Slight change of plan

So I'm not getting a new computer - yet.

The finance company wouldn't do a deal on Andrew's and my combined income, and even with augmenting the Age Pension to the degree we're allowed to, neither of us earns enough singly to be eligible.  Damn! The store was very happy to sell to us if we could find a way, and we know it's doable, in fact they were willing to offer us an even better deal on the basis of us buying two ... but, no go.

Meanwhile I have gazed upon the face of heaven! Er, I mean I have had a test-drive of the 24-inch iMac, and nearly fainted with sheer lust. Gotta find a way!

The only option I can see now is to find someone willing and able to buy one for us, either outright or on hp, and have us pay them back bit by bit, as we were prepared to do for the shop if we could have got the finance sorted.

We've started a computer fund already!

6:16 PM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

I'm getting a new computer!

3:14 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

68x365, 51-55

51. At the Book Fair

At the book fair
for self-published authors

my table was next to hers.
Happenstance?

We hardly stopped
talking and laughing.

She’d written her own
spiritual adventure

prose shining like poetry
in a hall of atrocious verse.

She was Crone, skinny 81,
wool cap around her ears

a light festoon of grey curls
embroidering her chin.

Age, she understood,
had made her whole.

We were sisters at once,
magickal.

27/8/08

52. Patron

You watched over me.
Adults were trustworthy then.

I liked our conversation, still do;
realised only slowly
others didn’t see you.

When I was 43, a magician friend
introduced me to his mentor.
You! So I learned
your name and identity.

Giver of writing, patron of poets,
great magician yourself;
and my friend, somewhat fatherly.

I’m told you are most correctly
named Tehuti, but I call you Thoth.

28/8/08

53. Milk Baba

I remember Milk Baba.
I saw his face tonight on TV,
but I recall the encounter in Nepal
at his small room opposite the Shiva temple
with the children surrounding him, peeping out.

A simple life. Then we find
he is learned, an acclaimed scholar
of that great scripture the Ramayana,
corresponding with people all over the world.
Thirty years of only milk, he says, made him pure.

16-26/9/08

54. Prisoner Poet 3: The Suicide

After 26 years and more,
more years than your life,

I can remember you
with joy exceeding sorrow.
Though, as the Prophet suggested,
they’re sides of one coin:

always some tears,
a swift pang.

When your death was recent,
it was anguish to notice young fun –
pinball machines, amusement parks –
you might have enjoyed

if not for a youth in prison,
if not for your final escape.

20/9/08

55. Canadian Poet

Pearly girlie plays with words,
sounds, meanings, structures
and arrives at intriguing
revelations or conundrums
that always go deeper
than you might first expect.

Work different from mine,
which is plainer.

I don’t have to be the same
to appreciate the juicy flesh
of a poem bitten into and tasted,
thrilling to its savour, inhaling
the lingering memory,
running my tongue again and again
over satisfying texture.

25/9/08

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I'm Rain

I’m rain,
swiping sideways
at the cool glass of your skin

trying to go in
like arrows.

Got it wrong again!
Arrows: masculine symbol.
Me: female.

I should open
window-wide.

But you stopped caring
went away
turned your back

flat glass
shut window
walling me out …

I’m rain
bashing

wanting to fall
on the warm earth of your skin.


From Universe Cat, Pariah Press (Melb.) 1985
Also in Secret Leopard, Alyscamp Press (Paris) 2005
First published Fling!

14/10/81


I was reminded of this when I read Geraldine Green's beautiful love poem for Autumn, Today I Became Your Rain, published in her blog of 18th September. Different mood, same metaphor. :)

4:50 AM - 8 Comments - 8 Kudos - Add Comment

Meme: Autobiographical Poem Format #2

I am ____
I wonder____
I hear____
I see _____
I want ____
I am (same as first line)
I pretend ____
I feel ____
I touch ____
I worry ____
I cry ___-
I am (same as first line)
I understand ___-
I say ____
I dream ____
I try ____
I hope ____
I am (same as first line)

---------------------------------

I am alive in the world.
I wonder at this great blessing.
I hear many complain,
I see there is hardship and suffering, and
I want to help relieve that; but I am thrilled by life.

I am alive in the world.
I pretend to be just like everyone else.
I feel, though, exhilarated merely to exist.
I touch trees, flowers, stones, flowing water.
I worry about the survival of this beautiful planet.
I cry if a tree or animal dies – yet I kill some insects.

I am alive in the world.
I understand only that life is a miracle.
I say this out loud very seldom, as few can hear.
I dream of a time when we’re all rejoicing;
I try to lift the spirits of those I touch.
I hope for a time to come when all proclaim with joy:
‘I am alive in the world!’

3:32 AM - 4 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Meme: Autobiographical Poem Format #1

Line 1: First name only (screen names are fine)
Line 2: Four adjectives that describe you
Line 3: Son/daughter of __
Line 4: Lover of __ (name three things - phrases work best)
Line 5: Who feels __ (name three - phrases work best)

In the following sections, the writer may name as many as they like.
Line 6: Who finds happiness in __
Line 7: Who needs __
Line 8: Who gives __
Line 9: Who fears __
Line 10: Who believes __
Line 11: Who would like to see __
Line 12:Who enjoys __
Line 13: Who likes to wear __
Line 14: Resident of __

Line 15: Last name only (screen names are fine)
--------------------------------------------------------------

Rosemary

didactic, wise, magickal, ripe
daughter of Oswald and Helen,
lover of bitter dark chocolate,
the blues and the poetry of Yeats,
who feels irritated by too much conversation,
thrilled when contemplating the ocean,
and delighted by really good haiku,

who finds happiness in the love of like minds,
who needs great gobs of solitude every day,
who gives psychic readings that are locally famous,
who fears appearing ridiculous but risks it anyway,
who believes in the power of the human mind,
who would like to see the Andes again, up close,
who enjoys fantasy in print or on screen,
who likes to wear black and purple,
resident of the Mt Warning Caldera
in far northern New South Wales, Australia ...

Nissen-Wade

12:05 AM - 6 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Poetry Screeches to a Halt

Mine, that is.

A year ago, someone told me about '30 Poems in 30 Days' happening throughout September at PoeWar.com (Writer's Resource Center). I participated joyfully. I'm still grateful to John Hewitt, who started it all, for the poems I produced and the friends I made. That was the beginning of a most prolific year of writing, often in response to other online prompts I found – notably another Poem A Day challenge during the month of April, this time instigated by Robert Lee Brewer of Poetic Asides. My Haiku on Friday profile became popular, and I was recently asked to create something similar on LiveJournal: Friday Haiku, which I then handed over to someone else to host. One of my favourite games is x365, in which bloggers write about people who've made an impact on them, one a day for a year, in the same number of words as their age – so I, for instance am writing 68-word portraits. My one regret about all this poetic activity was that I had trouble keeping up with my favourite poets on MySpace, many of whom are prolific themselves.

Finally the wheel turned and we were back to September. John started another 30 Poems in 30 Days, which I began enthusiastically. The prompts were just as good, some people I met last time turned up again, interesting new people joined …. but by Day 6 I had run out of puff. On that day, in fact, I posted a poem that was a few months old instead of writing a new one, then made my farewells from the project. And I haven't written a poem since. Even my 68x365 blog has been languishing, though I do intend to resume and will have to do some catching up. The only things I've still been able to write are the haiku. (And some people say haiku aren't poems anyhow, but a genre of their own.)

I thought I must be experiencing burn-out. I don't say I'm not, but I realise there's another factor. I've observed that, for friends of mine who have more than one vocation, things tend to go in phases. I know people who are both artists and writers. They'll paint madly for three or four months, then suddenly that will stop and they'll find themselves scribbling furiously for the next six. My own dual vocations are quite different: poet and therapist. During this year of being consumed by poetry, the therapist has taken a back seat. But not any more.

At the weekend Andrew and I did a course in Thought Field Therapy. We've been acquainted with this modality for some years now. Our teacher, Carol, was one of the first people in Australia to learn it. Soon after she became a practitioner, she told us about this exciting thing she'd done, we tried it out and then couldn't stop recommending it to people. That was maybe eight years ago, and at some point she went to America and trained as a teacher. At first we didn't think of learning it ourselves. We already had a number of excellent modalities, and when TFT was indicated, for ourselves or others, we had Carol and other friends whom she trained.

Now we've all moved a little further away from Murwillumbah, in different directions, and one practitioner has more-or-less retired. Suddenly the training called to us, and so we did it – and loved it. I had fully expected to love Theta Healing, which we also learned quite recently, and indeed I do love it. I had not expected to fall in love with TFT in the same way, but to my delighted surprise I did. By the end of the weekend I realised: oh, that's why the poetry dried up – I'm in a healer phase now.

I don't expect the poetry will stop altogether, just as I didn't entirely stop giving people treatments during the writing phase; but the focus is different for the next while, however long that may turn out to be. I'm so excited, I can hardly wait to get into it! I'm getting new business cards printed; I'm creating brochures, and new signs for the market stall.

And aha! Now I can indulge in the pleasure of poetry by reading rather than writing it. All those lovely blogs to devour – whoopee!

1:40 PM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Impressionable Teenagers Protected from Poetry
Current mood: surprised
Category: Writing and Poetry

Poem removed from syllabus for reference to knife violence:
Guardian report

The poet's riposte:
Mrs Schofield's GCSE

An even more amusing response:
Education for Leisure

8:51 AM - 3 Comments - 6 Kudos - Add Comment

Celebrating Germaine

Over on Facebook, my friend Julie McNeill founded a discussion group named The Dawn Club in honour of Louisa Lawson, Australian writer, feminist and political activist (and mother of Henry) who founded a similar group of that name in her day.

Julie posed the question:

What book deeply moved you, made you grow as a woman, re-energised your spirit, nurtured you into wise ways and a life of marvellous existence? Do tell!

In an email message to group members she added:

Take a moment please and share with us a book which made a difference to your knowledge and psyche as a woman - did Germaine provoke? Gods Whores and Damn Police?

Was it The Beauty Myth that helped you change, or the gentle words of wisdom from a woman in another age?

My response:

It was Germaine. Absolutely! I'd read Betty Friedan first, but I wasn't married, didn't have kids, wasn't a housewife, and didn't live in America - so I couldn't relate at all to what she said, didn't know what she was on about. But Germaine is about my age, we were at Melbourne Uni at the same time (though our paths seldom crossed) and she grew up in the same suburb where I was working in my first job - in a library - when The Female Eunuch came out. Plenty of shared experience this time! Besides, she wrote with such wit and style, and was so unafraid to tell it like it was.

No, she didn't provoke. It was more like a blessed cry of relief to find someone articulating things I had been suppressing, imagining until then that I must be wrong because I didn't conform, didn't think how one was supposed to, how everyone else appeared to. Of course, lots of us were suppressing it all for the same reasons, until someone was clear-headed enough and brave enough to express it all, and to do so with such intelligence and down-to-earthness. Talk about cutting through the crap! She got me thinking - which is what good teachers do, so it's not surprising that a teacher is what she went on to become.

I'm still a great admirer of her brains, honesty and courage. Yes, she has changed her mind on a few things over the years - and because she writes books that sell, and is good media-fodder to boot, she does so publicly and gets criticised for it. Not that that seems to bother her much! Yes she has put her foot in it sometimes and/or said foolish things; haven't we all? None of that, to my mind, detracts from her abiding brilliance.

Her book on women artists, The Obstacle Race, which alas I no longer have, was one of my favourites and another which had great impact. I am a woman artist (poet) and can recall too well when it was common for men to point out that very few women had become great poets, implying that it wasn't within our make-up. I remember Germaine writing about a woman artist of a bygone era who, according to male contemporaries and historians, failed to fulfil her early promise - and the comment that, on reading that she had numerous children (I forget the exact number, but a LOT), we might cease to wonder at it!

Erica Jong made an impression too, with Fear of Flying, particularly when her heroine is asked by her psychiatrist, 'Who said you had to be a housewife AND a poet?' implying that it's enough to be a poet and more should not be asked of one. This of course still doesn't square with reality, where women still have to be housewives as well as whatever else they are if they want the housework done, and poets of either gender still have trouble feeding themselves unless they have some other job as well. All the same, the fact that someone, even in fiction, came out and said that there was something wrong with this, and said it in the '70s - ah, that was balm to my soul. And since then I do give the writing of poetry higher priority than cleaning the house or earning an income, even though I try to do all. I know I'm a poet who just happens to get housework to do too from time to time. I'm not a housewife who fits in a bit of scribbling around that when possible. And my life is certainly a damn sight more fulfilled this way.

Thank you Germaine! Thank you Erica!

7:49 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Facebook Reconsidered

I have to admit I'm having a very different Facebook experience the second time around. This is largely because lots of my old poet friends from Melbourne days are there now. There's been some kind of explosion while I've been away!

I say Melbourne days because that's where I lived during the heady days of the Poets Union (when it WAS a Union rather than a society) and the Street Poets. The poets I knew then didn't necessarily live in Melbourne themselves, though plenty did, and they don't all live there now. We got around in those days, and poets from all over the country frequently attended events in any of the capital cities and even country centres. Indeed this still happens, only I myself don't travel as much as I used to.

Anyway it's good to reconnect with my old cronies on Facebook, including some I never actually lost touch with.

Some close family members and friends are there now, too, and pounced on me the minute I reactivated my account. It's fun to be able to read their status updates, look at their latest photos and see from the quizzes how much alike we are or aren't on various matters.

I don't go there all that often, so I manage to avoid lots of people sending me silly things and expecting a response.

What I can do now is let people connect to my blogs via Facebook, an innovation since my last sojourn there.

And I can play my favourite words games — finding to my chagrin that while there's nothing wrong with my vocab, my speed is woefully slow compared with some of my friends. Ah well, hopefully it will improve with practice.

Above all I like being able to join groups of writers and poets.

MySpace is still by far my favourite social network and probably always will be, but Facebook no longer annoys the hell out of me. I actually like it now!

1:50 PM - 1 Comments - 1 Kudos - Add Comment