Rosanne's Lounge

For Brian Widdows, Jaime’s daughter Kaya and Ceredwyn and Keith’s cousin

There is an infinite sadness
in certain acts that cannot be escaped
and tonight I grapple with the trifecta:
A murder, a suicide, the death of a baby
moments before it entered the world

Around me, friends reel, grieve, fume,
plant trees, hug, weep, scream, rock
— I presume. They are far away
and I am alone with infinite aches,
a deep spiraling starscape of unending.

There is no comfort in this cold place.
Only wine, and silence and little waves
of melancholy, that there is such hate
in the world, that there is such despair
in the world, that life can be so random
and steal breath from delicate souls.

Lay roses, lay lilies, lay lavender
at their gravesides. Plant seeds.
Love.

Dorothy Porter, Australian poet, inspiration and mentor, has died of cancer aged 54.

Dorothy, I first met you when I was 18. I was a young poet, bright and shiny-eyed, desperate to impress you. You were my new poetry teacher at the University of Technology, Sydney, and you asked us all why we wrote. I remember saying, "because I can’t imagine not writing". At the time, I wrote something every day. Most of it was crap. You were writing Akhenaten back then. You brought in your drafts and we were burned to a crisp with their intensity. I tried to match you. I was being drawn in various directions, by Komninos and his concrete craziness, by Drusilla Modjeska, who also taught us, with forms like sestina discovered for the first time and cradled like a demanding lover, by postmodernism and non-narrative meanderings, open-ended deferred meaning. And your sparseness and clarity. I came second in a few poetry competitions thanks to your dedication, helping me work through drafts. And finally, painstakingly, came first in one. Thank you.

We lost touch. I became an editor and a journalist, saw you occasionally at poetry gigs. You, apparently, moved to Melbourne, but I didn’t know that until I saw you at a poetry gig after I’d moved here too. Then I bumped into you on the street one day. You lived around the corner from me, it seemed, in Fenwick St. We caught up. I was still intimidated by you: I might have been published and become known in my own right, but you had gone even further, Monkey’s Mask winning awards and then made into a film! My god, what poetry books are made into films these days? I wrote poems about how you intimidated me. What irony…

But I still chatted with you whenever I saw you. Mostly, recently, it’s been at Café Quince, down the road, when I’ve been marking papers and you’ve been reading or writing. We always said hi. I had no idea you were sick. We were never that close. You changed Australian poetry, Dot. You were too young to die. Thank you for the gifts of your words and your time. I am a better poet because of you. I’m only sorry that I barely write poetry any more. Apparently, this is what it’s like not to write…

Given that there are only 8 readers of

mordwen_poetry

, I should probably mention that I wrote a new poem today, in response to Lisa’s cremation.

This is one of the most beautiful articles I’ve ever read.

Me, I like to think of the Earth as essentially a giant Tibetan singing bowl, flicked by the middle finger of God and set to a mesmerizing, low ring for about 10 billion years until the tone begins to fade and the vibration slows and eventually the sound completely disappears into nothingness and the birds are all, hey what the hell happened to the music? And God just shrugs and goes, well that was interesting.

Or maybe the planet is more like an enormous wine glass, half full of a heady potion made of horny unicorns and divine lubricant and perky sunshine, around the smooth, gleaming rim of which Dionysus himself circles his wet fingertip, generating a mellifluous tone that makes the wood nymphs dance and the satyrs orgasm and the gods hum along as they all watch 7 billion confused human ants scamper about with their lattes and their war and their perpetually adorable angst, oblivious. [From Mark Morford's Notes & Errata, SFGate]

 

It’s been a while, but I have been invited to perform my poetry at The Spinning Room this Tuesday. I’ll be reading for around 20 minutes starting from around 9.30 and there’s an open section starting from around 8.30pm.

I was hoping to have more of my California Vignettes series ready but I’ve been busy/slack and so it will probably be a “people poems” session which will include a couple of California Vignettes and a few oldies, including the poems about my grandparents, my poem for Aveline and various other odes to folks what I know and love.

It’s upstairs at E.T.’s hotel on High St, Prahran, just down from the corner of Chapel. Number 6 tram. Free entry! Bring love and poetry…

Ted Lord was a poet and community-minded individual who hosted Dan O’Connell poetry on a Saturday for many, many years in Melbourne. I was sad this morning to read of his death, although he’d had a long life and from what I can gather, a hard one at times.

He was a gentleman and a scholar. He always had kind words of support and care for new poets and old. He painted beautiful portraits and gave so much of himself in so many ways. He will be missed.

Thank you, Ted, for welcoming me into Melbourne’s poetry community when I first arrived, for reinvigorating my approach to performance, for your support and for giving me my first feature there.

Do not go gentle into that good night, my friend. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

One last thing for women’s day:

“World Poetry and the Federation of Australian Writers are committed to research, curate and publicise through their extensive networks to present the monthly poetry@fedsquare event between 2-4PM on the second Saturday of every month.

In honor of International Women’s Day, the program on 10 March 2007 will consist of an all-women event, with two feature poets, one feature translator, and up to 10 open readings of five minutes each.

The 13 readers will present poetry in English, and in the following seven languages: Cambodian, Greek, Hungarian, Italian, Polish, Vietnamese, and Wathaurong, which is the ancestral language of Aborigines from the Geelong District.

FEATURE POETS

Julie Jose: Julie was born in the Western district and her mob comes from Gunditjmara, up Warrnambool way but she has lived in Wathaurong country, Geelong for over 20 years and is a Wathaurong Community woman. Julie is currently working on the reclamation and teaching of the Wathaurong language.

Carla Sari: Italian by birth and education, Carla has been writing poetry in English for the last 15 years. Her poems have been published in numerous literary magazines and anthologies. For the past few years she has become interested in short poetry such as Haiku and Tanka. She has been published in six countries and has won first and second prizes and numerous awards.

OPEN READERS:

Susan Hawthorne, Kalyan Ky, Rosanne Bersten, Konstandina Dounis, Pina Carey, Judy Bartosy, Patrizia Burley, Halinka Rubin, Chi Vu, Anna Sidor Gobaira, and Dimity Feifer.”

And yes, that’s me in there. Come along if you can. I’d love to see you there. I’ll also have books for sale.

Saw Children of Men last night. Quite intense. This (draft only) was the result.

Why we did nothing

Men are being tortured right now in Guantanamo Bay
Here on our island a whole class of people
Can now be detained without charge
Indefinitely
They will be the desesparido, just like
A whole generation of Brazilians.
In the name of democracy and Christianity,
A whole culture is demonised.
They hide torture behind words like rendition.

While he is tortured,
We do nothing. Why?
Because the sun still shines
Because making love still feels good
Because he just called again and I miss him
Because I argued with my boss
Because that idiot just cut me off
Because the baby was crying
Because the children need their lunch
Because I’ll miss the train if I don’t hurry
Because reading a book is my escape
Because my new laptop will arrive
Because I was writing something down
In case I forgot, in case I remembered,
In case I had to call them back later
Because, too often, I feel lonely too
Because light needs the darkness too
Because it hadn’t to happen to someone
And I didn’t want it to be me
Because I was scared to say anything
Because it’s all too complicated
Because sometimes I feel helpless
Because music makes me want to dance
Because that’s far away and I’m safe
Because it’s easy
Because it’s easy
Because it’s easy

A good night at the poetry gig with a pleasing attendance and good book sales (sold 16, which isn’t really a lot from 50, so I have a ton left). Who wanted and where am I sending them? E-mail rbersten@heliotrope.net.au with orders and I will respond with payment options.

I read well enough, stumbling occasionally but not often, and lost track of time with my rambling in between poems, so I didn’t end up reading a couple of the poems I wanted to. Nonetheless, the response of the crowd seemed quite good, so I guess it was all right! *grin*

Thanks to all who attended.