Late last year I was at a book launch of a new book of poems and was chatting to a poet I’ve known for a long time but hadn’t seen for some time. He asked me, half interested but half doubtful and incredulous too, ‘are you still writing your poetry stuff online?’ I said that I was and he was too polite to literally shake his head in bemusement or confoundment or something, but he may as well have. The unspoken was ‘why do you bother?’

It’s a conversation that came back to me this week as, being on holidays, I’ve had time to looks at some new poems and contemplate the writing year ahead. Should I bother with the blog? I’ve read in some places that blogging is dead and that the interest has moved to micro-blogging like Twitter (which I also use, for a different purpose). Would it be better to put all my scant time and attention to the poems themselves, and leave the reflecting elsewhere?

Which is what I should have told the puzzled poet I was trying to do here. Reflect on my writing. Reflect on my reading. Share some of that, and some of the good things I’ve found along the way. It’s as much for my benefit as anyone else’s; to overtly think about the writing process and progress.

All of that. So, I’m going to keep on blogging for the moment. Irregular as I am with all this, and if I see that poet again I’ll be clearer about what the purpose is for me.

Photo: Yarra Reflections by Warrick (2007)

Anyone who’s read this blog the time will know how much I enjoy and appreciate local history. And, there’s something really satisfying about a well written natural local history. I like the passion that goes into them. I like the appreciation of the local and the specific. I like that, in a time of globalisation, there’s still space for the really personal and regional.

One of my favourite books last year was local history of the Wimmera region and I must admit I thought I’d read everything about my own area, the Mornington Peninsula.

So delighted to find out about a new book I hadn’t seen before. ‘Mt Martha Lands and People’ by Winty Calder. Apart from the ghastly cover, which is probably designed for the local tourist market, it’s a beautifully detailed and comprehensive natural local history.

Sections include the natural environment, the first people, the meetings and clashes of cultures, the early results in coastal development, Federation to World War I, suburbanisation between the wars, and World War II itself and its effect on this area (many marines were stationed here for rest and recreation). Finally, it also charts the changes from role to suburban and importance of keeping some of the open spaces. I never say never for a surprise to find it in the local newsagent. It’s a labour of love, I like that too.

Funnily enough, I couldn’t find one image of the books cover on the Internet, so I scanned one in. It seems not everything, especially the local, is on the web yet.

Oh, also dictated this post aloud using Dragon Express software on my new blue microphone. I’m keen to use a lot more audio this year if I can.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 5,100 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 4 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

A bit of a clue…

Now, pop over to my home page for the results

I was delighted to receive in the post this week my copies of Best Australian Poems 2011 (published by Black Inc) This year’s edition is edited by John Tranter and includes poems by poets like Robert Adamson, Ken Bolton, Pam Brown, Sarah Day, Bruce Dawe, Geoff Goodfellow, Jennifer Harrison, Andy Kissane, Jennifer Maiden, Les Murray and Thomas Shapcott. Pretty good company hey?

My poem, The Station of the Stairs was inspired by the wooden steps up from Bird Rock Beach to the highway. I’ll put it online sometime over the summer. The book is $24.95 and I think it’s out now.

Below: The Stairs, Photo: Warrick

Received the inaugural copy of the Australian Poetry Journal this week. This is the new journal to be published bi-annually by the Australian Poetry Ltd group and it’s a nice start.

I haven’t read it all yet but the first edition pretty much contains a ‘who’s who’ of contemporary Australian poets: Tracy Ryan, Robert Adamson, Sarah Day, Brook Emery, Paul Kane, John Kinsella, Mike Ladd, Anthony Lawrence, Les Murray, Geoff Page, Ron Pretty, Peter Rose, Alex Skovron et. al. If I have a tremor of doubt it’s because it is such a typical sounding line-up in some ways, but I’m hoping to find some new voices too.

I suppose that’s the tight-rope a journal walks: to balance the new writers with the established and well known. The back cover lists four writers: Robert Adamson, Christian Bok, Maria Takolander, Clive James and Les Murray.

It’s mainly poetry too, with a ‘spotlight’ feature on Robert Harris and three pieces of lit-crit. The editor is Bronwyn Lea and it’s a nice start though how it stands up agains the new ‘gorgeousness’ of the new Meanjin or even Island is up for grabs. It doesn’t look as good; in fact, this is defiantly text-only and I’m not convinced of the paper either, nice recycled idea, but a bit plain somehow. Like the cover, which may be doing some kind of academic retro thing and mimicking an early edition of Poetry Australia or New Poetry. It will be interesting to see how it develops.

Available here http://www.australianpoetry.org/australianpoetryjournal/

Just back from two weeks in Vietnam; my first time really travelling in South-East Asia and an amazing experience.  I was looking forward to two things especially: the food and the landscape. The food didn’t disappoint; it was invariably fresh tasting, simple and delicious.  The landscape wasn’t entirely what I expected, though I suspect that the tourist route I travlelled narrows experiences somewhat.

The thing I noticed most was that it is a profoundly peopled place. It has been shaped, re-shaped and is inhabited by a busy, industrious, cheerful, optimistic people. The landscape was inescapably connected to them. Maybe I’m rambling, or still jet-lagged, but I’m hopeful some poems will come out of all of this eventually. I hope to anyway.

Above: driving near Hoi San.

Below: Hai Long Bay.

Following on from the recent posts and comments on John Shaw Neilsen, I was pleased to the ABC Radio National program ‘Arts Poetica’ featuring Neilsen’s work this week. They describe it this way, and I think you can listen the program online HERE

John Shaw Neilson is widely regarded as one the great Australian poets. Neilson was himself the son of a bush poet. He was born in Penola in South Australia in 1872, and became a bush labourer at 14. He worked for many years alongside his father as a surveyor and fencer in Victoria and South Australia. On one occasion the pair nearly died of thirst near Scorpion Springs when they ran out of water while out in the field. As he walked, Neilson composed verse, committed to memory and refined them over long periods -up to two years in some cases. Such was his attention to the metre that he would often have to dismount from his horse in order to find the appropriate rhythm through his feet.
John Shaw Neilson interpreted the Australian landscape with awe and wonder, capturing the mystery and beauty he saw in the harsh Mallee country. Many of his poems also celebrated the birds of the district, notably the Smoker Parrot; so it comes as no surprise that his poetry has an uncommon musicality. His emotional landscape encompassed the isolation, loss, loneliness, joy and contentment of bush life. Neilson was active as a poet for the first thirty years of the new Commonwealth of Australia, and died in Melbourne in 1942.
In Speaking to Blue Winds, ABC producer Christopher Williams joins writer Paul Carter and painter John Wolsely as they retrace Neilson’s footsteps in the North-East Victorian Mallee country around Lake Tyrell. Neilson’s poems are read by Rory Walker.
John Shaw Neilson is also a central character in Paul Carter’s radiophonic drama Mac, which will be broadcast in Airplay to coincide with the 2011 Mildura Palimpsest, where a re-mixed version will be featured as a sound installation.

Top: Wimmera light, photo by Warrick (2011)

I was pleased this week to be able to get to the launch of Diane Fahey’s new and selected poems, The Wing Collection, published by Puncher and Wattmann at the venerable Collected Works Bookshop.

I’ve known Diane for a long time (I met her originally at residency in Varuna in the 1980s) and have admired her poetry, especially her poems of place and the natural world. And, with nine collections already out, a selected poems was about due.

It’s a nice looking book, and it was good to see some of her best poems all together in one place. She read some of them, including a series from the Hummingbird series, which I enjoyed.

Below: Diane, reading from the new collection at the launch.