Lachlan has been busy working on the Macquarie Poem Project, with students from Macquarie Fields High School. Here is Lachlan reporting from the front line:

“Session 1 :Living in the Southwest you are often reminded of the distance from the city, whether it’s driving down the clogged artery of the M5, or sitting on a train as it slides through the suburbs. Luckily today, though, I only had to drive 6 minutes down the road to Macquarie Fields High School. The school has both comprehensive and selective students and is surrounded by brown playing fields.

My first session involved meeting the students and so it began with 15 of us cosily wedged into a room affectionately known as ‘the fish bowl’. There is something strange about a glass room in the centre of a building. Other students would look into the windows between classes, but we knew that this would become our crucible for the next four sessions, the place where intense poetic craft could occur.

The students were from heaps of different backgrounds, and many of them enjoyed reading poetry. Yet only a few had actually written their own stuff. I told them that we had formed the first Macquarie Fields Poetry Team. The softball players perhaps didn’t take me seriously. After suggesting some names (sadly, no one took mine seriously: ‘The “P” squad’ would have been great!), our assisting teacher Mrs Imelda Judge came up with a cracker. Macquarie Fields Live Poet’s Society. So there we were, the Live Poet’s Society. 15 of us in a fishbowl, ready to take on the world (or at least the suburb)!

We continued by thinking about what makes good poetry, reading a couple of poems and analysing the things that we liked about them. Then, I shared the brief, which involved writing a poem in response to Governor Lachlan Macquarie’s First Speech in the Colony, to be read at the unveiling of the statue commemorating 200 years since his governing began. For many on the team, this was both challenging and daunting. Many of these guys and girls hadn’t actually written poetry before. But with true Live Poet’s courage they stepped up to the plate.

Next, we split up into pairs and read about sections of Macquarie’s life from the Australian Biographical Dictionary, just to get a feel for those traits and quirks that made up the man himself. Then we shared these with the group. Our team was particularly taken by Macquarie’s attempts to give emancipated convicts jobs, and to break down those barriers of class which were so evident in the colony at the time.

After this, the team read Macquarie’s speech itself, getting a feel for its language and themes. Each member then chose one phrase from the speech as the heading for a poem they would write that week. Even at this stage, the team was already making fascinating connections between the 200-year-old speech and the suburb in which they lived. Natalie, for example, thought about “all classes” and then reminded us of the gated golf-course community down the road. I wondered how political this poem would get….

Session 2- We have just emerged from the fishbowl after an incredible session! We had some unforseen personnel changes, and only about half our team had completed poems but the standard was fantastic. In this hour and a bit we read some of these works and began the process of editing. This is a tough thing for many poets, to expose themselves to the criticism of a group, but these guys were remarkable, both in their encouragement of each other and in their suggestions for ways that poems could be improved

Molica started us off with a poem so strong that the hairs on my arms stood up! Her work was a response to the phrase “strict justice and impartiality” from Macquarie’s speech. Her opening lines were, “He guards the pillars of life/ with aspirations of a mended future.” The image was of Macquarie, who saw himself as the great builder, projecting his hopes onto the future of the colony. Lauren and Aashna reminded us that ‘aspirations’ has a meaning that is also much more contemporary, fitting well with many in who live in the suburb of Macquarie Fields. We then worked hard to get the most out of a couple of lines later on the poem. Here, Ayon picked up on patterns of fire and water, and how Macquarie may have seen himself attempting to hold back waves of chaos. We also heard from Sean, who is a strong editor and who offered useful suggestions for word choice and order.

Ayon’s poem was similarly strong, using a repetition of the line ‘will now terminate forever’ to give the work a revolutionary feel. The clever thing about this poem was its irony and the way it worked in the school’s own motto. Here, we tried to focus on moving away from generality and abstract concepts and toward some of those concrete poetic images that make any poem unique. We also considered how Macquarie’s line could be interpreted in our society and thought about how this poem could bridge that gap between the time of the speech and the contemporary moment.

Aashna’s poem was a wonderfully crafted rhyming verse, musing on the notion of peace. However, in the context of our larger work, the team thought that rhyming probably wouldn’t fit with the rest of the poems. So these poets (including Aashna) voted to refigure this poem without the rhyme!

Brendan had written 14 lines on “species of vice and immorality”. This perhaps was the most political poem of the writing we discussed. This work cast Macquarie in his role as defender of order and decency, linking this to the creation of “perfect moral crusaders”. Again the irony was apparent, and we considered how to link this line with our society which in many ways is different to Macquarie’s dream.

So all up, a fantastic day for the Macquarie Fields High Live Poet’s Society. I can’t wait for session 3 when we go through the rest of the poems!”

LACHLAN BROWN

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