{"id":208,"date":"2019-02-28T21:16:14","date_gmt":"2019-02-28T21:16:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/walleahpress.com.au\/currajah\/?p=208"},"modified":"2022-02-16T21:22:46","modified_gmt":"2022-02-16T21:22:46","slug":"hobart-visit-geoff-goodfellow-february-2019","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/walleahpress.com.au\/currajah\/index.php\/2019\/02\/28\/hobart-visit-geoff-goodfellow-february-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"Hobart visit, Geoff Goodfellow – February 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s always good to catch up with poet Geoff Goodfellow. He\u2019s been touring Tasmania
\nthis week, visiting local schools and the prison, talking poetry.
\n\u2018You\u2019re becoming a local, Geoff\u2026. \u2019
\n\u2018Well I find that when I go into the schools, the year nine\u2019s\u2014they won\u2019t know me\u2014but
\nthe year ten\u2019s, they\u2019ll remember me from last year, come and say hello, ask how I\u2019m
\ngoing.\u2019
\n\u2018Do they give any trouble?\u2019
\nHe laughs. \u2018Nah\u2026. I don\u2019t let \u2019em.\u2019
\nHe says it\u2019s easy building a rapport with the students. He\u2019s direct and blunt, speaks in a
\nmanner they\u2019re not used to from someone with an authoritative role within a school
\nenvironment. And once he has their attention, his message is always the same.
\n\u2018Concentrate on your studies, don\u2019t waste your time here\u2014or mine\u2014cos it\u2019s the only
\nway you\u2019ll get ahead.\u2019
\nHis words resonate and I ask if he\u2019s read any Margaret Drabble.
\n\u2018Can\u2019t say I have.\u2019
\nI mention her 2000 novel The Peppered Moth<\/em>, wherein Dabble\u2019s school-teacher
\ncharacter Miss Heald implores her students of the necessity of \u2018deferring pleasure\u2019.
\n\u201cWork hard now, she said to her young people, and reap the rewards later. Do not grab
\nthe instant\u2026.\u201d
\nGeoff nods, says he has pretty much the same message for the students he deals with.
\n\u2018I tell them their school work\u2019s important. That they have to set themselves a time
\nframe, picture where they\u2019d like to be in ten years time. In my day it was enough to
\nfinish matriculation but nowadays even a BA won\u2019t guarantee you an interesting career.
\nYou might need a Masters, even more. You might be in your mid-twenties \u2013 or later \u2013
\nbefore you find yourself with a job you enjoy.\u2019<\/p>\n

……….<\/p>\n

So what does a poet read for pleasure?
\n\u2018Poetry of course, but novels too,\u2019 Geoff replies. \u2018I came across a copy of an old Carson
\nMcCullers novel recently\u2019\u2014(perhaps The Heart is a Lonely Hunter<\/em>?)\u2014 \u2018read the first
\npage and decided, that\u2019s for me so I bought it.\u2019
\nHe says he wouldn’t do it the disservice of glancing only casually at it, but would take
\nthe book home, sit down and give it his undivided attention \u2026 From his reading of the
\nfirst page, the book deserved it.
\nGeoff’s website biography describes his writing as often providing ‘… a public voice for
\nthose living close to the margins and who are generally under-represented in
\ncontemporary literature,’ which perhaps explains his interest in the award of the 2018
\nMan Booker Prize last year, won by Anna Burns with her novel Milkman<\/em>. (In an article
\nentitled ‘The story of Anna Burns shows how working-class talent is going to waste’,
\nGuardian<\/em> journalist Suzanne Moore argues that the creative industries now belong to
\nthe wealthy and their offspring. ‘Who else can afford to be a poet, or make music the
\nway they want to, or make art that a big collector doesn\u2019t want?’)
\n\u2018I was listening to the morning news late last year and heard Milkman<\/em> had won the
\nBooker overnight,’ Geoff recalls. Later in the day he was on the phone to his daughter
\nGrace who mentioned in passing she\u2019d gone and for the first time bought a book
\nonline.
\n\u2018Oh, what book is that?\u2019 Geoff enquired.
\n\u2018Milkman<\/em>, by Anna Burns\u2019, Grace replied.
\n\u2018Oh, that\u2019s just won the Booker Prize,\u2019 he said.
\n\u2018No it hasn\u2019t, though it\u2019s on the shortlist.\u2019
\n\u2018No no no, it\u2019s won overnight,\u2019 Geoff insisted. \u2018Listen,\u2019 he added, \u2018once you\u2019ve finished
\nthe book, how about letting me borrow it?\u2019
\n\u2018Sure.\u2019
\nA week passed. Geoff asked how Milkman was going.
\n\u2018Oh I haven\u2019t started it yet, I\u2019m reading something else at the moment.\u2019
\nAnother week passed. \u2018How\u2019s Milkman<\/em>?\u2019
\n\u2018Just begun.\u2019
\nAnother week. ‘Milkman<\/em>?’
\n\u2018Oh, I haven\u2019t read very far yet….\u2019
\nYet another week. \u2018How\u2019s Milkman going?\u2019
\n\u2018Still reading…. \u2019
\nWhen eventually he got his hands on the book, Geoff found it hard to settle into. \u2018I read
\nto page 11 and thought, this is tough. I gave it another go and reached page 27 before
\nI put it down again, thinking, I don\u2019t want to waste my time reading this. But I told
\nmyself not to give up so easily and continued with it\u2014though it wasn\u2019t till I reached
\naround 150 pages that I began to pick up the rhythm and intonations of her voice\u2026.
\nThat\u2019s when I started to think, this is good.\u2019
\n\u2018I\u2019m glad I persevered!\u2019<\/p>\n

……………<\/p>\n

Geoff mentions meeting Ken Kesey – author of One Flew Over The Cuckoo\u2019s Nest<\/em> – at
\nan Adelaide Writers Festival in the early eighties, and how that developed into
\nfriendship and an offer to stay with Kesey in the US. \u2018I was on the bill in Adelaide, so
\nwas Ken. I sensed his interest when he heard me read and he later came up and asked
\nfor a copy of my book. \u2018I\u2019ll give you one of my own tomorrow,\u2019 Kesey added.
\nGeoff had heard of Kesey, said yeah – that\u2019d be good. They met up the following day
\nand got talking. \u2018When I hear others reading, they could be from anywhere. When I
\nhear you read, I recognise I\u2019m listening to an Australian\u2019, Kesey confided. He said to
\nlook him up if ever got to the States.
\nGeoff says it wasn\u2019t time for him to be heading overseas\u2014to begin with, he didn\u2019t have
\nthe money\u2014but eighteen months later circumstances had changed and he rang Kesey
\nto see if the offer still stood. Before long, he found himself in Kesey\u2019s expansive
\nEugene, Oregon home.
\nAmong their many conversations about poetry and music \u2013 a Kesey quote is \u2018The
\nGreatful Dead are our religion. This is a religion that doesn\u2019t pay homage to the God
\nthat all the other religions pay homage to.\u2019 – the possibility of a Goodfellow poetry
\nreading in Eugene was floated.
\n\u2018Not being a local, you might find it difficult getting an audience,\u2019 Kesey mused.
\n\u2018I\u2019ll get by,\u2019 Geoff insisted.
\n\u2018How?\u2019
\n\u2018Well, I\u2019ll visit radio stations, put posters up around the place. I\u2019ve done all this before.\u2019
\n\u2018It might work if we did a reading together,\u2019 Kesey mused, \u2018but the things is\u2026. I\u2019d only
\ndo it on one condition, that it\u2019s free for people to come and listen. This is my town, I
\ndon\u2019t want to be ripping people off. But we could take our books and sell them.\u2019
\n\u2018And we did,\u2019 Geoff concluded. \u2018It was great!\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s always good to catch up with poet Geoff Goodfellow. He\u2019s been touring Tasmania this week, visiting local schools and the prison, talking poetry. \u2018You\u2019re becoming a local, Geoff\u2026. \u2019 … Continue reading “Hobart visit, Geoff Goodfellow – February 2019”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-208","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-burns-anna"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t