Jan Turner-Jones - Author Interview: Poet

What kinds of poetry, including songs, did you experience as a child and teenager, and did you have some favourites?

Apparently my mother read and sang nursery rhymes and poems from day one. I always liked to read poetry, shutting the door and saying it aloud. My grandmother used to recite all the old poems from her youth as well and I learnt them by heart. I liked “A Child’s Garden of Verse” and even the poems in the school readers. I moved on to favourites like Judith Wright and AD Hope.

Would you say your childhood and teenage experience of poetry has had a distinct influence on how you write poetry now, and why?

Yes, I’m sure I get my facility with rhyming doggerel for kids’ poems and song lyrics from the early influences. The first time I realised poems needn’t rhyme was on reading David Rowbotham’s “The Cliff” – and I suddenly ‘got it’. Whether a poem rhymes or not, it must have perfect intrinsic rhythm.

Who is another poet whose poetry you admire and why?

How to choose just one… I love the words of Australians Les Murray, Gwen Harwood, Bruce Dawe, Rhyll McMaster, Judith Rodriguez and Robert Adamson, among others, and the romantic poets are a given, including songwriters who are often superb lyricists.

How would you summarise one of your poems in one paragraph?

“River”: my most anthologised poem (seven outings). It’s about one’s sense of place, the colours and events that form historical links to the present.

How would you describe the appeal of this poem to readers?

Local people seem to identify with the images. Somehow it often turns up in school assignments – and I receive many emails asking for clarification and explanation of my reason for writing it.

Could you share a stanza or small section of this poem?

Sometimes at night/you can feel the river./In another town/I realise finally/this is my place… The night the migrant mother died/they searched the water first/found her floating, full of river/ arms outstretched to define her country.

How would you describe the contribution this stanza or small section makes to the poem?

The first few lines define the theme: a sense of place. The drowned woman shows the heartbreak of hovering between the new and known. Only the neutral river provides comfort.

Would you describe your poetry primarily as narrative, thematic, character portrait, or how would you describe your poetry?

Varied, but mainly thematic.They range from the big dark themes to happy songs for children.

Do you read your poetry aloud to people? If so, how would you describe the size and response of your listening audiences?

Yes, I’ve read poetry everywhere – writers’ gatherings, festivals, small lounges and pubs. Luckily I have a loud voice and I’ve found the audiences responsive. These days I often work with children. I love their honest responses.

Do you write groups of poems to form collections? If so, how were the poems connected in your most recent collection?

I write poems as they come but often they fall into thematic groups. When I wrote poetry about the early Moreton Bay settlement, I did write specifically, and once for a children’s volume, I wrote class topics – gold rush, bushrangers, migrants, etc. In the most recent acceptance (10 for a US anthology called “Poems from the Dark Side”) the poems were linked by their general misery! Most poets probably have sufficient poems to fit into thematic groups. There are only a few themes after all.

Author website: www.janturnerjones.wordpress.com



JR McRae - Author Interview: Poet

What kinds of poetry, including songs, did you experience as a child and teenager, and did you have some favourites?

As a child, the rhythm of rhyming verse fascinated me, what I like to call the music locked in language. I was fortunate to have a father who loved to quote and recite the wonderful whimsical poems by Lewis Carroll and the high melodrama of Mrs Felicia Hemans. My paternal grandfather would recite poetry too - The Man from Snowy River and The Hunting of the Snark were favourites of his. Evidently, I knew all my nursery rhymes off pat before I went to kindergarten.

I loved Shakespeare as a child and knew all the stories of the plays before I was in high school. I also loved Lewis Carroll, Walter De La Mare, Edgar Allan Poe, Edward Leah, Ogden Nash, C.J. Dennis, Henry Lawson, Dorothea McKellar, Judith Wright, and many more…. As a teenager, I added to these loves Eleanor Farjeon, Robert Frost, Samuel Taylor Coleridge and, again, many more…

Would you say your childhood and teenage experience of poetry has had a distinct influence on how you write poetry now, and why?

Yes and no; yes because the music in poetry, the rhythm has stayed with me, the drama! No, because it is important for any poet to have their own voice and develop their own unique way of communicating through their verse. I rarely write a classically rhyming poem now, although “Babi Yar”, soon to be published in Quadrant, is an exception to this. However, that said, my verse for children is virtually always comprised of a rhyming element [e.g “Fox Shadows”, a poem for all ages, which is to be published in the anthology, “Poe-It”, Static Movement, USA, and as a picture book in September 2012 by Windy Hollow Books].

Who is another poet whose poetry you admire and why?

As an adult, I admire many poets – can’t really pick out just one – Les Murray, Gloria Benjamin Yates, Graham Nunn, Rob Morris, Leonard Cohen and the list goes on… Why do I admire them – for the bravery of their verse, the wry, sardonic humour, the social comment, the acute observation, the stunning imagery, their weaving of words!

How would you summarise one of your poems in one paragraph?

The academic response to poetry is best left to the universities… In the schoolroom, rather than an academic study of verse, students should be encouraged to respond to poetry purely through feelings.

So, a summary… “Alang, the Graveyard of Ships” was written after viewing a documentary on 60 Minutes. The poem describes the agony of lowly paid workers undertaking dangerous work in terrible conditions, demolishing huge ships for salvage iron. The poem compares the monstrous size of the ships with the monstrous task for the workers and their virtual ‘war’ on these ships of war and carriers of affluence, which contrasts so dramatically with the reality of these men’s lives. This is war on lots of levels.

How would you describe the appeal of this poem to readers?

I hope the feelings expressed resonate with readers and give some insight into the plight of these workers and their families. I hope, is it too much to hope, that someone somewhere will read and do something to help the plight of these people in a way I cannot.

Could you share a stanza or small section of this poem?

The living war
        breaks down to individual acts of pain.
The ship is burning - piece by piece
        the welding and soldering of armies
Is undone by men who cry, "For blood, my child, my blood!"
And suffer the indignity of need, muffling their anger in the sand.

The poem is online at http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-163679114.html

How would you describe the contribution this stanza or small section makes to the poem?

I’m a right brainer, so trying to step back and be objective about what this section of this poem was conceptualised to be in context of the whole is ‘interesting’. It has rust and blood breaking down together under fire and screaming – tearing metal, torn lives. It is survival mode at its mot basic, linking the stories of the ships to the lives of the men inextricably. It leads in to the more reflective lament of the ending.

Would you describe your poetry primarily as narrative, thematic, character portrait, or how would you describe your poetry?

I write in the moment, as I feel. It is all about and communicating what I feel about whatever has inspired me. In doing the communicating, sometimes it is narrative sometimes thematic, sometimes character portrait, sometimes lyrical. Feeling is such a varied state – you swim, float, dive, crash and fly…

Do you read your poetry aloud to people? If so, how would you describe the size and response of your listening audiences?

Yes, I love reading to an audience, no matter what the age bracket. I like to draw them into the mood of the poem and have them feel it with me, then change the mood entirely with the next poem so their attention is refocussed otherly. The size of audience varies with the type of gig but I try and interact with the audience in communicating the poem to them and drawing response. I have done many readings & workshops in schools and for Book Week and love sharing poetry with children and teens, enthusing them with the boundless possibilities of poetic expression! They are the poets and readers of poetry of tomorrow. A new venture that has arisen recently for me is teaching people to use poetry to help them cope with grief and survive trauma.

Do you write groups of poems to form collections? If so, how were the poems connected in your most recent collection?

Anthologised before I left school and being published from then continuously, I have had four collections accepted over the years – Refulgence went bankrupt; the contracting editor at Angus & Robertson Imprint left; same with Jacobyte Books; IP, the education distributor reneged…. :{

I’m giving it a fifth shot – “Blood and Other Essentials”. The connection? Very loosely, they are poems about people and how they affect/are affected by social issues and environmental factors. I’m hoping to find a publisher who will let me have a friend illustrate the verse in black and white.

And sixth, I have also done a collection of my verse that I have illustrated, mainly in colour – “Versifeyed”. Its publication is being negotiated at present.

Author website: http://jrmcrae-subversive.weebly.com/



ML Emmett - Author Interview: Poet

What kinds of poetry, including songs, did you experience as a child and teenager, and did you have some favourites?

As a young child I loved rhyming poems, my favourite nursery rhymes were Lavender Blue, Sing a Song of Sixpence (it was a great narrative & you could act it out), and Oranges & Lemons (once again a game with chopping off their head – gruesome!). In junior school we had to learn poems by rote and a remember lots of them eg pieces from Wordsworth, Thomas Hardy, Keats, Shelley & odd ones like Walter De La Mare. My favourite was The Pied Piper of Hamelin because I was chosen to be the narrator while classmates acted out the story. This was a much better end of year event than the usual nativity play which, with blonde hair, meant I was always doing the “Fear Not for behold…” to the Shepherds, desperately wishing I had black hair and could wear the blue Mary dress.
At grammar school, we ‘did’ a Shakespeare every year and I fell in love with each play and later the sonnets. When I got my first school job pay packet I bought a complete Shakespeare for 11s/6d. My second book was John Lennon’s first book of poetry. I loved Art it was my favourite subject followed closely by Chemistry and English. I read life stories about Artists and somehow went into the histories of their lives. I was obsessed with Italy (still am) and at one stage started reading Dante!
I tended to read poems about people, ideas and love as most adolescents do. My favourite poem for years and still is one of my favourites today was A Darkling Thrush by Hardy. I liked melancholy and misery. I rode my bike to outlying villages and would often read poetry. The Great War Poets were introduced to me by my Grandad. I always felt so sad for poets like Owen killed too soon. I publicly read ‘Dulce Et Decorum Est’ once a year (this year in National Science Week: Theme Chemistry). Unlike WWII, which I thought as a child had a worthy purpose; WWI seemed such a waste of lives for no reason.
Loved ‘doing’ poetry in voices so enjoyed reading Robbie Burns with Scots Nan, Dylan Thomas with a Welsh neighbour and loved the Liverpuddlian poets. Lawrence Ferlinghetti was my favourite beat poet because I could understand him.

Would you say your childhood and teenage experience of poetry has had a distinct influence on how you write poetry now, and why?

Yes. I often write poetry in the darker end of the spectrum. I want to write about sad subjects but try not to be maudlin or pathetic. I still like narrative and telling War/political stories (Seasons of Terror). I write trying to evoke empathy for even the enemy, to get people to imagine or experience a situation and think beyond the easy black and whites of life. I like internal rhymes and rather than end rhymes (Hot Boys), but I love trying to work out Hardy’s complex rhymes and practicing form poetry (rarely try to publish that). A long project is sonnet matching Shakespeare.
I like visual language but consciously try to expand that by writing in other sensory language. I write about Art and Science. I’ve done a series of poems on the etchings of Otto Dix (fighting against Wilfred Owen I always imagine), and poems on the retrospective exhibition of John Bracks. I enjoy
I love challenging my self to write about Chemistry, Physics & Science and always write poems to perform at RiAus.

Who is another poet whose poetry you admire and why?

In Australia, Dorothy Porter – feminist, story telling, science interested, history interested and able to work in such a huge variety of Arts fields.
Jules Leigh Koch and Aidan Coleman are both brilliant imagist poets who write tight, concise, strong verse, each with a distinct and powerful voice. Their word economy amazes me.

How would you summarise one of your poems in one paragraph?

Turkish Smyrna is about child labour and the miserable lives children live making beautiful carpets

How would you describe the appeal of this poem to readers?

I am trying to evoke empathy for the children and understand that beautiful rugs in their lounge rooms come at far greater cost than they imagine

Could you share a stanza or small section of this poem?

This carpet - a Turkish Smyrna-
is made with Gordian knots,
tied by the fine fingers of a child
tied to a loom
by a thin, pale leg.

How would you describe the contribution this stanza or small section makes to the poem?

It introduces the carpet and the repetition lines which the poem returns to like a sad hopefully poignant refrain.

Would you describe your poetry primarily as narrative, thematic, character portrait, or how would you describe your poetry?

It can be any of the above. I like story telling, but I like odd quirky ones. I like characters but strange ones.

Do you read your poetry aloud to people? If so, how would you describe the size and response of your listening audiences?

I read to my family – responses are mixed, but brutally honest.
But I regularly read at FSP meetings (up to 120 people per meeting) and perform in a variety of venues, Festivals, Libraries, Art Gallery, even the Royal Show! I usually do a couple of serious one followed by a light one. I usually get a very positive response. I can read clearly and ‘perform’ my work. Many poets who write really well get a negative response at FSP because they read in a flat boring tone, or race through with nerves or refuse to use the mic. properly.
I love reading at the Art Gallery and at RiAus when FSP does crossovers of Science & Poetry.
A small low vision group were my most attentive audience ever. I read them poems about my foreign travel poems + funny observation poems + poems about sea/ sky/ seasons.

Do you write groups of poems to form collections? If so, how were the poems connected in your most recent collection?

I have several books planned around quite specific themes. My first book was about shared humanity & facing death/loss (sorry to be so glum! – not really)