Travelling

August 21st, 2010

Lake Ohrid

Tonight a group of eight of us readers at the Struga Festival climbed and whirled around the town of Ohrid. An early evening whim  and we left the hotel and scrambled in a taxi in search of seaside churches and wine; we found these things, and more. Dinner discussions about chaos, Texan vernacular, Swedish conservatism and Alexander the Great’s horses versus elephants battles,  took us into the early morning. And still, the moon is not full.

The days shape at random and although there is a printed program nothing is certain. Events to begin at 9am start at 11am. The crowd can be in the hundreds, with the Prime Minister of Macedonia present, (such as last night) or, an audience of two.

Apart from losing my voice from sleeping with the air con up my body and mind have adapted well to the seaside, iced coffee with whipped cream and lots of poem reading and writing.

There is a snorer next door in 513 but if I think about the mood on the water tonight or the pop corn and fresh corn sold on the nearby bridge, all I can hear is bright, crackling oil with sun on top.

June 25th, 2010

Leaders

Hastings’ version of ‘King Prawns’ is not the same as those at home, in Australia. I ordered them for dinner and so small they were, I almost couldn’t see them. Food, however, isn’t on my mind as I continue to move from the Nursing Home to the Internet cafe, hour after hour as my Grandmother sleeps. A strange guilt takes over when I begin to work, as if all activities should cease whilst another person whom one loves, suffers. It is not the way, though. Instead, I find myself working furiously on Red -ness and enjoy the diversions of emailing, not to mention researching for our next set of projects. I am filled with happiness as the team back home, Patron included, update me on the poetry landscape and the activities of my colleagues, peers. Reading a lot of English poetry and although I find the musings of the English Romantics do not hold my attention when I know ‘Blood Meridian’ is waiting on my bedside table, poetry continues to replenish me. I cannot end this post without welcoming Julia.

June 15th, 2010

Lindsay Tuggle describes her workshops with Brisbane Water

Canals and fans in Orange are far away as I write to you from the bedside of my Grandmother, who is in a Nursing home, in England. That’s about as personal as I’ll get on a public blog so, let’s talk about one of the most exciting programs Red Room is running, our ‘Papercuts’ education program. This recent post, below, is composed by poet, Lindsay Tuggle who has been working with the school, Brisbane Water. Lindsay’s poetry is featured in the ‘Poems to Share’ sets and she was a feature poet in ‘Dust Poems’.

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.”

June 11th, 2010

City parks

Before heading off on a tour to the countryside, I found a little Japanese hole in the wall, about the size of a sushi roll, from which I purchased lunch. Not having explored any of the local parks yet, I set out to find one that had a canal, benches, flowers and, preferably, a statue. Five minutes or so, avoiding those foul ‘rich strips’ of Armani clothes and inspired eateries etc, I came across a little grotto. I took little notice of the other park dwellers and although they were nattering and laughing reasonably loudly, ate in quiet. Then, off I went to leave, only to notice I had been eating in a park full of vagabonds and slightly crazed faces; majority of them drunk and in rags and eating from a small hand -out-food operation. All of them  watching my every motion. I could have time zoned back to the 17th Century and me being the out of town, ignorant traveller lost amongst the outcasts.

June 8th, 2010

Amsterdam – Poetry

I am amazed I didn’t end up on the Amsterdam Missing Tourist List, after my four hour bike adventure around the city, today. I hired the orange machine this morning and set off to see an incredible exhibition featuring, amongst many Greats, the work of Henri Matisse. My luck couldn’t have been brighter as hanging in the central room in all Red glory imaginable was one of the paintings that inspired the name, ‘The Red Room Company’. It was Matisse’s 1908 ‘The Dessert, Harmony in Red -The Red Room”. Ignorant to the fact the work was housed in the Hermitage (Amsterdam) meant I nearly fell over with Red delight. And the pigment Red that the canvas lived with, was, to these eyes it was the Red of deep Pink with a Purple beat to it. I imagine this is because it was originally blue and Matisse, without asking his Patron’s permission, felt the Blue to be too that and so, Red it became. It is. A masterpiece. I hadn’t noticed the beauty of the window in the top left, until today. Following the exhibition I decided to cycle to a far away park for lunch. Far away indeed as I ended up off the map with only a Kebab shop owner to guide me back to the central canal. It took nearly an hour return journey and along the way a few near misses of my bike almost hitting a car, a tram and a pram. Suffice to say, the ride was exhilarating but I am dangerous on two wheels and the bike is back in the shop, as tired as I am, I imagine.

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.

January 6th, 2010

looking for Gerhard

The rye bread is as constant as the snow and I am ingesting both of these delights throughout the days, from light to night. Like most tourists to Berlinn Anna Funder’s ‘Stasiland’ has been a terrific read and added much Cold War paranoia to my journeys around back alleys and past men in trench coats. Yes, we are told the East-West battles are over, yes, the Berlin Wall has fallen, but Berlin is also full of faces that don’t smile and bodies covered in dark clothes, disappearing in and beyond the subways. I’ve been consuming novels and non fiction and very little on the poem brain.

January 2nd, 2010

Consumption

IMG_0131For the fourth day snowing – it is snowing. Magnificent. For the fourth day coughing – I am coughing and carrying around an intense flu. Pathetic to be ill when the flakes are falling for me and demanding snow people to be constructed! The time in bed has allowed me to ponder on the world and also read as much German inspired literature as possible. I did, however, put aside Rilke’s prose, as it was starting to reflect my condition – being about an ill fellow who was hallucinating and seeing his dead ancestors.

Back in Hobart – the bag has arrived safely and the contents will be sorted for the first of a quartet of exhibitions of the duffle bag.

An Enormous thanks to our Poetry Commander, Commander Vine, who  picked up the bag for us and was, yet again, involved in a media frenzy (!) as  journalists at the Hobart Mercury snapped the handover.

Our darling Ms Bonny Cassidy has left the building and when I return to The Red Room it will be to assess new applicants for the role of Education Officer. In the meantime Ms Bennett is overseeing the 2010 beginning of Red activities and the rest of the world carries on as if Christmas never was.

December 28th, 2009

Berlin: Never drive a car when you’re dead (from a postcard)

indexSnow is possible. The pizza was 2 euro and the tastiest I’ve tried for years. Ice wet roads make riding the bike difficult but if this sun keeps up, tomorrow we’ll head over to one of the Berlin forests. The Black Forest, we’re saving for a little later in this trip. The German language is infectious and few speak English readily so practice is inevitable fun. I have my PONS to learn some verbs and a few other German books that I was able to purchase using a Christmas gift voucher, one of the best gifts to receive, before leaving home. The trains here are yellow, quick and snug: inside lovers fall asleep all over the space and lots of drunk Christmas party folk still spinning from the 24th. Big, hairy, scary dogs ride the trains too.  At night, because our legs are tired from wall walking or exploring the secret lanes, the sofa becomes a movie house. Tonight it is Sunday and after the hot bath my cousins, E and I will get under the blankets for the second half of the story of a submarine adventure. The film’s American overdub is nauseating and hysterical and tomorrow there will be more laughing and probably other expressions of distress which, due to history, accompany wherever you go.

Here, in Berlin, the people and the family in Sydney seem not to exist as though I have forgotten them and they me. This anonymous but acceptable act of vanishing is the one of the most wonderful and confronting aspect of travel.

December 24th, 2009

Christmas Eve in Berlin

Stieglitz-SpringShowersIt is Christmas Eve and the Berliners are either in the shopping center purchasing Herring or snug inside their homes drinking grog and breaking Rye bread. I’m here, in Berlin, with my lovely cousins and my partner, whose luggage has got lost in transit. We share the front room with two fat and constantly fighting cats, Abigail and Renincki; they live on a carpet castle in the front room, where we sleep.

My German phrases include: ‘ich verstehe nicht’ and ‘bis dan’.  I am also using words stolen by the English to spice up my conversational skills (or lack) – such as ‘wanderlust’ , ‘poltergeist’ and ‘Dummkopf’.

The Red Room is worlds away from the snow and this state of extreme calm that is created by cold weather and no mobile phone. I have left the work in the capable hands of our Patron, Bonny and Tamryn. The last week in The Room was heavy with sadness at our wonderful Ms Cassidy moving on to full time teaching work and then learning.

The marvellous news is that NSW Arts have provided us with funds towards a range of our projects for 2010. With this income we will be able to kick start the year at The Sydney Writers’ Festival and tour our ‘Sea Things’ exhibition. There was a moment of terror when we learnt the Australia Council’s Literature Board had rejected our application for funding and instead put all their eggs in one basket that wasn’t ours.

But,

right now, the lima beans are boiling and we’re about to begin the first of a series of baking cakes and gingerbread. The sounds here are of aluminium being scrubbed and soft socks on wooden floors and the occasional snap and pop of fireworks.

October 15th, 2009

Dr Bonny Cassidy’s Great Adventure to Melbourne

3625543-Rye_Beach_Mornington_Peninsula-State_of_Victoria“When we first sat down to design Red Room’s education program, Papercuts, we did so with our own ideas about how contemporary Australian poetry could be communicated to young people, and with the advice and expertise of individuals in the education sector including our program writer Tony Britten, an English teacher at SCEGGS Darlinghurst.  The 2007 pilot program took an experimental approach to finding interested NSW schools, selecting individual poets and gathering feedback.  Soon enough, we were going national – taking Papercuts to Victoria in 2008 and 2009 – and bowled over by the quality of writing and ideas about exhibition and publication that students were producing.

Our challenge now is to maintain the program’s boutique nature – hand-selected poets for different localities and class needs – while delivering to every school that is interested in taking part.  Our bottom line is, if a school demands Papercuts, then we will take it to them regardless of their location.  Who else is going to put our emerging and mid-career poets into conversation with kids about the real process of writing?  How else can students understand poetic form except by intimately appreciating its craft?
Recently, we’ve undertaken two professional development sessions with English teachers, at Ravenswood (NSW) and Peninsula High School (VIC).  Jo spent a week in residence at Ravenswood and was able to spend time with both teachers and students.  What’s exciting about these opportunities is that the school becomes engaged with the contemporary scene and with the reality of the writing business rather than simply being at its receiving end as buyers, librarians and theorists.  The benefit of sustained contact with a live poet – and the same could be said for a live artist, dancer and so on – is unique.  I spent a day with a dozen teachers at Peninsula, including those with junior and senior secondary classes.  What’s so valuable for us is hearing about what teachers need and miss out on when it comes to teaching poetry.  As teacher John Russell told me, they don’t sit in the staff room and chat about the brilliance of Robert Frost – there’s no time, and it’s “not done”.  But given the time and space to sit around together and enjoy discussing poems for pleasure, the usefulness of this kind of discussion to HSC teachers as well as Year 8 coordinators is clear.  At both schools, these sessions also produced original poems by staff and the chance for them to share their own writing with colleagues.

Maybe the last word from Papercuts it to remind teachers, students, parents and poets that we are all readers and writers of some description; and that to deliberately and enjoyably read and write should never be seen as an indulgence or a privilege.”

Yours,

Bonny
Education Officer