Day: November 18, 2022

The Joan Didion estate sale

Sophie Haigney, writing for ‘The Paris Review’ (17th Nov 2022) about the artefacts being auctioned in the US at the Joan Didion estate sale….

Then there were the three lots of blank notebooks, tied with twine. They went for $9,000, $11,000, and $11,000 each. They were empty, some still wrapped in plastic, yet they were totally talismanic. I wondered: Would you write in these notebooks, having paid that price? Perhaps that’s the whole appeal—to write in a blank space that Didion might once have intended to use herself. Maybe the buyer had a hidden wish that somehow her intent might infiltrate their own work—that in owning these notebooks they might crack some secret code to making sentences like hers. There are sillier superstitions. But more likely, I think, you would have paid too much for these notebooks to ever touch them, and they would sit in a drawer or on a desk, unused and empty, just as they sat on hers.

Launch of ‘Reaching Light’, by Robert Adamson [Sydney, July 2022]

Robert reading and in conversation with his Flood Editions USA editor/publisher & poet Devin Johnston, with readings by Sarah Holland-Batt and Michele Seminara.

 

The very sad news is that Robert Adamson is gravely ill. 

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Normally, I’d not think twice about the mention here of a literary event—a book launch—yet I’m vaguely aware that doing so on this occasion could possibly be construed as no more than zeroing in on a topical note of interest.

However….

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When Tim Thorne fell ill, I found myself hesitant to engage, ask how he was going … generally, just unwilling to intrude. In retrospect, it was a rubbishy form of interaction on my part—albeit under trying circumstances. I regret I didn’t make a greater effort…. Physically, Tim was slowing down, but mentally he was still off and running…. We shared a moment together, one session during the 2021 Tasmanian Poetry Festival. The state election had been called that very day, and scheduled for the 1st May. I made some reference to it, to which Tim quickly replied oh yes, and that’s going to put a very different interpretation on May Day, isn’t it? and he laughed.

I should also have said, oh by the way I appreciate and admire you so very much; for your generosity, for all you’ve achieved…. But I didn’t.

So goodbye rubbishy decisions.

I don’t know Bob Adamson’s work well, and my indirect association with him has only occurred since he provided back cover blurbs for one or two of the poetry collections I’ve published (Vanessa Page’s ‘Confessional Box’ comes to mind) some years ago. My belated appreciation of his poetry is due to the arrival in our home of a copy of the 2016 anthology ‘Contemporary Australian Poetry’ (Puncher & Wattman), where the work of poets is, according to surname, arranged in alphabetical order. Such a great anthology, so many very fine poems, but I always experienced difficulty getting past the opening five poems in the book—Adamson’s—’Via Negativa: The Divine Dark’, especially. Such fine poems all…. Bless you Bob for making vivid, and sharing, your perceptions.