Entries by Jennifer Liston

These recent days have been poetry-filled and frilled with meeting many new and fascinating people. Although poetry is not a major feature of Adelaide Writers' Week, I was delighted to meet and chat to Dennis O'Driscoll a couple of times at the event. Dennis is from Tipperary (not too far from my home town) and I can tell you now: his poem 'Someone' is guaranteed to give you goosebumps. And his poetry books sold out at the event! (I remember this happened a few years back when Simon Armitage's poetry collections raced out the tent door and there wasn't a copy left anywhere in Adelaide.) However, I was lucky enough to bag one of the last remaining few copies of Stepping Stones, a collection of Dennis's interviews with his friend and fellow poet, Seamus Heaney.

I also attended the session with Mike Ladd and Les Murray in conversation. Les Murray's most recent collection, Taller when Prone, won the 2012 John Bray Poetry Award. Mike compared Les's poetry about place and surroundings with that of Irish poet Patrick Kavanagh, who believed that 'All great civilizations are based on the parish'. Kavanagh wrote about everyday farming life (for example 'Spraying the Potatoes') and said '...the things that really matter are casual, insignificant little things'.

In another session, Dionne Brand (Canada), Aidan Coleman (Adelaide), Michael Hulse (UK), Mike Ladd (Adelaide), Dennis O'Driscoll (Ireland) and Jan Owen (Adelaide) read a selection of their poems. It was a delight to hear each poet voice his/her own work. I bought a copy of Aidan Coleman's new book, Asymmetry, which I'm looking forward to experiencing. The poems navigate the challenging path of the author's recovery from a stroke; the collection has had rave reviews.

I was disappointed that I couldn't make it to the launch of Friendly Street Poets 'New Poets 17' (which features gareth roi jones, John Pfitzner and Rachael Mead), as well as the launch of Friendly Street Poets 'Flying Kites' edited by Judy Dally and Louise McKenna. I bought a copy of each, however, and I'm looking forward to dipping in.

All in all, mad March has offered Adelaide a nice polite pot of poetry.

In the next post I'll update you on some slam and spoken word events.

Posted by Jennifer Liston

I rescued this short and sharp poem from End of the Night Girl by Amy Matthews (p61) and Mastery by George Leonard (p122).


Mastery of the night

Sometimes we breathe miracles.
Sometimes we thank black larcenous fuck
chewing curiosity on the couch,
lacking dark remorse
strangling charms
peeing persuasiveness;
every phony Einstein
catches nervous villains and depressed psychopaths:
from drunk to superhuman
let's toast the holy hero.

Posted by Jennifer Liston

I rescued this poem from Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt (p115) and Secret Wisdom – Occult societies and arcane knowledge through the ages by Ruth Clydesdale (p148).


Note: 'jakes' is pronounced 'jacks'. It's an old Irish slang word for 'toilet'.


Asylum renovations

Her alchemy torments the planets,
his philosophy:
sour sweepings
from desperate universal truths pamphlets;
the lunatics, understanding divinity, drink hard.
Meanwhile,
        teihr wolrd reraangred
their asylum
protected
they throw themselves reality
bake     flour       bake
pints         drink                 pints
loaves
        and
        drinks;
now, drinking champion

Posted by Jennifer Liston

One of our writing exercises in uni last semester (thank you Amy) was to create a collage poem. This was based on exercises from chapter four, 'Writing as Recycling', from The Writing Experiment, Strategies for innovative creative writing by Hazel Smith.

We had to copy a slab of text from a random page from two books into a Word document and print it out. Then we had to cut out each word using a scissors, mix up the words, select words from the jumble and assemble a new piece of text as a poem.

I modified the process to make it more efficient: I found a nice online word scrambler here and avoided the messy, fiddly cutting and sorting part of the process.

I was intrigued by the result. I prefer to call the resulting poem a 'rescued' poem instead of a 'found' poem or a collage. It's more dramatic, isn't it? I feel that the poem is hiding and that it's my job to look for it using this special recovery mechanism.

Some poems are so thrilled to be rescued that they jump out and do a little jig; others are hesitant or shy and need plenty of encouragement and time. (You see, we can make a story out of anything!)

My rescued poems are different from the poems I usually write. They are dense and jagged; I like to think that they are a bit unstable and could freak out at any moment.

To honour my rescued darlings (rather than killing them) I intend to start a 'Rescue Tuesdays' post on this site.

Every Tuesday I will post one of my rescued poems, so bookmark this site and remember to visit each week. Better still, subscribe to the newsfeed to be notified when I update the site.

Tune in on Tuesday 28 February for the first rescued poem.

Posted by Jennifer Liston

I will be reading a few as yet unpublished poems and chatting with Cath Kenneally on the Writers' Radio program (digital radio, online and 101.5fm) at 1.30pm tomorrow (Sat 19 Nov). The program will be repeated at 3.30pm on Monday (21 Nov).

The program will then be available as a podcast to download for your listening pleasure here.

Posted by Jennifer Liston

Great news for all Kindle owners and poetry lovers!

My second book, 17 poems: one for every year of innocence is now available on Amazon for download to your Kindle.

Get it here.

Posted by Jennifer Liston

Yesterday (11/11/11) I won the Sydney Writers' Centre
11-word story competition, which I entered at the, umm, 11th hour (sorry!).

My 11-word winner was this:

She took 11 minutes to regain consciousness. She forgave him again.

You can read all the great entries here.

Thank you Sydney Writer's Centre. I'm looking forward to receiving my prize (a selection of books).

What fun!

Posted by Jennifer Liston

Here's a little nugget of wisdom from Robert Frost, from an interview with him in The Paris Review:

All thought is a feat of association: having what’s in front of you bring up something in your mind that you almost didn’t know you knew. Putting this and that together. That click.

I hope you have a clickety-click day.

Posted by Jennifer Liston

I've been wrestling with fear around my writing for quite some time now.

Since my first poetry book Exposure was published in 2003, I've struggled to believe my writing is good enough (for whom or what I'm not exactly sure). I've tussled with doubts about my worth as a poet. I've been tormented with thoughts about how others might view my writing or wonder how on earth I managed to get published.

This is in spite of many people buying my books; in spite of tons of feedback about how my poems have affected readers in many wonderful ways; in spite of some delightful moments of optimism and self-belief.

It's like the act of putting my work out there for all to see has made me self-conscious, like the child who suddenly comes to understand what it is to be naked, discovers what it is to be embarrassed and therefore must hide.

Three published poetry books later and my belief in my own writing ability continues to dive. It seems I have created a negative feedback loop that I now desperately need to break.

Knowing that this is a common issue among writers, artists, musicians and other creative types has done little to alleviate my non-stop internal chatter. More worrying to me is that these feelings of inadequacy and fear of criticism have definitely affected my capacity to draw organically from my creative source, to write for myself, to write what I know.

That's why the following sentence from a book called Art and Fear¹ jumped out and smashed me right between the eyes today:

...fears about yourself prevent you from doing your best work, while fears about your reception by others prevent you from doing your own work.

This elegant statement encapsulates beautifully how two spears of fear are paralysing my ability to generate my own, best work.

Now I just need to find ways to:

#1. stop thinking I'm not good enough
#2. stop thinking the world agrees with #1.

If you have any ideas, hints, tips or tricks, I'd love to hear them!



¹ thanks to Amy Matthews for the chapter

Posted by Jennifer Liston

Last week I wrote my first Villanelle ever.

And today I wrote my first Sestina.

Challenging, fun...

...and revealing.

Posted by Jennifer Liston

Remember, if you buy my latest poetry collection, Lead Skeletons, you are also supporting Ovarian Cancer Australia, who receives 10% of the sale price of each copy.

There are still a few numbered copies of Lead Skeletons left, so don't miss out.

Support this worthy charity now... you can purchase from the drop-down menu on the left-hand side of this screen, or you can go to White Wave Press and buy from there.

Thanks in advance!

Posted by Jennifer Liston

I am
intangible grace
granting wishes
fairy flakes
dusting your dreams,
I am
even when you think I’m not
I am
even when you lose sight of me
I am
even when you deny my power,
I am
ancient rituals
fantastical notions
hallucinations,
jar-bound genies
talismans
words of yearning.

I was in the future.

I will be in the past.

I am
present
on your journey
at your side
in your heart.

Posted by Jennifer Liston

Metaphor expresses truths we neither recognised nor had words for in literal language.

Gabriele Rico

Posted by Jennifer Liston

I thought you could beat, pummel, and thrash an idea into existence. Under such treatment of course any decent idea folds up its paws, fixes its eyes on eternity, and dies.

Ray Bradbury

Posted by Jennifer Liston

So, many years later, I'm trying on the mantle of student again!

I've started a Master of Arts in Creative Writing at the University of Adelaide. I'm going to see how well we fit together.

My two lecturers/tutors this semester are Amy Matthews and Jill Jones.

And the classes are an interesting mix of people, which should make it a rich and rewarding experience. (Cliché, anyone?)

I'm glad to report there's plenty of reading being read and writing being written.

I will post more snippets of poetry here soon.

Posted by Jennifer Liston