I Wish I'd Written This

After Reading a Certain Poetry Magazine

You know how it is when you read good stuff...
poetry that blows in like a late cool on a stinking day,
all its words and silences exact and uncompromising;
and it wraps relief around your burning eyes, mends
your torn morning and picks up the shit from the driveway...
You know, I know you do,
and you think I’ll never write again,
myself, cos I can’t do that...

But in the back of your head
a line is limping along,
a couple of them, crying a bit,
and elbowing in the queue,
pressing forward to be noticed,
sore, hard done by.
And your fingers flex and fret for a keyboard.

Copyright © Linda Stevenson 2018

I've featured my long-time friend Linda here before, some years ago (at this link). At that stage I and others hoped she'd start a blog and join PU.

Having given it a go for a while, she realised she's not a blogger, preferring to post things briefly on facebook and then submit to literary magazines both on and offline – who often publish her. I keep an eye on her fb posts of course, love a lot of her stuff, and responded especially to this one. I think I hardly need to tell a readership of poets why!

Linda does spoken-word readings as often as she can, and this photo catches her mid-performance. She is also an activist – as much as she can be now, in her crone years, and rather more than most. Social and environmental issues form the subject matter of many of her poems. 

Ken Smeaton, whom I featured a couple of weeks ago, is our mutual friend. The photo I used in that post was taken at Linda's home.

Linda was once Melbourne City Librarian (which meant she was in charge of several municipal libraries based around the inner suburbs). When the Poets Union of Australia formed (in the late seventies) Linda offered us a meeting place at North Melbourne Library.

It was in that heady era of 'taking poetry off the page' that we both met Ken. It was a long time ago now, but a number of those poetic friendships have lasted.

Back in those days, although she always wrote, she was too busy helping other poets to publicise her own work. (I was one of the recipients of her generosity. She supported and encouraged me in many ways.) I'm glad she is finally putting her own poetry out there and gaining a following.

************

Speaking of Ken Smeaton, I was horrified to discover I had inadvertently left out half his featured poem in the February 15 post! I have rectified the matter, but I think too late for many of you to see it. So here is the full poem again, now:

The Poem

Welcome to the last, great
non-commercial art form.

Remarked, unsung,
oxygen, in the swamp of images.

Gaze on these words, reckon

how deep you can go into my dream.

Immerse in my clear stream,

nourish the meadows of your attention.

Listen to my water song

and drink deeply.

Escape in me to other worlds, where I whisper

silk across your skin, drip plum juice off your chin.

If you are uncomfortable here,

let me walk with you, I will be your guide.

The way to read a poem is often.

Walk with me often to the end

where I will leave you,
your heart full, my burden eased.

– Ken Smeaton 
from Love Poet Live (Melbourne, Eaglemont Press, 2001.)

Material shared in 'I Wish I'd Written This' is presented for study and review. Poems, photos and other writings remain the property of the copyright owners, usually their authors.

I Wish I'd Written This

The Poem

Welcome to the last, great

non-commercial art form.

Remarked, unsung,

oxygen, in the swamp of images.

Gaze on these words, reckon

how deep you can go into my dream.

Immerse in my clear stream,

nourish the meadows of your attention.

Listen to my water song

and drink deeply.

Escape in me to other worlds, where I whisper

silk across your skin, drip plum juice off your chin.

If you are uncomfortable here,

let me walk with you, I will be your guide.

The way to read a poem is often.

Walk with me often to the end

where I will leave you,
your heart full, my burden eased.

– Ken Smeaton 
from Love Poet Live (Melbourne, Eaglemont Press, 2001.)

Ken's an old mate of mine from when we were both performance poets in Melbourne. I featured him here once before, in 2011 (click here) where I detailed our early connections. We caught up after a very long time when I visited Melbourne a few years ago. 

Now I've just finished proof-reading his forthcoming 'new and selected', titled Who Among Us? ('The Poem' is one of the 'selected'.)The blurb says:

Ken Smeaton was born in Ballarat, educated in Canberra and lived and worked in Melbourne from 1970 to 2017. He is known throughout Australia by his poetry organising and his commitment to live readings and performance. Retired, he is living in Newstead, country Victoria.

Speaking of live readings, he's all over YouTube with his RealPoetry movies recording performances by other poets and himself, if you'd like to have a listen. (He continued being a performance poet in Melbourne long after I had moved elsewhere.)

It's just been Valentine's Day, and the above poem (originally from a book called Love Poet Live) reads almost like a love poem from a poet – or poem! – to readers.  

I published one of his books, Real Face, long ago when I was an independent publisher of Australian poetry. Among the pieces he has selected from that for the new book are these three actual love poems, as romantic as anyone could wish, which I'll share with you too for Valentine's Day:

Suddenly  

Her fingertip

touched on my skin.

A surface-skipped pebble

woke an ocean within.

Live a Dream  

You don’t talk unnecessarily.

You are as quiet

as if you live

in a faraway garden.

I’m sure you do.

I gaze into your eyes

for long periods

to join you there.

A Rose 

After dark

in the caravan park

a thief creeps

to the only garden.

Secateurs and glove

a snip for love

and on his darling’s breast

a rose.

Note: I suppose I should mention, for Americans, that a caravan is what (I think) you would call an RV or camper trailer.

Material shared in 'I Wish I'd Written This' is presented for study and review. Poems, photos, and other writings remain the property of the copyright owners, usually their authors. In this case, Ken Smeaton holds the copyright in the poems: The Poem © Ken Smeaton 2001; Suddenly, Live a Dream, and A Rose © Ken Smeaton 1987.

I Wish I'd Written This

War Dance

by Ken Smeaton

1

In our love    a slow dance

round the kitchen

blood plums bubbling   the

smell of gas and bread

surround our waltz

slow turning on the lino

your hand glides down

my back

time hangs washing

on an airless day

2
In our love    every day

could be the last

life on the endangered list

each kiss the first kiss

each touch the first caress

we have grown an arsenal of love

we have studied each other

become privately fluid

armed with steps and ritual

we battle thru.

3.

Our secret weapon

the slow waltz.

From Real Face, Melbourne, AbalonePress, 1987.

I first encountered Melbourne poet Ken Smeaton when he was with the Street Poets, who gave it away for free — handing out sheets of poetry on city streets — and I was with the Poets Union, whose members demanded payment — insisting on, and getting a fee for publication and performance. Nevertheless our aims overlapped. Both groups were keen to take poetry ‘off the page’ and present it orally, to show the public its relevance in the here and now. So we were always bumping into each other at festivals, concerts and performance venues, where we appreciated each other’s work. Ken and I ended up working together in the theatre poetry group Word of Mouth, collaborating with two other poets, Anita Sinclair, who was also our director, and Malcolm Brodie (who is immortalised here by another poet).

When I approached Ken about his inclusion in this series, he said, ‘Just take any poem out of Real Face.’ That was a treat! A long time since I’d read it, and I fell in love with his writing all over again. It’s so earthy, honest, original, and indeed real. But it was almost impossible to find a poem suitable for this purpose. He is the most Australian of poets in his idiom and allusions; for most of his pieces I would need to provide explanatory notes for international readers! For instance, his poem, ‘Rain. No Work’, which you can read at his blog, can be understood at face value by any reader, but I think you have to be an Aussie for the place names to conjure up pictures in your head, and for the gold nuggets and the flood to have deep historical associations. It’s my very favourite piece in the whole book; I’m mad about it — but if I’d chosen it for this post, it might have fallen a bit flat for most of you.

Luckily, I could wish to have written pretty much everything in the book, including this sweet reflection on love in domesticity, which does translate into the universal.


Ken behind the mic, then and now. (Photo with daughter Bella by Pamela Sidney, unofficial chronicler of the Melbourne poetry scene in the 80s - 90s, from her Melbourne Poetry Gig Guide blog.) :

Poems and photos used in ‘I Wish I’d Written This’ remain the property of the copyright holders (usually their authors).