl / in God’s sweet acre’. This imploration to realise what we have and appreciate it occurs repeatedly under different guises. In ‘Rilke’s Desk: A Postscript’, it is ‘Don’t / Scramble / The cornucopia!’. The Vanishing is a humble because fatalistic call to appreciation a la Guillevic, before ‘All’s well!’ disappears.

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