2005 - Jacqueline Turner, poet
I’m looking forward to reading at the Brisbane Writers Festival at the “red chamber” at Parliament House on October 1 at 5:30 p.m. as well as participating in a panel with fellow Canadian writers cleverly called “This is Not a Canadian Panel” at the Powerhouse at 8:30 p.m. that same night. My collaboration with local photographer Mick Richards on a project based on Fortitude Valley will be performed here at the centre on October 5, just days before I leave this relentlessly beautiful country to head back to the wilds of Canada.
Here’s some of the poetry I’ve been reading, which I highly recommend:
|
 | Jayne Fenton Keane’s The Transparent Lung | |
Phil Brown’s An Accident in the Evening | |
Julie Beveridge’s Rock ‘n Roll Tuxedo | |
Graham Nunn’s Measuring the Depth | |
Miel Magazine edited by Mel Dixon | |
The Absence of Saints by Rosanna Licari | |
The Hospital for Dolls by Melissa Ashley | |
The One Who Comes at Dawn, by Mandy Beaumont and Graham Nunn | |
Alan Boyd’s “antipoet” zines | |
Ross Clark’s “Chameleon” (triptychs on loan from the poet) |
|
I’m not just being excessively polite when I say the Brisbane poetry scene is amazing. When I was organizing a launch for my fabulous new office here at the Judith Wright Centre of Contemporary Arts, I called Graham Nunn, director of the Queensland Poetry Festival and asked him to arrange for some people to read. This was on a Friday afternoon. By Wednesday, we had 15 people reading their work with three local musicians and the place was packed to the rafters with poets.
But not just Brisbane: I recently returned from a road trip to Northern Queensland, organized by the Queensland Writers Centre, where I met with writers from Bundaberg, Rockhampton, Mackay, Townsville, and Cairns. Some poets emerged shyly, some exuberantly, but there was no shortage of talent. Poetry in Queensland, like the landscape, is vast.
I see my role here as a Canadian poet in residence to build and support that enthusiasm for poetry, to make connections between Queensland and British Columbia where I’m from. Matt Foley used the word “fusion” during a recent reading of a Judith Wright poem and that seems like the right word to describe my mandate here because I like the idea of collaboration, of working together to create something that merges differing ideas and interest. Which is such a Canadian thing to say.
If you visit my office, you’ll see that I actually have Judith Wright’s desk. It makes for a powerful, tangible connection between our differing literary and political moments. It’s a big desk to sit at: one of my projects is to write a response to her poem “At Cooloola” which leaves me with big words to fill.
Other projects include collaborations with photographers, as well as merging poetry and photographs from regional Queensland as an installation at the Centre near the end of my residency. I’d also like to host a reading that is simulcast between Vancouver and Brisbane featuring aboriginal writers.
I’ll be at the Queensland Poetry Festival at the end of August, here at the Judith Wright Centre for Contemporary Arts, The Brisbane Writers Festival at the end of September, and I’ll be out on the road again, this time heading out west to meet with writers in Toowoomba, Longreach, and Roma.
After arriving a month ago, here on the other side of the earth from where I started, poetry continues to take me a long way.
|
dawn is a hazy light
I don’t always get to see
suffuse with the blush on the palms
of the sun slowly rising
here on the other side of the earth
from where we came
earlier the southern cross
emerged as clouds pushed past
hello scorpio’s vivid immensity
across a dark sky rushing
along the river
to get to where we always end up
not home, but welcome
not altogether free, but wanting
to capture what’s in front of us
that will someday be far away
leaning up into a different night sky
a glimpse back
arms out
Jacqueline Turner
|
|  | |
Other
languages
