The day’s high point was tea and coffee and honey with a friend, discussing Aristotle, fathers, perfection and how language on purpose meant we can’t talk about religion without using the word ‘whole’ and that without religion (or faith in something) we are full of them – holes.
Then again, happiness in Christos with Paddy. Oh, and there was the reading of HEAT and planning for Newcastle where magicians live in caravans. All the bright and woven in between many discussions with friends about the other side of life, its tumbling down, cutting up and mourning.
In my skullinary a ‘festival’ is a set period of time that includes a series of performances, feasting, cachinnations and twirling balloons; a pluck of time where a community unites in celebration of something or one. A ‘conference’ is a prescheduled meeting where information is exchanged or discussed. So, last weekend’s poetry festival ‘State of Play’, organised by the Poets Union of New South Wales managed to combine both definitions with intelligence and fun. The weekend was contained in two rooms in Sydney’s Pitt Street. Taken off the ground onto Level one and the doors opened to silvery hair, many jackets and tables of books and coffee cups. It was a shame there were only three readers or writers of poems, under the age of 30, perhaps they’re all working on their next novel or cuddling up with lap tops whilst reading about Rose with the wispy hair in the Good Weekend. Regardless of babies, there was some stimulating discussions and exhaustive poet playing. Michael Hoffman scatted and rapped a series of points about translation, studying the classics and being homeless. Michael Sharkey prayed to the Classics, talked of slave jive and comedy and giggled delightfully at Chaucerian puns. In Panama wonder, Robert Adamson, jotted about the rooms and John Tranter in black humor watched and was watched. The vanishing of Bruce Dawe at last few moments meant a unique staging of a double-act that had Brook Emery and Robert Dixon being monologues. As always some sweaty, crazy comments from unhinged audience members that referred to obscure biblical paradoxes, the faithful booksellers from Glebe and the microphone working and not working and delivering poetic gems (joanne burns on her suspicion of the wise).
A day or so later I print out CD covers for The Tree of Lost and Found. My thumb and finger tips are stained number 9 Magenta as the ink cartridge has torn into my skin and I think I am stained for life. In a few minutes I’ll find out the beema and listen to Buck 65, ‘they all went to heaven in a little row boat’, as I did (listen not row) with my cousin only this morning after we raced to make the plane on time, having locked ourselves out of the house and rather than worrying, found a small Greek cake shop to stiumlate the overstimulated mind on thick black coffee.
