This is one of your last chances to be part of The Red Room Company’s team for ‘Dry July‘. We think the cause, which raises money for adults living with cancer, is a worthy one and we hope to raise awareness and money through ‘Dry July’. As the name suggests, July is a month off alcohol.

We’re currently in the top TEN ‘teams’. Help us remain there and even poetry our way to Number 1!

1/ Join our Red Room team! The team I’ve set up is called The Red Room Company To join, all you need to do is head to the Dry July website www.dryjuly.com, go to the sign up page, select the ‘Join a team’ option, enter the team name above and away you go! (Note. If you haven’t already signed up as an individual, you’ll need to do that first). ’I can’t go Dry  every day!’ : then, you can always purchase : ‘Golden Tickets‘ which allow you to have a night off (or on) for the cost of a small donation.  Or, if you’re enjoying the beers and wines too much then you can always donate a few coins, which (I hope) will go to helping the adult cancer patients across Australia:

2/ Donate

http://www.dryjuly.com/groups/theredroomcompany

Thanks for listening and if you are already participating in Dry July, good luck and I recommend Elderberry Cordial as a good alcohol substitute.
Please do invite other individuals who you think would be interested in being part of our ‘Dry July’ team.

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From Lindsay:

“ Last week I had the privilege to spend two days with Ms Genelle Farquhar’s year eight students at Brisbane Waters.  I was meant to teach them something about what it means to write and read poetry (to whatever degree it is possible to teach these things . . . . I tend to believe, as I hope I conveyed to my fellow poetry students, that poetry is a way of seeing and being present in the world. Poetry to me is the absolute freedom to mould language into whatever shapes the mind conjures).    In the end, they taught me so much that I can only hope to have reciprocated.  After writing and reading alongside them, I have emerged with an altered view of how to write, read, and listen to poetry.  I am so grateful to Genelle and all of the students for these new insights.

I arrived at Brisbane Waters relatively exhausted after a semester of intensive teaching and on the heels of submitting my doctoral dissertation. I felt a profound sense of honour and responsibility to invite these students to see the world through the ever-changing eyes of poets.  I was anxious because  I felt so far away from my own identity as a writer of poetry; it had been months since I’d written a new poem.  By the end, I had awakened again to my own poetic interiority, and am intensely proud and honoured by the collection of work that was produced throughout the Cabinet of Lost and Found workshops.

We began by each writing a poem from the perspective of an animal of our choosing.  The work that emerged from this exercise overwhelmingly addressed the countless ecological crises that surround us.  Many centred on the lives of animals marked by impending danger and habitat destruction; the students spoke the language of diasporic species with startling fluency.  We then broke into pairs, and I asked the students to combine both of their poems to create a new poem, and therefore a new creature.  The resulting poems were both disturbing and hauntingly beautiful.  Many spoke of mutation and the aftereffects of the imposition of human agency on other entities.  The creatures that arose from their collective imagination were almost entirely “alone in the world,” left behind to suffer the consequences of genetic mutations that often left them unable to navigate their environment, such as the “crocobird” whose feathers and scales rendered her unable to fly or slither, and the flying leopard, who circles, endlessly “mutated,” “searcing for an abandoned site.”  I hope that the poems that comprise this tragic menagerie will be included in the Cabinet, for they truly are both lost and found.

We spent most of our remaining time together discussing the talismanic objects contained in our collective Cabinet of Lost and Found.  This eerily mnemonic, and often profoundly sad, collection of artefacts offered a wealth of material for writing exercises and draft poems.  I am deeply honoured to be trusted with the writing of a poem that contains, in some way, elements of each of these objects, and very much look forward to returning to Brisbane Waters to hear the final drafts of all the students work, and to read my own.”

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Back home, in Sydney, the Red space thrives without me. Our Patron visited today and engaged in poem writing activities and lots of talk about future projects and what will they be? They will most certainly contain spokes and bridges.

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Crisp city, it curls its boulevards

and scatters roundabouts like concrete confetti.

You call its CBD ‘Civic’, and we see

space enough for whole apartment blocks

within the median strips.

Perhaps there’s a bureaucrat buried deep in my poet’s heart, but I fell in love with Canberra in autumn. It’s a place that fairly crackles with the season – the air is cold enough to sting and the poplars are gloriously auburn. I met Waniassa High’s poetry club early on Monday morning, and they were bounding with ideas for their guerilla poetry projects. They loved the idea of adopting a nom de guerre to safeguard their identities from schoolyard scorn, and of secreting their poems in the most unexpected of places – inside sports lockers, between the pages of library books (take that, Twilight!), as an unexpected condiment inside lunch order bags. Their guerilla poems will be stealth fighters, transforming their school into something less toilet door than portal, where you never know just what lies on the other side…

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I would also like to tell you that my parents and my uncle were in Sydney for two weeks and just went home a few days ago. I really enjoyed showing them around; see their reactions when we reached some of the most beautiful places here. Our trip to Blue Mountains was probably one of the most amazing things we’ve ever experienced, since it is not like anything you would see in Sweden. I tried to capture the most stunning views but I would not be able to show this in a picture. I’d suggest people to actually go there themselves because it is worth the trip. We had time to visit Manly, Bondi, Taronga, and all of the other must-dos in Sydney. My mum and me even went to see Avatar at Imax. We really enjoy the fact that we now can say that we’ve been on the steepest railway (scenic railway in Blue Mountains) AND the biggest movie screen in the world. I bet we’ve also seen the biggest opera house in the world, the best beach in the world, the best autumn/winter weather in the world, and also been eating the best kangaroo in Darling Harbour with the best fireworks, yep in the world.

(psst! and also the best Red Room as well)

And this Red Room had a great night at the Poems to Share event at the Sydney Writers’ Festival. It was so great to see all these people gathering for poetry. All the work and preparations resulted in a successful outcome. I am so happy I was here to see this going so well. Also, since one of the guests told me she has been reading my blog I felt it was really time for an update.

Apart from this festival, I have also been to see Des Bishop at the Comedy Festival, since a friend had a spare ticket. Don’t really think I have been to a stand up before. I can strongly recommend it, constantly laughing with hundreds of other people for over one hour is just healthy for you, I am pretty sure.

May is coming to and end, June is standing ready. I can’t believe I have been here since the beginning of February, and I don’t want to realize this adventure will come to an end. Just not yet.”

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We had over 250 people join us for the Poems to Share party. Faces were familiar and unfamiliar ; the night was full of Red Room-ness but ingested with newness. It’s too soon for an in depth post-mortem but last night and now I am ruminating on the Festival content and those voices I heard. To state the obvious : more poetry would have enhanced the event as would more indigenous content and a greater representation of multi cultural voices from this country, not just visitors to it.

The Saturday 22nd was spent at Carriageworks with  Jill Jones, Lionel Fogarty, Lisa Gorton and Eytan Messiah, who all, for five minutes of magic, spoke to the serious audience glares. It wasn’t just poetry fighting for a place to be heard, it was also the emcees trying to talk over the sandwich munching and jangling intellects. Thank you Jewels for the opportunity to preach language.

Photographs for both events are being archived as I write and in this Monday cold it is Lentil soup and dreams of a little sleep.

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http://elliottwheeler.bandcamp.com/track/tend-to-me?permalink

Don’t be dissuaded by having to set up a pay pal or I-Tunes accounts, it’s worth it as you can purchase the song for only $1.69 or if you’re generous, pay whatever you want.

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Read more about our program here

*Anonymous

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Tonight, I have to walk the dog.

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Thinking about coming here

to write with you

I remembered another classroom

blazing with fire – not the furnace-touch of poetry:

language polished hot enough to take off fingerprints.

No.  Not that kind of hot.

This other class,

not the last one I taught at Killara

nor the one before or before that in fact it was years ago,

they set fire to the curtains,

striking flame from a box of matches

with a woman’s red head on the cover -

I can still see that shocked spark

smell that sulfur.

I do hope Wednesday

won’t be like that!

And of course it wasn’t, there were blinds in the room for a start and minds writing poems about clocks and guitars; jewelry and USBs; crosses and Polaroids; invisible candles and candle-stick holders and ornate bottles that once held scent.

The students participating in these workshops have decided that their poems and the objects that have inspired them will be displayed in a wardrobe installed in the school; a wardrobe with all its threshold potential, all its Narnian phantasmagoria, all its intimate object history, its open-doored revelation, closed-door secrecy.

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“After a two-hour ride on a bus that looks and feels as if it were an old bowling alley, The Red Room Team arrives in Goolwa. The festival, organised by The Australian Poetry Centre, is yet to start so we explore the town’s rusted paddle steamers, op-shops and five gum dispensing machines.

On dark, over 200 poets hum an opening night song in the packed Signal Point Space situated on the salted banks of what’s left of the Murray. Chicken-greased fingers on red wine glasses smear like expectant smiles. Aunty Illene welcomes us to her people’s land in traditional dialect, followed by Stefano de Pieri and Judith Beveridge’s tributes to Dorothy Porter and a special screening of archival footage of Dorothy discussing her passion for Cavafy and reading two works inspired his poetry. Rounding out the evening were readings by international guest poets, Robert Minhinnick (Wales), Glenn Colquhoun and Elizabeth Smither (New Zealand) and Arianna Pozzuoli (Canada via Singapore). Special guest Emma Jones was another unfortunately stopped by volcano ash.

Saturday morning starts with a panel investigation of ‘The Problem with Poetry’. Expectation, exposure and education are the debated themes but as always it raises the question if poetry has the problem or is it the perception of it. Some in the audience meet the recent changes in Australia’s poetry scene with excitement, while other more traditional poets seem to march a death parade.

The mood shifts with an afternoon of readings and a fantastic session with four Giramondo poets, Lisa Gorton, Bronwyn Lea, Lucy Dougan and Michael Farrell. Against a storm-grey background Lisa Gorton introduces her recent Sci-Fi series of poems and we’re momentarily transported to 2020, life on Titan, ‘the air full of frequencies’. Will small country towns and poetry festivals exist in this future?

At night we walk wet streets, side-stepping migrating snails, to join poets and from across the country for a symposium. Fifteen speakers put forward their ideas for the improvement of the poetry scene. Discussion is healthy but again it seems that the same voices are being heard. This in itself may be the answer. Collaboration and inclusion in larger arts festivals is what is needed if poetry is to broaden audiences. Poetry is not just for poets, audiences are critical and this element often seems forgotten.

On Sunday, we meet with poet Luke Beesley who’s presenting on The Red Room Company’s ‘Papercuts’ program and his recent participation in the Sea Things project. Despite technical gliches the story of the duffle bags has the class raising hands and asking how to be involved. Meanwhile, at The Publishers Market, our ‘Poems to Share’ box sets have sold out to poets, teachers and librarians alike. The interest and feedback on our projects is really encouraging,  and our bookmarks and badges are collected by eager hands.

By Monday afternoon we’re all ready to farewell Goolwa and the festival. We pack our heads full of poems, new project ideas, and fill bags with books, then wait once more for the bus that smells of bowling alley. We pass the slow ride back to Adelaide reading our new poetic objects (including works from Cathoel Jorss and Bronwyn Lea) watching fields of ripening grapes and fallen houses.

Thank you Goolwa!”

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Some crosses for you:

+Emilia, Tamryn and Luke Beesley are preparing to travel to the Poetry Festival, in Adelaide, tomorrow to broadcast our ‘sea things’ film and talk to teachers about our revolutionary education program.
+ Tonight at 8:30PM my father’s documentary, ‘Kokoda‘ premieres on ABC 1. Rave reviews. Dutiful daughter, I offered to host the Premiere. I spent an insane amount of cash on olives and shouted at the concrete, being lost for an hour in a Car Park in Bondi Junction. The two part documentary is brilliant and within war much of the poetic and grotesque.
+Thanks to some super, sparkling generosity of a former Queenslander of the Year, Red Room is able to purchase some much needed office equipment. This will mean next time my computer goes to hospital because of a minute brown spot on the logic board, it won’t take all our contacts, files and life, with it. Long may this support continue!
+Our education program is stretching to the ACT this term. Fiona Curran and the poets have been putting together a program that will take poetry into school toilets and turn the regular classroom into a cabinet of linguistic imagination.
+Our new Chair, well, I shall save an entire blog for this story and expect an interview and insights into the poetic, legal and the criminal life and language.
+I think Rosemary is a weed. It is the only plant that grows and grows and flourishes with neglect. Outside the bricks and the clothes line are scented with the stuff.

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Here is Emilia’s first report:

‘Been taking forever for me trying to figure out how to sum up the time already spent in this lovely city.  Whenever I am with my Swedish friends we keep trying to understand that we are actually here, in Australia! I keep finding myself answering everyone who asks where I’m from, that this is the other side of the world to Sweden. They are not half as stunned by that as I am every time! However, I have been here for over 1 and a half months now and it feels like I am already used to Sydney, a lot. I share a room with another girl (in an apartment with 10 other people), so I am never by myself, apart from right now, when writing this late in the evening. In the beginning I could wake up in this room wondering where on earth am I? That is a very strange feeling, where you have to give yourself at least one minute before you realize you are not in Sweden anymore.

Red Room has welcomed me with open arms, with a lot of varying tasks, and I feel so lucky having an internship in a company where I can be surprised and learn something new every day. I have been at a book launch for gay and lesbian poets, a workshop with a very inspiring and enthusiastic teacher at Killara High, seen a finished and successful ‘Poems to Share’ project, been at the Opera House to listen to the great A.C Grayling, and been at my, probably first, media launch in my life.  Whenever I feel that I can’t express myself well enough in English, I decide not to try at all. But after all, I am a poet, and poets feel that it is much easier to express themselves in writing, or at least sometimes. Therefore, I would like to take the opportunity in this blog to thank Tamryn for everything that she has done for me since I arrived at the airport until now; it is more than I could have ever asked for.  Also Jo has been fantastic, and made me feel more than welcome here. Thank you both so much.

So much is also happening outside of work, but trying to sum that up would just be impossible. All I can say is that in some short moments I realize that I am actually here in Sydney, and that makes it easy to just smile for a while for no reason. I am so lucky to be here, and I am lucky that searching google last year, ended up leading me, yes, to the other side of the world.’

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I traveled to Brisbane to visit schools and poets. One included, ‘Sheldon College’ who are running our education program, with poet, Bronwyn Lea. The school is close the home of Oodgeroo Noonuccal and far away from the construction heavy Queen Street Mall.

Back in the city, Nathan Shepherdson and I spent the afternoon in swivels, on the Hilton Hotel chairs where the room lights were lolly pop pink and zooming lifts so high, I felt ill : the ghosts of the Kings of Queensland were everywhere. We talked about turning our ‘Poetry Picture Show‘ project into a virtual learning resource and whether you should laugh or cry when someone asks a poet ‘so when are you going t to write a novel?’ ; as if poetry doesn’t count! Nathan and I got as violent as is possible whilst surrounded by whispering suits – as we talked about the conservatism taking over the Australian Literary Review : those destructive and arrogant articles lately that bemoan the state of poetry and damning anything that is language – isn’t poetry itself, language? Why does The Australian publish such wet?

I think the heat made the time in Brisbane so intense; the hugeness of poems being written, poetry being made wherever you tread and people asking me why I do what I do – as if I know! Half the time you just feel your way though and too much thought as to why has been returning to the blank state of pointlessness.

I arrived home without my keys and am waiting by the post box for their return.

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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

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