A little poetry live reading (from Clunes Booktown Festival)

Clunes Booktown Festival

I was recently able to attend the Clunes Booktown Festival in my capacity as a publisher/bookseller, with a number of my titles available for sale. It was a fantastic weekend and I met a lot of people, and sold and signed a lot of books.

Our stall at Clunes

Creatures – there were many!

I didn’t have a lot of time for taking pictures, but there were a few new locals in the area.

The Bob McKinnon Memorial Poetry Slam

Once again, there was a Poetry Slam event held on the Saturday night. I was lucky enough to be a co-winner of this event last year and it is a wonderful evening to attend and listen, let alone participate.

I wasn’t so fortunate as to win this year – the prize going to a very classy lady of 92 years of age who was having a crack at this format for the very first time. The whole evening was a real treat.

My poem on the Theme of ‘Adaptation‘

The requirements of the Slam competition were for the theme of ‘adaptation’ to be incorproated or referenced, and for the poem to take less than 2 minutes to deliver (+/- 15 seconds).

I taped my own reading on my phone recorder so I could play it back to review afterwards, and thought you might enjoy listening, as well.

I have not edited the poem and if it’s a bit tinny, that is why. Hope you enjoy.

The Soldier – Adapting to Afghanistan

Stories from the Crevice Communities – Symposium 2022

The Charles Sturt University Creative Practice Circle’s Crevice Communities Symposium is happening throughout next week (5 – 9 December 2022) in Wagga, NSW. I’ll be attending to present a short paper on my forthcoming book release ‘Ida: Searching for The Jazz Baby’. My thanks to the Australian Government’s Arts and Cultural Development Program, Regional Arts Australia and Regional Arts Victoria who are providing me with travel and accommodation support.

This link is to the Symposium Website and aganda. It’s an interesting program and I think it will be a cracker.

https://creativepracticecircle.csu.domains/2021-program/symposium-2022-stories-from-the-crevice-communities/

If you are interested in participating, the whole thing will be presented virtually as well as in-person in Wagga. Don’t hesitate to book a place for yourself. Did I mention? It is free to participate. Get on board, here. Just press ‘Get Tickets’ and you’re away!

https://events.humanitix.com/stories-from-crevice-communities-symposium

Join us.

a haunting song (once of the sea)

^{Who is the third who walks always beside you}

is a ghost
always
a pale shadow

can it be
merely
a sensation . . .

a presence . . .

a belief

grief
is like the realization
of starvation

a hunger
and yearning
for what is forever
lost

a companion –
invisible
and
intangible –
capable of placing
a moist sensation
of flipper
against a cheek
suddenly bathed
in rivulets
that are tears

an overflow
from the ocean
of emotion
within

a companion
that is always there
and yet . . .

no more

not ever

the wind
now
is a sad song

a fluting
that once traveled miles
beneath the water

that could be
felt
in the very bones
of a man

music
to surround
the haunting
of a man
who was once
of the sea

The New Asylum revisited

The New Asylum – revisited

In this article, I am revisiting my poetry collection The New Asylum.

A couple of days back I revisited my poetry collection Small Town Kid. The occasion being that I have recently reformatted the book in order to go ‘wide’ with it. To make the collection available to be purchased and read in digital form an all e-reader platforms and devices, and not exclusively using Kindle devices. For example, online book-retailing stores like Barnes and Noble and Kobo cater for other formats than the Kindle demands, (such as Nook Book, for example).

I have now uploaded The New Asylum at Smashwords, as well, and felt it would be appropriate to stroll through the back-story to the collection, today.

A background to The New Asylum

The New Asylum is, in some ways, an extension of the Small Town Kid story. It is a memoir written in free-verse poetry that has a starting point in the very early 1960s, which time saw both of my parents working in the local lunatic asylum, later known as Mayday Hills Hospital.

Migrants

The family arrived in Australia as new immigrants from what was then Yugoslavia (via Germany), in 1957. Most of the stories about that initial period, and the temporary accommodation at the Bonegilla Migrant Camp are generally harrowing.

If you can imagine:

An Australia that was wide and brown, with no familiar (European) features.
BArracks accomodation. Shared ablutions. I have visited a retained ablution block at the camp and was reminded of Concentration Camp facilities. Probably merely a result of the architectural norms of the time, but chilling, none-the-less.
A first meal consisting of cold lamb or mutton. Congealed before it could be transported to the hut, with no family member ever having encounteresd such food in their lives, let alone eaten it.
No possessions other than what could be carried.
No work
Absolutely no sense of what or how the future might unfold.

Quite traumatic after they had actually established the beginnings of a life, while still in Germany.

Work

My father was first to find work and thus begin the journey out of the Migrant Camp. A family member lived in Beechworth – about 50 kilometres away, and had work and contacts within the thriving forestry industry. My father had some experience of that and a great willingness to do anything for some money.

There are many stories that might be told of that time, but this yarn is about the path to the Asyluym, and after dad found work it became possible to move on and settle, in a beginning kind of way.

The Lunatic Asylum

No apologies for this repeated reference to Lunatic Asylums. Not only were these institutions referred to in those terms at that time, but there was an Act of Parliament – The Mental Health Act of 1959 – which officially designated them as such.

Mayday Hills was a walled facility that was home to around a thousand residents, approximately half of whom were classified as ‘Retarded’ and cared for in their own ward – the ‘Children’s Cottages’ as they were known. Wards were gender segregated at that time, with a ‘male’ side and a ‘female’ side.

At that time, there were very few trained doctors or nurses employed in the sytem. Rather, there was a Superintendant, and a Matron, with perhaps some medical officers on staff, perhaps a few trained nurses in charge of the wards, but for the main part, the care of the patients was undertaken by unqualified staff known as Ward Assistants, gender segregated, as were the patients.

Working On The Wards (Female)

My mother was employed as a Ward Assistant very early on, despite the fact that she had no English language ability. German and Yugoslav, but not English.

That was alright, thouygh, because she was not alone. There were many immigrants from Europe working in the Asylum at that time. The pay was not brilliant, but the work could be done without training or pre-existing skills, and the work was ‘government work’. Secure.

To some extent the poor pay was made up for by the staffing shortages generally, which resulted in overtime work (and pay) being mandatory for all nursing staff.

How crazy was it?

Just as an aside, I can recall two of my mother’s stories from those very early days.

As the most junior nurse, one job that routinely fell to her to perform was to put shoes on the patients in one of the Retardation Wards. She would describe going round and around the room putting shoes on. The, going round again – putting the same shoes on the same feet – endlessly. As soon as they were on, they were kicked off again, but, that was the job. The routine.
A second job she described was being the sole nurse (still without English language skills) supervising the patients during a meal. Her position was standing in the doorway. The task? Watch as the food flew around the room, intervening only f it appeared a patient might somehow come to grief.

In the end, I believe she stopped trying to comprehend what this work was really about, and focussed on knowing and following the set routines. Just like all the other staff.

Eventually better/easier placements came her way, but they were all hard days, and all of it was just a little bit crazy.

The Main Kitchen

Over the course of a couple of years, my father also sought and obtained work at the Asylum – as a Cook’s Assistant (a mess hand).

The rationale was, again, that while the job was not the best paid, necessarily, it was good steady work, and it was backed by the Government of Victoria. Safe. Secure.

I won’t speak more of my father’s role here. These are big stories and my own association with the Asylum led down the Nursing path. There are a few tales of dad and the Kitchens in The New Asylum, but we’re nursing, here!

The Small Town Kid meets The New Asylum

As a child, I and many of my ilk had one or both parents working at the Asylum. In fact, Beechworth was ‘an institution town’, with 3 or 4 main institutional employers, catering to generations of the same families following in each others footsteps – Mental Asylum; Old People’s Home (known as The Benev)’ Prison; Forestry Commission).

The work days were long – 10 hours for cooks, 13 hours for nurses, and we kids were left to our own devices a great deal of the time. It wasn’t uncommon, however, for me to visit mum and dad if they were working on a weekend day (with no bosses around). The whole walled institution became a part of my familiar territory and I could spend time with dad while he attended the slicing and buttering of bread for 30 or so wards in the Bread Room, or visit mum in one of the Female Wards where she might sneak me a little left-over lunch, or a boel of dessert.

I also became familiar and found myself at ease with the patients who were the residents of the Asylum. A slightly bizarre, sometimes demented or out of control extended family. Just like home!

Student, Nurse, Policy Maker, Service Consultant, Unit Manger, Nurse (again)

I have been blessed to have had a full career in Public psychiatry. Not just a nursing role on a ward, but the whole gamut of experiences that the system had available.

I was someone who was prepared to move around, and had a genuine hunger for experience and to help bring about change. As a result, opportunities found me, and I them.

Some of them found their way into my collection – The New Asylum.

What is in The New Asylum

In this collection, I have tried to take the reader on an experiential journey from first exposure, as a child, through student Psychiatric nursing (as it was). Practical acute Psychiatric nursing, and Unit Management form the main part, and throwing in some of my experiences in policy development and related areas where they seemed best to fit.

Looking back, the outcome of my personal efforts and those of the system to pursue and achieve positive change is dubious at best. The system of care remains deficient and I fear that it always will be. Our best efforts, it seems to me, have produced no better result than a New Asylum.

Poetry Readings from The New Asylum

Below are some of the readings from The New Asylum located on my YouTube Channel. Most of these were read at the Booklaunch. I hope you enjoy them.

Loss of Faith

A Ha Ha Above Town

Taxi Shuttle

To Pharmacy For Tubes

Furball and Freddie

Smashwords Link

It should be possible to find the digital version of The New Asylum fairly readily, now, including in the Kindle store, still. For the purpose of this re-presentation though, I’ll pop in the linl to the Smashwords store for you to check out.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1091148

Small Town Kid rides (again!)

The Small Town Kid is in new stores.

I mentioned a few days back in my daily blog that I have started working through my back catalogue in order to place them in a format that allows me to list them more ‘widely’ than just Kindle in digital format, Starting with the Small Town Kid collection.

What a job! It has taken a while to remember all that I had forgotten and to recreate the muscle memory needed to establish a routine of preparation and checking and testing, before uploading. Not a super-big set of tasks, but still a challenge to get right.

Regardless of that, the fruits of my labour are manifesting, with the first couple of books showing active digital book (e-pub format) links to online book-retailing stores like Barnes and Noble (Nook Book), and Kobo.

Phew!

I thought I might do well to celebrate, just a little, by revisiting each book over the coming week or so, starting with Small Town Kid.

A background to the Small Town Kid

Migration of the Stateless

I was born in 1956 (the year the Olympic Games came to Melbourne) in Hamburg, Germany. My family were passportless, non-Communist-affiliated immigrants out of then Yugoslavia. Passportless because their ethnic background was German, rather than Slav, and because of a staunch (catholic) refusal to join the ruling Communist Party. To join the Party would, perhaps, have guaranteed better jobs, but required a renunciation of religion (as I understand it).

The family were able to obtain a passport giving them German nationality. Before leaving Yugoslavia, they had nominated Australia as a final destination because there were some family members already here (in the small rural township of Beechworth).

Who was affected? How?

The migration represented very different things for each of my parents. For my father, the chance to get a fresh start. To be man unoppressed and with some control over his own future.

Dad was 25 years old when they migrated and with him came my grandparents who were still rearing three younger children. As well, my mother, my sister and myself. So it was a two-family migration, with the expectation that they would help each other settle and grow.

For my mother, it was different story. For her, migration was about getting a life for her children. It was clearly and entirely a sacrifice that she made, for she was very close to her parents, who couyld not make the journey. There was a very real possibility that she would never see them again.

To a great extent, my mother felt alone in this adventure, and some part of her loneliness and distress never left her, and Small Town Kid, I think, reflects this sadness she carried.

All in all, the family remained in Germany for around 12 months, during which time, I was born in Hamburg. They would have happily stayed in Germany – there was work, the old country and mum’s family were only 2 European countries away, the language was manageable and so on. In the end, though, there was no choice and the move had to be made – a five day journey by airplane.

They arrived with virtually nothing in hand, and the family story tells that when the tea chest filled with crockery and such goods arrived months later, all but one plate had been smashed in transit.

Work, Work, Work

When in Beechworth – the small town that became home, work of various kinds abounded for the adults. This was the 1950s. All sorts of everything were happening. Labour was needed. Jobs, jobs, jobs.

Mum ended up working in the local lunatic asylum (Mayday Hills) as an untrained nursing staff member (with no English language skills, initially). Dad worked a number of jobs, including forestry work before ending up as a cook at te same lunatic asylum.

Both their jobs involved long-day shift work. In dad’s case, he was rosytered to work 10 hour days, but on a pattern of one day worked and one day off-duty. On his off-duty days he always had side jobs. How else to furnish a home, to build a place of your own?

Mum’s days were exhausting 13 hour shifts – two days worked and two days off-roster. With plenty of overtime.

Poetry Readings from Small Town Kid

Below are some of the readings from Small Toiwn Kid located on my YouTube Channel. I hope you enjoy them.

Smashwords Link

It should be possible to find the digital version of Small Town Kid fairly readily, now, including in the Kindle store, still. For the purpose of this re-presentation though, I’ll pop in the linl to the Smashwords store for you to check out.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/1091148

The New Asylum Revisited

A companion article on The New Asylum is now published, here.

Writing Perspective using two voices

Writing Perspective

For some time now, I have been contemplating changes of writing perspective that c0me from using multiple voices. The usual approach, in poetry at least, is to write in a single voice and reflect a single perspective.

For example, I might write in my own voice and use my own thoughts and feelings on an issue or whatever the subject of the poem may be. Alternatively, I might adopt a character to represent a different, or chosen perspective on the subject that I wish to explore.

Both these approaches are completely valid.

Let us all sit in a circle . . .

I have always been attracted by a different notion, however. I believe that the phrase ‘what you see depends on where you sit’ contains an underlying truth, and it has often been my wish to explore the different writing perspective from using two voices in my work. Imagine six artists, with their easels, seated in a circle around a model. Each artist is looking upon the same model, adopting a single pose.

The result? Six different pieces of art. No two exactly alike. The effect on writing perspective of using two voices to describe the same situation produces a similar result. Alternative, but valid, perspectives.

Artist and Author

The Premise of the Poem

Some time ago, while exploring this theme for myself I wrote a poem that I imagined being read by two voices. Perhaps a male voice and a female. Perhaps an artist and an author.

I was interested in bringing out the differences in perspective of the two characters and their orientations, while reconciling the fact that the subject is identical for both.

Artist and Author poem – first voice (author)

he makes a line
a word
upon the paper

he is writing
all of his life
into an opus

in the most important part
he tries to capture
what she has meant

in words . . .

the true statements

and even as his hand
pushes the pen along
to write more
he can hear
her laughter

rising
from what is
already expressed
upon the page

as he writes
her image flows
from the ink
of his pen
onto the paper

every detail brings her
more to life

he doesn’t need her
to stand
before
his eyes

the vision
he is writing
lives
within his mind.

and
as he approaches
a conclusion

he feels himself
right there
on the page

and beside her

pen
placed down

the only sound
is her laughter –
risen up to surround him
from a paragraph –

and strolling
on a blue-sky day
beneath
the sun

Artist and Author poem – second voice (artist)

the paper on the easel
has a tooth
or
so they say

in pastel
she is painting
a portrait

he emerges
in strokes
and shades

in the particular
of smudges
and even though
the face is not captured
completely
yet

already she can see
his mouth
attempt to smile

as her subject
takes a shape –
pastel
on toothed paper –

she is not aware
of the man
but
her picture has come
almost
to life

he is there
entire

funny mannerisms
quirky smiles
and twinkling eyes

everything about him
captured
upon the paper

he could not be more
real
for her

nor
more present

pastels down

the only life
is smiling at her
on the painted picture

strolling
hand in hand
beneath a blue sky
and the sun

How can two perspectives be brought together?

Presentation of these perspectives , in the form of a poem, can be difficult.

My attempt to deal with Artist and Author saw me using columns to present each of the sections matched beside each other, and with coloured text to distinguish each voice.

In a live reading to an audience, I would seek one (or two) audience members to join me in reading a part – first one, then the other.

In theory, the two parts could be read by the two voices at the same time. Difficult to distinguish, but essentially each part reflecting the same or parallel subject.

Phew.

Writing Perspective Using Two Voices – recording

Below is a recorded attempt to capture the above poem and the sense I have of two perspectives on essentially the same subject. The reading was done a little while before this post, and some minor editing of the poem has not been incorporated.

What do you think?

Exercises On The Inspiration for Writing

Exercises on the Inspiration for Writing is a phrase I use to group occasional thoughts I am interested in exploring and sharing.

More Exercises on The Inspiration for Writing can be found here.

How to read short poetry

How to read short poetry – an introduction (of sorts)

Have you ever tried to listen to someone struggling over how to read short poetry? It can be an aggravating experience. In any case, I’ll try to explain why I find it so, in a moment, but first I should acknowledge that short poetry – such as haiku and similar short forms – haibun, tanka and so on, are wonderful, disciplined writing forms, designed to pack a big conceptual and meaningful impact in just a handful of words. I like that concept very much.

I don’t enjoy the strictures and discipline that the forms demand.

For the most part, I also don’t enjoy listening to them being read aloud to an audience.

How to read to an audience – a brief refresher

Many, if not most authors have little idea of how to read to an audience or how to present their work to best advantage in a reading. This is the case whether for live or recorded readings.

It is something of an absent art which I don’t want to address in detail here, but will mention a couple of the more obvious “do’s and don’t’s“. My personal context is poetry reading, but the general principles apply regardless.

Quick Refresher Points

Pace of reading

Speaking too quickly. The golden rule is to read slowly. If you think you are reading slowly enough – go a little slower still. The audience needs time to take the material in and to extract a little meaning from it. Give them that time.

Love the microphone

Develop a love affair with the microphone. The mic needs to be part of an intimate relationship with the reader. It takes time and a little practice, but failure to develop this skill makes for a very dull experience for the listening audience.

Engage the audience

Failure to engage with the audience. The reader needs to look out at the audience from time to time during reading, to let them know that he or she is reading to them and for them. Catching the eye of one or more audience members at different points in the reading adds meaning and engagement with the audience. It can be tricky to achieve initially but needs to be practiced.

Select your material

A failure to select material for reading. This is more a problem for long-form writers – novelists and short stories. I’ve been in many audiences where the writer faces the page and reads – everything. No stopping until the end of page five, at least, of the reading. By this time the audience is all fidgets and is hearing little beyond a constant droning.
A reading goes much better with a selection, perhaps a few paragraphs to introduce a character, perhaps another few paragraphs to highlight an aspect of him or her, in the context of the story.
The audience wants to engage and the author can do worse than to share an anecdote that illuminates character development, rather than chapter and verse. They should buy the book to get that!

Pace of Reading

Read slower. Just because you thought you were reading slowly doesn’t mean that you were. Learning the pace to read at is a key part of the craft.

So, enough of that more general discussion. What I was really meaning to focus on was how to read short poetry. I’ll move on.

Reading poetry, in general, and in short

My experience of reading poetry in general is that it is a short form of writing. In my own work it is rare for a poem to span two minutes in reading time from start to finish. This most likely developed as a result of my early experience with open mic readings where the poet puts his or her name on a chalkboard to have their turn at reading three poems in five minutes (or less). If any one poem was too long, the poet had less time available to read more pieces on the day.

Focusing my mind on getting as much meaning as I could into relatively short pieces of writing shaped my writing. Most of my work, now, requires about one minute (more or less) to read to an audience.

That is a very short period of time in which to communicate what you want a listener or reader to take away with them. Imagine how much more difficult it must be to successfully master how to read short poetry.

Drawing again on my experience from open mic readings, it is very difficult and few master it (myself included).

Also from my experience from open mic readings, it is very difficult and few master it (myself included).

So, how should short poetry be read

After such a big build-up, I have to fudge my answer a little bit. I’m not aware of any one ‘right‘ way to do it. How to read short poetry remains in the domain of the writer, but I do have a couple of small ideas that perhaps serve as clues.

Back on the open mic stage, from time to time a short-form (usually haiku) poet would mount the podium in a way that held audience attention. This was difficult enough to achieve for the best of readers, because the sessions were always held in bar rooms, with a room full of self-centered poets all waiting their own turn at the mic, and not necessarily interested in other self-centered poets having their moment on the stage.

These few occasions caught my attention because I was interested in my craft and wanted to know everything.

What I learned at Open Mic

Engage the audience. Speak to them, catch their attention, perhaps give a little context for the reading. If the audience is listening before the poem is read, there is a good chance they will hear it as it is spoken.
Read the poem, the first time, slowly. A haiku can be read in about 5 seconds flat, or less. What is the point of that? Go slow.
Read it through a second time, equally slowly. The first time through, with a short poem, the listener is being asked to hear the structure and flow, the rhythm. A second reading allows the content and meaning to be taken in. If the reading is introduced in this way, and the audience invited to listen in that way, the reading becomes a very much richer experience.
Perhaps allow a moment of silence at the conclusion of the poem and before launching into the following poem.

That, I think, is how to read short poetry.

Some examples

Now that I have your attention . . .

No, I’m only jesting as, for all I know, I have already lost my audience by dragging this discussion out too long. Such things happen, but I have scoured through my Seventeen Syllable Poetry blog for some examples to read, just to see if the views I’ve expressed hold up in practice (I don’t get to open mic readings any more).

I’ve done these poems with a blank image background for the first read through, and the words superimposed for the second read through.

must be

must be is a short poem from a collection I worked on called ‘From NASA with Love’. The series came about in a period of delight after I discovered that the NASA Image and Video Library had been made available for access by the public.

must be – How To Read Short Poetry

worshipful

worshipful comes from a short series of poems written to celebrate a number of images I took – photographs – of mornings. I had in mind, and still am interested in pursuing, a book of morning poems (and a book of cloud poems, and a book of flying birds poems . . .).

worshipful – How To Read Short Poetry

bee sweet for me

bee sweet for me is a poem that comes from simple delight, and the desire to join with the image and the moment in some way.

bee sweet for me – How To Read Short Poetry

at the last

at the last comes as the final poem in a series I wrote on a walk. Just a random walk, in this case, taking photographs and later trying to match some words to them.

at the last– How To Read Short Poetry

Conclusion – thank you

That concludes my attempt to discuss and describe a few thoughts on how to read short poetry. I hope you found it interesting, amusing, provocative or outrageous. If so, please feel free to let me know.

If you’d like to read more of my thoughts on writing and poetry, you might enjoy these articles, or perhaps these.

What’s in a picture? What’s in a poem?

What’s in a Picture?

So, what is in the picture? What ends up in the poem?

I recently penned a few thoughts about using writing prompts, both written and in picture/image form. In the time since, I’ve found myself interested in breaking down what goes into the contemplation – in some cases, at least – of an image that is meant to become the focus of the muse.

Below, I have pasted an image of a children’s playground that is fairly widely distributed around the internet, and which I understand to be a free-for-commercial-use image, most likely originating on somewhere like Pixabay. Among other sightings, I know it to have featured on book covers – most likely used in order to keep cover design costs low.

In my own case the image was used as a writing prompt for speculative fiction (sci-fi, fantasy and similar writing genres). I ended up writing two quite different poems using the image as prompt.

Take a look at the image. What do you see?

Full image used for the George poem

One of the poems I used this prompt for was called George, and you’ll find it here. In looking back at the poem and image together, I have identified a number of elements – pictorial and non-pictorial that seem involved.

Seen Elements

1. There is a mist of some sort in the air; and

Mist in the playground for the George poem.

2. There is a child’s rider-rocker playground object.

A playground teeter-totter for the George poem.

Unseen Elements

Unseen elements have to be established in the narrative to enable the reader to visualise them as though they were in the picture – the picture in the mind.

A foul reek in the mist; and
A suit of armour; and
A sword; and
A dragon!

What’s in a poem?

Unfolding the story

The poem, George, attempts to take the visual elements I have detailed above (what’s in the picture), and to intertwine them with the monologue of a protagonist who is approaching. He is not approaching a rather misty children’s playground filled with swings and playthings. No. He is approaching a foul-breathed, smoggy dragon. A Wyrm!

He intends to deal with this dragon . . .

How? How will he deal with the Wyrm (which we can clearly see now in playground left)? Why, with his sword of course. We all know that he must has a sword. We can visualise it.

How will he be protected? A suit of armour. We know by now that he will be wearing a suit of armour. Again, we can visualise it.

As for identity. I think we all know who our hero is, as well, don’t we? He is GEORGE! and there can only be one person named George who might be involved in in sneaking up on an unsuspecting dragon.

Can’t there?

How does the invisible become material and visible?

There is magic involved in storytelling. That is my belief, in any case. A requirement to persuade a reader to suspend rational belief and to see, as the writer wishes them to see.

A mist becomes a reek. A playground toy becomes a dragon. An image assumes an atmosphere.

The suspension of rational belief allows the reader to enter into the vision and the sensations being experienced by the protagonist.

Tension.
Adjustment of protective equipment.
The use of smell to identify the foe.
A sense of destiny.
A dragon.

Every reader wants to be taken away on a journey within the story. Using visuals to prompt further feats of imagination by the reader is the completion of a kind of alchemic reaction that accumulates the initial image, the imagination of the writer, the imagination of the reader.

Your Story

Here is another element from the original image. I wonder if you can imagine a story that starts from such a detail?

Try.

Detail from children’s playground photograph used for the George poem.

The second poem that I wrote using this playground image – called Only the Wind is Free can be read here.

Use of Writing Prompts: Selflessness in Contemplation

Use of Writing Prompts

Following on from previous thoughts about inspirations for writing, I have been contemplating a little, as I edit, on the role and use of writing prompts as inspiration.

It is true, of course, that all writing is in some way ‘prompted‘. What I’m thinking about and want to discuss just a little, is the role and use of specific prompts, like:

. a word
. or a phrase
. or an image
. etc

Politika of the Pipples – capturing an apocalypse

The first poem that made me feel like a true poet/writer was called Politika of the Pipples, written for a spoken word competition away back around year 2000 or 2001. Politika was written in response to a phrase that had to be included entire within the body of the poem. The phrase was outlandish – who will be left to play the post-apocalyptic violin. I now realise it was most likely intended to inspire a speculative fiction (after-the-next-war) type of response.

I went off in a different direction. There are many kinds of apocalypse, and many different ways and needs to cope with them.

We are seeing some of this in the USA as I write, I think, and I truly am amazed at how relevance seems to reinvent itself.

Using Picture Images as Inspiration

The collection that I have been editing this last day or two is The Last of Eden, for which I’ve brought together a range of poems written in response to images used as writing prompts on various online sites I follow, when I have a chance. I’ve been a little amazed at the journey that each image has inspired. Complete stories that relate intimately to the picture that inspired them.

A couple of examples:

. a surprise (I do not like) and we who are mice (will dance) – inspired by a single image (an elephant shaking a tree).
. watery – a girl with a fishing rod is, herself, riding atop a fish.

Contemplating these images and the responses they inspired has led me to think about the process. What is it that allows me to use an image as inspiration for a flight of fancy that becomes a story and a poem?

What is Needed to Use Prompts Creatively?

There is a certain quality required, I think, to optimise the use of writing prompts and (particularly) images creatively. It is a requirement of selflessness. Allowing the image to assume a voice and a life separate from the writer, and that is of the prompt, itself.

I’ll hark back to my first example (above) of politika of the pipples. I struggled initially with the prompt phrase. The writing event was one that I, as a writer, very badly wanted to enter and do well in, but I could find nothing in my life – of me – that might make sense of it. As a writer to that point in my fledgling writing career (and since, largely) I wrote true things, like:

. the things I saw
. or the things I thought
. or things that other people saw or thought

Where did Politika of the Pipples Come From?

The inspiration that came to me was the recollected language, style, and manner of male European emigres – primarily from Croatia (old Yugoslavia) – that I had encountered as a youth in ethnic Social Clubs occasionally visited by my parents. These men were passionately bombastic in their manner, speaking broken English with a great intensity of purpose.

Arguing, always arguing and endlessly plotting insurrection against the old country, from which they had fled. If argument alone could bring about revolution, these men would have won their war, easily.

The fellows that I recalled could speak naturally (and brokenly) of the apocalypse that had subjugated their country and the belated playing of violins. It was the collective voice of these men that spoke to Frenki, the apolitical poet in that poem. It was that voice that won the spoken-word competition.

Selflessness as Writer

Frenki the poet was the listener, the observer and bystander. He was not the subject, in any way. He was my representative on the fringe of someone else’s story.

This is the selflessness that I’m trying to explore a little.

It is why, I believe, I can now read the poems in The Last of Eden collection as though I am a stranger to them and appreciate where they work, where they need to be changed a little. In a few cases, why they don’t work and need to be discarded.

Can You Become Selfless as a Writer?

Every one of us is capable of seeing something within an image, a word or a phrase that is influenced more by their state of mind at a particular moment, than by objective observation of what is before them.

When you look at a picture, are you able to let yourself see into the image? Beyond the outline of what is there and into a possible life, a possible conversation?

What can you see in this image:

Is it most like a landscape, or is it the texture of an alien skin?, or perhaps a slice from a vegetable, seen up close?

Perhaps you can see it, the way I see it, as potential.

How to express an experience

Guest Blogging. Lovely! Let’s Express an Experience!

Recently I had the pleasure of contributing to Mandy Whyman‘s web-site as a guest blogger for her Writing Insights series. It was a wonderful opportunity and I enjoyed being able to contribute to someone else’s pages and audience. The subject for the post evolved into a discussion about ways to express an experience, so that a reader can access what a writer is trying to convey.

So. How can a writer express an experience? And how can it be made over into a written form, so that another person – a reader who is a stranger to the experience – can empathize with it and associated feelings. That was the challenge.

Show, don’t tell. It’s obvious, isn’t it?

Storytelling is dependent, I think, on a process of gradual revelation. To my mind, it is akin to a visual process.

A reader will only feel an emotional quickening if they can ‘see’ the experience, and I’m acutely aware that readers have a diverse range of backgrounds and personal experiences – each of them unique. My own upbringing and background was in a small town in Australia, but . . .

But there is more. There is always more.

There is a wide breadth of reader backgrounds.

I was born in Germany. My parents spent a year there in the process of migrating out of old Yugoslavia. The first picture of myself in Australia is a baby in the arms of his grandfather, descending the landing steps of an aeroplane, in the middle of an Australian nowhere.

Someone else might have grown up in a London suburb, or a Zimbabwean farm, or perhaps rustbelt America. There may be another back story, or more, behind these first impressions, as well.

What does a writer want to communicate?

It is not my wish as the writer (as an autobiographer, perhaps) to tell a reader about the kid who grew up in the 1960s and 70s as though that was the only childhood possible. What I hope is that he or she will step back into a time and place with me, yes, but I then want the reader to use my opening of that door as an invitation to re-experience their own childhood and background.

The story of Frank Prem has its moments (did I happen to mention the time when I . . .), but overall is pretty ordinary. It is not the stuff of after dinner talk or sleepless nights.

The story of childhood and of growing up, however, is always filled with adventure and excitement and drama. It is these elements that can (perhaps) inflame the imagination of a reader. My objective is to engage the imagination in just this way.

Details are important, too.

So, what happened in my life back then that a reader might respond to? After all, a memoir or a recollection has to have some actual events to describe or to introduce the reader to.

Here are some of the things that I tried to convey as the experience of a small boy, and I’ve added the kind of questions that I hope my readers might be asking themselves as they read.

The annual town fete is on. There are wood-chopping competitions, Knock-Em-Down stalls, fairy floss on a stick. Carnival sounds fill even in a small town, starting with the garbled spruiking of a loudspeaker mounted on a car that no-one can understand, and don’t need to. People are everywhere, children are running all over the show ground. Excitement that even the adults are feeling. Delight at being among friends and neighbours in the noise and glamour of an EVENT!
What big local social event can you recall from your childhood that was long anticipated every year? A parade? A fete? The Agricultural Show?

For weeks we build a bonfire to light on Guy Fawkes night. Higher and higher, with rubber tyres and a straw man to burn on the top. Kids buy or steal crackers to let off on the night. Fathers hide secret stashes. Will we explode some crackers in the Deputy Headmaster’s letterbox again, this year?
Were there rituals in your local area on the big holidays and occasions? What regular or traditional mischiefs were indulged?

What is a sunset? Can you describe what it look like? Where do you see it – through trees; across a valley; outside your back door?
What is your Sunset memory from childhood? Don’t think hard, just allow an image.

What happened when the town was sewered for the first time? What changed? Did the toilet migrate indoors?
Moving toilets and laundries indoors was a generation-changing event in my community. Changing whole lives and especially, I think, for wives and mothers. Was there something similar that you experienced during your childhood? What effect did it have on your community?

How do you know your story has been effective?

When I first started taking my writing seriously one of the ways I tried to test my work and to get a sense of whether anything I was attempting had merit was to read to an audience. Live reading provides an opportunity to smooth the work, to make it flow well off the tongue. It also provides immediate feedback that goes to both, the content of the work and to the delivery. I learned to trust audience reactions and, over time, to write in a manner that might tilt the balance towards positive reactions. Makes sense, doesn’t it?

You are the author. So write what you want to say, but . . . write (express the experience) in a way that a reader, or listener, might best read or hear it.

My experience of reading the poems in my memoir collection Small Town Kid to an audience has been that there will be a queue of people afterwards with a desire, and need to tell their own version of the same stories, along the lines of those questions that I’ve posed above. It is a high form of flattery to have someone inspired to tell their own story, just through listening to one of mine.

‘. . . that was a good Cracker Night poem, but wait till I tell you about mine . . .’

And there, I think, is the key. To express an experience, the writing needs to be aimed at conveying an experience, but inviting the reader to find or re-visit their own equivalent. To see it dance before them again.

A Small Town Kid example

I’ll finish this visit with one of the poems from Small Town Kid. This is a small moment of childhood exhilaration. I hope you are able to feel a little wind in your hair, and a little racing in your hearts.

sweet maureen

I rode my bike
for sweet maureen
from beechworth to yackandandah

fourteen miles
of love-smit pedalling
down the hill
of the rising sun

a million miles an hour
not fast enough
but my breath
was taken away

I was drawn
down the road
descending like a bullet
from the barrel
of my rifle

drawn to ride
to sweet maureen