Everything

March 4th, 2010

Third poetry workshop: Killara High School, by Gareth Jenkins

“Here I am, back again! / You just can’t seem to get rid of me / I’m a bit like poetry: / the rhyme that returns / and returns again, / or the refrain: that line that just keeps breathing /  ‘a little’; / that keeps speaking / a little / till, in the end, you know it by its true name.

Once more a poem to begin the class; one charting the progress of you opening up to me, me opening my ‘true’ self to you so that we can speak each other’s name with just the right tone, at just the right volume, sounding out the sequence of syllables needed for you to turn your head, share your mind. Speaking of sounding-out syllables Hugo Ball appeared on screen in his cardboard hat and his cardboard cloak and stiff tubular legs that required he be lifted up onto stage, as he couldn’t bend his knees. I played the class his Dada sound poem ‘Karawane’, as performed by the experimental Canadian poet Christian Bok; all rap and rata-tat-tat at pace; all push out and suck in; all in your face – they liked that, silenced by those first explosive sound waves ‘jolofanto bambla o falli bambla’ and laughing excitedly as the final ‘ba–umf’ vibrations settled into the walls, the floor, their pores. The class have to perform their poems for assessment later in the week so I was emphasising the power of vocalised sound – communication without words, a universal language approaching that of music: “Bring Ball’s intensity to your delivery, even if you are using ‘real’ words.”

And there were real words to be discovered, object poems to be extended, details to be added to already constructed stanzas and new stanzas to be created: stanzas in which the students place their own objects in their own imagined cabinets and perhaps it will be these particular imaginings that shape Killara High School’s final poetic installation. I wrote about my own personal cabinet too, and the book of Pharmaceutical Formulary I would place there. When I imagined this cabinet open I realised there were already things in it; objects I hadn’t intended to write about, ones that held memories of experiences had while traveling – I read it for the class: “I have this special spot: It’s a secret. / I will tell you though, now that we know each other, a little. / There’s a space at the back of my kitchen cupboard / the one above the greased-up tiles, / above the scarred glass elements. / It’s dusty and dark but dry enough / and here I store my precious objects: a volcanic rock / from the top of Africa’s Kilimanjaro and a tiny cup / with which I was fed poison, sold jewels / and almost died. / The jewels are here too, Aquamarines in their little box / with the cat on the lid. / I look at them sometimes and remember / his /reptilian face, / eyes without lashes / long fingers spooning liquid into my cup / then raping the table like impatient spider’s legs. / There are other things here too – amid them I place / the blue book and its formulas. / I close the cupboard door, my cabinet is a secret one -  / its not about display, its about keeping things / safe.  / You wont tell any one – / will you?”

I walked around the class and showed them the volcanic rock and the jewels in their little cat box and then the students read their own work out; enunciating poetic phrases about horses, footballs, rocks and photos; warrior pens, birds and lost friends; childhood carts, paper that cuts, old men, mint dispensers, surfboards, packets of chips and more; and it was wonderful to hear them enliven their texts, shape sound into words loosed into our ears. I left them, on this our last meeting, with another performance: the aftermath of a car crash told with text, projected images, and improvised guitar – I spoke with and against my prerecorded voice, the embodied and disembodied conversing, singing, poetry dissolving into sound into poetry amid the ricochet of flying glass.” BY GARETH JENKINS

March 2nd, 2010

Lachlan Brown reports from Macquarie Fields High School

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

February 28th, 2010

Workshop number two at Killara High School

It is Sunday after the Mardi Gras and I’ve spent some of it reading the TLS and looking through a friend’s photographs from her time, last night, on the float for Newtown Gym. It isn’t the ideal morning for thinking of school things, as school is asleep and kids are probably playing with footballs or in cinemas rather than thinking of Red Room. But. Gareth’s blogs from his time, last week, at Killara High School, are such engrossing reading:

“It was easier this time / to write a poem for you. / I knew you / a little. / Not so much invention required: / I didn’t need to make it rain this time. / I had seen your faces, heard you laugh / a little. / Not so many drafts this time, / the early morning flush of our unknowing filled / a little.
As with the first, I began this second workshop with a poem written for the occasion. We turned the lights off then and the class and I (via my video recording) entered a WWII bunker chamber at Port Kembla; a cavern layered dark with graffiti opened up before us. A whale’s pale eye hung suspended in a room off to the side and the low walk down the dark central passageway swelled with the sound of singing. ‘What language was that,’ asked a student when the sonic reverberations of my voice had subsided.  I told her it was just improvised sound but I didn’t mean JUST, I meant sound as pure poetic expression so I told the students a little about Hugo Ball and Dada sound-poetry. I did an impromptu sound poem and they laughed ( a little) and I said if you want to laugh have a look at Hugo Ball’s tall hat made out of cardboard – now that is funny!
Today was a day of writing and we got straight down to it. A poem in three stanza focused on the student’s significant objects – and some had made it to class: rocks, photographs, jodhpurs, surf boards, figurines, pens and more. The poems began speaking of the sea rolling, split-personality pens, DVDs due for return, lime-green metallic tins, adventures on horseback and ascent from the scene of a funeral. The poems are speaking still in their drafting and redrafting and I’ll be back next week to hear the students sounding out their words. I think I’ll take in some Hugo Ball, show them an image of him up on stage in his stiff cardboard suit, in his high canonical hat and play them his texts performed – poetry beyond words, pure sound in flight.” GARETH JENKINS

February 26th, 2010

Cardboard gets character

Mr Gareth Jenkins has been motoring to Killara High this week, working on our Papercuts program. On the other side of the pie, Lachlan has been unfolding and refolding Governor Macquarie’s speeches into a poem, with the students at Macquarie Fields.

I too have been using all modes of motion, except the 431 from Glebe, to work on Red Room activities. I am concerned that Joel and Tamryn think I spend my life meeting people and never actually working – what if they’re right and all these talks with people and attempt to share our work with those of the beaming eyes is a waste of time?

.. not these magnificent boxes of poems that we’ve created with Corban and Blair, ‘Poems-to-Share’.  I have happily been spruiking the boxes this week but playing an Avon lady is a weak point. I’m wondering if, by simply carrying a box around with me in public spaces, people will see the name of the box and subliminally be drawn to seek the box out, later when they’re at home and lonely because their wife, their life or their day at work is without the language of spark.

February 23rd, 2010

Who are we?

The electricians have taken away the wind. Our fan won’t turn and we are relying on a small power point to generate our technology dependent life. Only a few more weeks and we (that is the team at Red Room’s headquarters) shall be sharing this (we term, with grand delusion : ‘our’) warehouse with an art gallery .. oh, the hike in rent is almost reaching heaven but place and space are important to Red Room’s work whilst at the same time, Red Room is everywhere and nowhere – or wherever the poem is and our projects need to be.

Enough of financial woe. How about we talk about mission statements – how to write one that doesn’t evade the truth. How easy to define strategy but the soul of what we do in the Red Room is really playing hard to articulate in a sentence. Perhaps the phrase ‘mission statement’ is outmoded, I mean a mantra or maybe a bill of poem-rights, a call to arms or a manifesto. Whatever name the statement takes it is to explain to those who don’t know who or what Red Room is, what it is. I, for one, often need to remind myself of the vision beyond and before the strategy.

Outside our building, there is tar being smoothed over old Elizabeth St footpath.  I think my foot was the first foot to walk on the slab of new street, street that now marks the outside world from the red room’s inside.

You only have to knock!

February 19th, 2010

Encounters of the best kind

My arms smell of trains. I have been on and off them about six times a day, each day, this week. This afternoon, on the Circular Quay to Central, an ugly toddler balanced on his mother’s lap, his eyes so wet from crying I felt thirsty all of a found myself buying a bottle of soda water. My tummy nearly split as I’d already drunk about ten glasses of bubbles at lunch.

Now, the cars are heading home and I’m running back through this week which has been pleasingly dominated by meeting interesting people from places I didn’t think would join forces with the Red Room : glass rooms with spy cameras; poetry scribing entrepreneurs and our lovely new intern, Emilia, from Sweden. How lucky this company is to have selected the word ‘company’ for ourselves and with it comrades and companionship.

February 14th, 2010

In Melbourne on Valentine’s Day

I have been feasting on delicious Ethiopean cuisine at ‘Nyala’, with my father who has been editing his film, in Melbourne and re living his childhood experiences of this town. Father and I drank a lot, ate a lot, laughed a lot and then scurried back to our home-away-from-home hotels as the tram lines clicked against the approaching rain storm.

Last night at an intimate, perfect evening at ‘Italy’ .. apart from the slightly horrific experience of receiving the bill. E and I had as much fun talking and sharing as we did spying on a unique couple, across from us : every ten minutes they broke their talking to scurry to the outside street to smoke or to do something else in the lane shadows.

I was here for Red business and spent the last few days talking with Paul at The Australian Poetry Center about how his team there may support Red Room’s education program and our other innovations. Good progress was made. I had a hasty glass of wine with Mr Wallace-Crabbe and found it hard to compete with the giant glass of Red he sipped and that he was on his way from and back to the grand opening of the ‘Wheeler Center’.

I have focused on education discussions this trip and, at a small cafe in the middle of somewhere in the city, with E, met with Eytan who, as a working English and Art teacher at Caulfield Grammar, told us the 101 problems with Julia’s new website.
Now, back to writing about Tagore and a return to my own version of fasting which is no alcohol and minimal outings until my poems are completed.

February 10th, 2010

Mister Gareth Jenkins at Killara High School 10.02.09

“I introduced the ‘Cabinet of Lost and Found’ to year 9 students from Killara High School this morning. The stolen bird from the original 2007 installation drew them towards poetry with a ripple of laughter that snaked around the room. I had set myself some pre-class homework: to write a poem in anticipation of the workshop. We started with this in its four versions from hand-written early-morning scrawl (drafting and more drafting!), to something approaching a poem: “The car door sticks in wet grass / kids howling the raining playground playing / my way to your class to speak of poetry / furious-wet words in furnace-flight.” All this water on a bright sunny morning? – well it was raining when I wrote it. The relative merits of regular and irregular rhyming came up, and the objects (or their images) that may inhabit our eventual poetic cabinet were described: surfboards, people, uniforms, fortune-cookies, video games. I read ‘Premonitions’, showing objects that inspired me to write it: a scarf and my hand-made books. I admitted that I didn’t really see a psychic in New York as the poem suggests – just a narrative device! I showed the class an image of the entrance to Hill 60 – a WWII Bunker Chamber at Port Kembla, the object that inspired my ‘Owen’ writings. Next workshop I’ll take them inside”

February 5th, 2010

Directions

Master Joel Scott is sitting at the wooden table, getting to know The Red Room – file exploring, website cruising, reading and listening to the past five years of our existence! There is much to learn and much to share for him and for me. (Blessed newness and change!)  Early today, Joel and I discussed the definition of a ‘purple patch’ then looked at Emu eggs inscribed with text so, we’re off to a grand start. There is a lot to prepare for in these coming months: A focus on raising funds for 2010 which, unfortunately, we have not yet succeeded in doing for all our projects. The year is both young and old and as I scan the Closing dates for various grants I find myself drifting to a book of poems ‘Bughouse Meat’, by Ben Frater, his lines: … ‘In a lock of earth/we plant parrots/amongst the boneseed’…

February 1st, 2010

Movement

Glebe Point Road is, day and night, full of trolleys : being pushed, abandoned, stolen and rolling down hill to crash into a lamp post. After watching ‘The Road’ it is impossible to look at a trolley and not see sadness, hunger and very sore,  dirty feet. As I wandered up the hill home, I noticed how strong the smell in the St Vincent de Paul shop was. Perhaps the Monday heat pulled out the old, stale and lonely weaves of the clothing. I went to purchase a tea pot, for $5, but suddenly imagined peoples fingers fondling the spout and have decided on a brand new one, instead. What else – eating lots of digestive biscuits and imagining Red Room with all our new employees.  How will all the bodies and personalities fit between the walls. Lucky for a huge window and, when needed, some Lebanese lemon drink of rice pudding, just a few doors away. All my friends have babies and I have been fending off comments that suggest I should start swelling. I find my mind drifts back to January and all  that the month made. It is already the second month of the year and I am loving more deeply than ever and being drawn to water not fire. The fruit flies are taking over the house and tomorrow I am going to purchase some vicious pesticide and spray them all to their tiny deaths.