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.

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Three days later, I write to you from Macedonia where the Poetry Festival is about to begin. Yesterday (s) were in transit; 30 hours through clouds and being force-fed dinner buns and tomato juice by Luftansa. Arriving here day early allowed me a long, scenic trip with Allessandro at the wheel, After waiting for me at the airport, hours late, we moved through the Bulgarian city and then across the border to Macedonia. We stopped off at cafes that served Hamburgers with salted Serbian meet and more to my taste, thick Macedonia yogurt and breadsticks. Stray dogs everywhere. Lots of Macedonia Rock-Pop and Serbian Turbo-Folk. Cows were herded across the roads, billy-goats butting on the side streets and lots of people selling fruit in the dust blooms of highway trucks.

As Allesandro and  climbed the hills and arrived, with Gabi on board now, we arrived at the hotel which boasts a monastery  as part of the architecture. Yet, it is light now and having swum, walked and soon to cycle around the area, I see only contemporary buildings and swimming costumes. The monks must be here somewhere

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And now, Israel at the Mac Shop on Glebe Point Road has been with me for an hour restoring my i-phone. He charged nothing and offered only help to the technically lazy. I must say, he did slip in a few pointers about the power of the i-pad and as I think about the QLD journey, tomorrow and then Macedonia on Monday, by back is aching at lugging around 3 kilos. But, damn, $900, is that worth saving a spine and time, for?

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England and my Grandmother seem from another lifetime, me in another ‘book’ as a friend and I were referring to life changes as. (Books, not chapters symbolising massive internal upheavals that, once experienced, mean you cannot live the way you were, in the previous Book). Here, in Sydney, The Red Room Company, is moving into a daunting and powerful project with NSW prisons; the project direction is part of the ongoing search for meaning, possibility and change. Many of the projects I had planned for this year have had to change in a reaction to the countless poetry initiatives that the literary scape is surrounded by. It is terrific that other poets and organisations are delivering readings, engaging with popular collaborations, promoting festivals and administering business inspired courses, but what’s the point of all this production and promotion? With all these action there has to be reflection and reason. So, now, Red Room has little choice but to engage in the randomness and risk of imagination. What comes next, no one knows, but it won’t be what is expected of us.

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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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