Tuesday poem - 'First ... then ... ' by Melinda Smith

First ... then ...


First change nappy
Then Thomas the Tank Engine

First clothes on
Then sandpit

First wash hair
Then chocolate frog

First the only baby crying all night in the hospital

       Then the only baby wailing for the whole of mothers’ group

First the only mother convinced her child was permanently angry

       Then the only one holding him in her arms and doing deep knee bends to
       calm him down

First thinking it was normal to scream until throwing up whenever we changed
       routine

       Then shocked when I realised other families didn’t have to live like that

First astonished he could read at eighteen months

       Then astonished at his shrieks every time his baby brother cried

First proud of every fact he could recite about the planet Jupiter

       Then wondering why he needed twelve weeks of physio to learn how to jump

First hair cut

Then play with spray bottle

First stop biting Mummy

Then play with sliding door

First poo *in toilet*

Then flush 

First letting his father talk me out of it

       Then talking myself out of it

First knowing those therapists just didn’t get my child

       Then googling autism with a chill in my heart

First joking about ‘our little Rain Man’

       Then realising the joke was on me

First paralysis

       Then fear

First incomprehension

       Then overload

First Music Therapy

       Then Homeopathy

First Triple-P Parenting for Parents of Children with Disabilities

       Then Encouraging the Reluctant Eater

First Occupational Therapy

       Then the social worker

First trusting the system

       Then realising the system didn’t care enough or have enough money 

First sit at table to eat

Then spinning with Mummy

First swallow medicine
Then build washing machine from cardboard boxes

First reading lots of parent testimonials

       Then feeling like scum for not doing six hours of therapy with him every day

First wonderfully affirmed by Welcome to Holland

       Then convinced Welcome to Holland left a lot of shit out

First talking to happy well-adjusted mums of older kids on the spectrum

       Then terrified our family would disintegrate before our kids ever got to that
       age

First poring over Autism and Asperger’s Syndrome for those who love and care
       for three-to-seven- year-olds

       Then realising the only book I needed to read was The Curious Incident of
       the Dog in the Night Time

First joining support groups

       Then walking out of meetings because the horror stories people told at them
       could not possibly be true

First counselling

       Then drugs

First sobbing to my friends

       Then avoiding my friends and hating their normal uncomplicated children

First hearing that carers of autistic children are as stressed as soldiers in combat

       Then bawling my eyes out 

First thread beads on string

Then letterbox-counting walk

First stay at special needs soccer for ten minutes
Then computer time

First nearly destroying my marriage

       Then clinging to my marriage

First regretting the second child

       Then realising the second child would probably save us all

First wanting my husband to see things my way

       Then grateful he didn’t

First mourning my old life

       Then understanding you never really get it back anyway

First obsessed with getting the whole family to accept the diagnosis

       Then learning to take what help I could get and live with the elephant in the
       room

First shame

       Then resentment

First desperate for pity

       Then desperate for respite care

First whining

       Then laughing

First crawling through it

       Then writing about it

First today

       Then tomorrow 

Melinda Smith

While I was up in Canberra for the Noted festival, I invested in a copy of First … Then ... (Ginninderra Press) by Melinda Smith. I had heard her read some of them at her La Mama gig here in Melbourne so I was pretty sure I would like the book. Well I did like the book, but I was also incredibly moved - moved to pity, moved to tears - and then, cathartically, moved on to another place. I kind of got it, I glimpsed it. I don't feel as if I want to write too much about the experience of reading these twenty-four poems from Planet Autism. Melinda wrote them. I read them. Enough.

All the poems are available to read on the website below, with some intriguing explication, and there is guidance as to how to source the book, if like me, you prefer to hold a book in your hand.

https://circlequirk.wordpress.com/

Tuesday Poem - 'A Romantic Woman' by Michael Farrell

A Romantic Woman

Has sewn a bauble on her dress tonight

She thinks about the relation between

natural and artificial light as

she drives through the evening in a taxi

Doubt becomes her. If she were Catholic she

assumes she would've toyed with bishops …

agnostic it's jackaroos that keep her

reading colonial fiction. Danielle

loves being twenty-nine (the pathos of

it) and dreams of an earlier name like

Muriel or Jean. She smooths the violet

sash her mother would say meant 'die single

The country can be harsh like that. Next year

she might become a novelist, but for

now she's happy with the magazine world

the hair and makeup boys, donuts on Fridays

She met someone online recently who

carves his own chess pieces and has a sandy

fringe, and she'll meet Liam in the flesh tonight

Warm and soft, she says to herself warm …

soft. The night is floating with stuff: maybe

organic, but she thinks wearing a veil's

underrated. I can't wear a taxi

everywhere, she jokes to the driver who

doesn't understand why not. Danielle thinks …

her friends, their brutal ways with men and how

successful such ways are. Men are afraid

she isn't strong: yet she's been known to eat

tuna from a can (to the right music

They don't know what it takes to be her! She

wouldn't be an editor for long …

Magazines were arcades for Danielle, not

stylish training manuals. Cigarettes

or insanity she would quip (before

she quit). Her therapist said she had …

Cinderella complex but Danielle – in

a rare fiery moment – retorted …

you have complexomania! Whereas

she was a deer of the forest …

Harriet Shelley without the river

bit, or the kids. Really, her mind was drifting

into inanity. The Melbourne traffic

wasn't like a forest; she could surely

find better role models if she needed

them. She would never make anything happen

Danielle imagined Liam was probably

one of those soft, toilet-paper roll kinds …

guys with razor blades attached to the last

sheet. They love you until then. I have …

date with a bottle of gin, she thought …

a man on the side: a moment to cherish

cherish, cherish. She noticed the clasp

on her handbag resembled a creature

with an unusual nose. She began

to conceive of a feature …

underrated beauty. She sat in the taxi

outside the foam party, the metre running

scribbling in her notebook while the humming

driver played a samba on the steering-wheel.

Michael Farrell

Cocky's Joy (Giramondo 2015) is my pick of the books I have read this year. Laurie Duggan opines on the back cover – 'You feel there's a language being created here and yet it's your own language.'

It came to my mind that Michael Farrell was a Currency Lad.* One of the first generation of poets to be born in the colony. That isn't strictly true (it can't be true) but it came into my mind.

*(The term 'currency lads and lasses' was used to refer to the first generation of children born in the colony to distinguish them from the free settlers who were born in the British Isles. These people were known as 'sterlings'. )

While I am musing on the old time way of saying things, I just want to iterate how much I like the title. It signals so much doubleness. But I found in a quick vox pop that quite a few people are not aware of what cocky's joy* used to be in all its singleness.

* (Treacle or golden syrup. A cocky is a farmer, originally a small tenant farmer. The word is derived from the earlier term cockatoo farmer, whose origin is the subject of several rival theories.)

Honestly, this book, it is a tour de force. It's a book that has a circus in its pants. It's astounding.

And I am astounded that none of the judges for book awards have, thus far, given it a nod. I can only assume the publisher neglected to submit it. There is no other explanation.

http://www.giramondopublishing.com/poetry/cockys-joy/

Tuesday Poem - 'Reclining Nude' by Sarah Holland-Batt

Reclining Nude

after Lucien Freud's Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (1995)

So we reach the end of our argument with beauty -

the pink nude sails like a conch out of her girlhood,

exiled from its whorled walls and tiger shell,

a refugee in her soft new body.

It happens swiftly, while she sleeps – one day she is monstrous.

She loafs like a cloud that has drifted indoors

and no longer knows what to do with itself.

In his studio, drop cloths slather the windows like lard,

apricot roses fray, olive upholstery fattens

into the great abstraction of her body -

flesh squidged over the couch in a thick salve,

hillocks trowelled with creamy putty.

She has outlived sex. As she poses she dreams

of long walks down Job Centre's fluorescent halls,

the monotony of standing-room queues. Her eyes roll in sleep

the way a bar of light rolls under photocopier glass,

smooth as charity. The artist tells her to crawl, spread

her legs, grind her arse like a pig.

In the scrunched paint rag of her face

there is a crease, as if to say here intelligence lives,

here the rational, the sceptical, but also

something that rebels, says you are rump, hog, beast.

He swaddles her hips and boulderstone breasts, grouts

her moon-drum stomach in blue oil,

winnows a hog's hair brush down her caesarean scar.

She has kernelled another body in her body there,

perhaps one of his, it doesn't matter, he can't

remember if he has had her, the point is

she understands largesse, he can see from the way

she dangles the hock of her arm casually

as he paints between her legs -

there is nothing to which she will not submit

like a nihilist Cimabue madonna

who lifts the son of god on one hip

but shrugs her other shoulder

as if to dismiss the weight of her gift.

Sarah Holland-Batt

I don't usually take to ekphrasis, but on this occasion I make an exception. I didn't know Freud's painting when I first read it, and I am glad I didn't. Because I have since viewed Benefits Supervisor Sleeping via google, and now I can't unsee it. And my first view of it was through the poet's eyes. And that was just wonderful. Not that the painting isn't wonderful. It is. Which comes first? The painting or the ekphrasis? It would be kind of interesting, eh, to write an ekphrasis about a work of art that (so far) doesn't exist. I kind of almost thought that that was what Sarah had done. I don't know why I thought that, with such a clear signpost under the title. Perhaps I was a bit stunned by The Hazards (UQP) which is a stunning book. I was under her spell.

Tuesday Poem - Two Poems from 'Spring Forest' by Geoffrey Lehmann

Hunger and Fear

My laboratory

is the dust where I stand,

the sulphur smells of the farmyard.

Your tests show fear

is stronger than hunger.

Maybe true of a laboratory animal,

bred so he's easy to handle.

But try the same trick with farm pigs -

too big and difficult for white-coated technicians.

When their own grass is shrinking,

and the next door paddock is green,

pigs will gather

away from the electric fence, and scream -

in their minds they are already burning.

Then they charge.

Small ones slip under, and big ones,

tangled in wire,

wriggle through – screaming as it crackles.

We are like farm pigs, half feral,

and the fences can't cope

with our numbers.

George Grogan

George Grogan's universe

had no numbers.

Droving, he would arrive

minus one or two beasts,

uncorrupted by knowledge of his loss.

Apologetic for a life spent under the stars

George had never seen

the inside of a schoolhouse,

his only forte

the habits of sheep and cattle at night.

Some of his peers had no letters,

but they all knew the numbers of their mob.

The simplest of the simple

was a man who could not count.

Geoffrey Lehmann

As I suspected, Geoffrey Lehmann's Poems 1957 – 2013 (UWA Publishing) did win the 2015 Prime Minister's Award for Poetry. And from a strong field, of course. But what a book it is. I am especially taken with the Spring Forest (1970 – 2010) section. There is a dedication.

FOR ROSS MCINERNEY (1918 – 2010) THROUGH WHOSE VOICE THESE POEMS ARE SPOKEN

A way of life entire, now vanquished and vanished, is summoned up with the cumulative effect of yarns, snapshots, vignettes, musings, potted histories. It is oral history transformed into … well, I don't know exactly. Nothing I have read is quite like it. Maybe it has a slight overtone of Spoon River Anthology, but it is entirely in our vernacular, set in familiar landscape. I find it to be a very valuable and endearing work. It feels completely authentic.

http://uwap.uwa.edu.au/collections/geoffrey-lehmann/products/poems-1957-2013

Tuesday Poem - 'The Town' by Fiona Kidman

The Town

The town where I was known

when I was young had a huge

metal archway at the entrance

to the civic gardens. In spring

it was covered all over with sweet

sweeping wisteria. At the end

of the main street there was a railway

station and an avenue of green trees

that the steam engines passed

under. There were, too, vents

in the ground that billowed

with sulphurous steam and gases,

sudden fountains of boiling

water erupting from the footpaths,

yes, it was an unusual place

but I could have sworn it gentle.

But now when I return, people

who stayed on in the town

want to tell me about a girl

they once knew who they swear

was a wild one. She would go

to forbidden dance halls,

hitchhike at midnight in order

to jive, hang out in seedy dives

drinking Pimms with unsuitable

men and skinny dip in hot pools

at the drop of a skirt. (Well, I do

remember something of a night

when I kissed a boy under a hot

waterfall so perhaps we had

something in common). For

the most part the descriptions

of this girl are the history

of someone I might have come across,

glimpsed from the corner of my eye

as I studiously read serious books,

and observed, now and then,

the picturesque landscape. It is possible

this girl had a double

life, but I wouldn't recognise

her if I met her now. What I can tell

you is that that girl left town.

Fiona Kidman

I think I have met this girl Fiona writes about. I know the town. And I know that that (love the emphasis of the double that) girl left that town.

When I am reading a literary journal I am always on the qui vive for a poem that - by some prodigy of technique, or with a preternatural narrative ease, or because underground forces are at work that cannot be denied - gives me a good going over. I tap out. I submit. I even laugh a little. Well, that was a poem and a half – I say to myself. And then I email the poet and ask – Please may I post your poem on my Tuesday Poem blog? (Share the joy around, right?)

Fiona answered promptly and gave me permission to post. I enquired if the poem was to be in a forthcoming book – and it is. Due soon it appears, as I google. This Change in the Light from Godwit.

http://www.randomhouse.com.au/books/fiona-kidman/this-change-in-the-light-a-collection-of-poems-9781775538554.aspx

And JAAM (just another art movement) in which the poem appeared, is a mag I always like to be in, and that I always like to get in the post and sit down and read, because it is fresh and smart and knowing, with a well odd kick in its gallop.

http://jaam.net.nz/

Tuesday Poem - 'You can lead a horse to water' by Ann Vickery

You can lead a horse to water

Because I am not into poetic husbandry,

I don't see the point of a desiccated dedication

to desire; animal allure, the pre-emptive absence

of a heart weighty as a hummingbird. Counting

the hours spent trying to differentiate myself

from want or its dereliction, that four letter word

nobody swears by. On righteous days,

I like to fashion myself as a globe-trotting man-scold.

I've been told to hide jewels in strange places

and sometimes wondered what other stylistic effects

were to be found had I checked the trough.

All my good thoughts expatriated; they write

                                                  to me sometimes,

a little lonely, a little perplexed. Transnational

orphans in a romantic lexicon whispering

sweet annunciations to demotic farmhands dressed

as yogi initiates. The love of a good obscurity,

besting the next beast. Listening to the troubadour

at night-time croon:

o where did my amatory context go?

The last launch of 2015 for me was Ann Vickery's Devious Intimacy (Hunter Publishers) at The Alderman in Lygon Street. Gig Ryan was the launcher, and was trenchant and mischievous, and the book is a bit that way inclined too. Or so it seemed to me, as I sat to read in the slack, slow hours of January. An intriguing work. It was almost beyond my grasp. Almost. I ate up the feminist ambiance, of course, and I appreciated the slippages and coinages. 'Bobbergirls' is such fun. 'Thiefdom' mints new perspective. 'Furlicued fan', hooray. Much enjoyment to be had with the plays on words. It was not an easy book for me to read (for instance, I had to google to place Jack Spicer, who supplies the opening statement for the work). But I so enjoyed the ins and outs of it. I like a good cryptic crossword, and in some ways the poet is teasing us this way, setting us delicious conundrums. And now I will – 'sois belle et tais-toi!'

http://hunterpublishers.com.au/books/devious-intimacy/

Tuesday Poem - 4 haiku/senryu by Matt Hetherington

into driving rain

an old woman spits

buddhist temple -

an ant carries

another ant

feeling bored -

until i step

on a snail

letting out a fly i let in a fly

This beautifully-produced, plangent book is one of those books you want to invest in and carry around with you. The first time I read it, it sat me down, and cooled me off, and gave me heart. Months later, I read it again, and again, it worked its magic. It slowed me, it centred me, it woke me up. This is what I want poetry to do. I want poetry to remind me of who I am. Thanks Matt, for this scrupulous, humble manifestation, and to Coral Carter of Mulla Mulla Press for embodying it as a book.

The four haiku/senryu I have chosen (with some difficulty) are in their narrative order, but as the little book works like clockwork, plucking four of the cogwheels out, almost at random, isn't the best way to get at the ticking mystery.

http://www.mullamullapress.com/for-instance-by-matt-hetherington-mulla-mulla-press

For Instance was given a well-considered, thumbs-up review by Geoff Page, in tandem with my verse novella, Mr Clean & The Junkie. As Matt and I are such good friends (and I miss him so much since he moved up North) it gave me a great deal of pleasure when our books were yoked together.

http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/book-reviews-mr-clean--the-junkie-for-instance-20150811-gijhdo.html

But just let me take the chance to assert that Geoff misread my heroine. She is not - '… a young heroin-addicted prostitute.' Youngish, certainly. On the cusp of young, but seen better days. Heroin-addicted, no way. Gambling is her tipple. And prostitute? That is moot. Perhaps she is what men of a certain generation would have called 'a party girl' or a 'good-time girl.'

This posting is focussed on Matt's alchemical book, of course, but the happy accident of the tandem review gives me a window to refute a misreading that has niggled at me for a bit.

A later review by Elizabeth Morton repeated this error, and I began to feel as if I had omitted to include a piece of crucial explication, but when I communicated with Liz, she told me she had read Geoff's review before she wrote hers, and maybe she had picked up on his misapprehension. And so it goes. Anyway, anyway, I am thrilled to report that Mr Clean & The Junkie has been long-listed for the Ockham NZ Book Awards – but if the judge's report includes the words 'heroin-addicted' or 'prostitute' I will start tearing my hair out. And take to writing evermore adamantly well-delineated character parameters. I can't help but feel that it is my error.

https://nznationalpoetryday.wordpress.com/2015/08/25/book-review-mr-clean-the-junkie-by-jennifer-compton/

Original publication

Stylus Poetry Journal

Famous Reporter

Notes From The Gean

POAM