Bit
1
|
|
Disappointingly enough, Eyes Half Open was one of the few sessions of the Subverse Poetry Festival that I actually had time to see. I'd spent the previous weekend in a poetry workshop at the Queensland Writer's Centre with Rebecca Edwards, so Edwards' book-launch at the Eyes Half Open session seemed an obvious choice. Of the two books launched, Sue Abbey– of UQ Press moorings – opened the proceedings, before allowing Brett Dionysius his devoted introduction to Edwards' Scar Country.
|
Bit
2
|
|
Whilst similar in a lot of significant respects, Edwards' second collection of poems shows a marked change in both style and theme since the appearance of her first collection, Eating the Experience. Both collections of poems are essentially visceral musings on human experience, but Scar Country shows a much more concentrated focus on relationships: of lovers, family, friends, enemies and, most often, the relationship between mother and daughter. The focus is rarely complimentary though, but rather, painfully honest in its stripped down musings of, for example, motherhood - "Say goodbye to dignity the doctor, ramming his rubber hand into me fiddling the valves" (17) - or childhood - "The young pack animals smelled me out ... The pretty squad snarled, smirked and stoned me" (3). Indeed, one of the things that makes Edwards poetry so unique, is her ability to make the reader feel her experience.
|
Bit
3
|
|
Against a backdrop of cynical early-morning coffee-drinkers all clamouring for a glimpse of sincerity, Edwards' reading from Scar Country was typically strong, engaging and highly dynamic, as she veered energetically between whispered undertones and rebellious songs. Edwards' poetry readings hold an undeniable charisma, and even amongst the polished chrome of the hard-edged Latin Café, Edwards' was an obvious audience favourite. Edwards' read from a number of poems, most notably "Finding My Voice, Who is Big, Bisexual and Bald, But Still Manages to Look Like Marilyn", "Not Gethsemane" and "Eating the Experience: A Warning", which heralds an arguably smug reference to her first publication.
|
Bit
4
|
|
Scar Country also has the honour of containing "Night is the Smell of Burning", the suite of poems that won Edwards the 1999 Arts Queensland Award for Unpublished Poetry which, quite likely, was one of the main reasons Edwards secured a publishing contract with the usually poetry-phobic UQP. Having said that, with such encompassing originality and such an attractive ability to play on (and with) the boundaries of "polite society", surely Edwards' Scar Country is well worth the risk for UQP.
|
Bit
5
|
|
The second book launched at Eyes Half Open, was Ron Pretty's Of the Stone: New & Selected Poems. In his introduction, Brook Emery couldn't seem to help gushing not only over Pretty's latest collection of poetry, but also over Pretty's life-long commitments to Australian poetry more generally. Among other things of course, Pretty is the hand-behind-the-wheel at Five Islands Press, and has also edited the literary journal scarp for a number of years. These things aside, Pretty is also a poet of some repute, with his past collections including The Habit of Balance, Bald Hill with Gliders and Halfway to Eden, alongside a series of books about poetry for high-school students.
|
Bit
6
|
|
Typically, after such an effusive introduction by Emery, Pretty thanked him humbly before beginning a series of readings from Of the Stone that were almost monotonous in his understated and measured recital. Slow-paced, quiet-voiced, with an unexpected grace, Pretty's reading culminated in a vastly different dynamic from Edwards' earlier performance, that resulted in an almost restlessness from a crowd honed on centre-stage performers. Like many of the poems in Halfway to Eden, Of the Stone houses a collection of poems that are equally self-reflective in their unrelenting social commentary. Pretty moves adeptly from harsh urban realism, to lilting descriptive passages, all the while hinged in a brutish - albeit lyrical - need to reflect his views accurately. Indeed, Pretty has an undeniable eye for detail.
|
Bit
7
|
|
Unlike Edwards' poetry, there is nothing new or strikingly original in Pretty's work. Indeed, Pretty's poems often lack the immediate charisma of Edwards' style. Pretty's poetry however, is a self-assured re-working of older poetic conventions. That is, whilst readers won't find anything particularly new in Pretty's poetry, what he does, he does very well.
|
Bit
8
|
|
The culmination of two seasoned performers, both irrevocably different in performance and writing styles, meant that for me at least, Eyes Half Open became Eyes Wide Awake. Indeed, if this is the state of Australian poetry, then we have nothing to worry about.
|
| |
|
|
Bit
9
|
|
Details
Subverse: 2000 Queensland Poetry Festival
"Eyes Half Open" at The Latin Café, Fortitude Valley
10 – 11am, Saturday 28th July, 2000
Edwards, Rebecca. Eating the Experience. Brisbane: Metro Press, 1994.
---. Scar Country. St. Lucia: UQP, 2000.
Pretty, Ron. Of the Stone: New & Selected Poems. Wollongong: Five Islands Press, 2000.
|
| |
|
|
Bit
10
|
|
Citation reference for this article
MLA style:
Kelly McWilliam. "Subverse: Eyes half open" M/C Reviews 13 Sep. 2000.
[your date of access] <http://www.api-network.com/mc/reviews/words/eyeshalf.html>.
Chicago style:
Kelly McWilliam, "Subverse: Eyes Half Open," M/C Reviews 13 Sep. 2000,
<http://www.api-network.com/mc/reviews/words/eyeshalf.html> ([your date of access]).
APA style:
Kelly McWilliam. (2000) Subverse: Eyes Half Open. M/C Reviews 13 Sep. 2000.
<http://www.api-network.com/mc/reviews/words/eyeshalf.html> ([your date of access]).
|
|
|
