Entries 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

I was inspired to write this post after reading about Graham Nunn's favourite bookshops. One of those was Shakespeare and Company, and it reminded me of my visit there almost nine years ago.

When Sylvia Beach opened a bookshop called Shakespeare and Company in Paris in 1919, it soon became a haunt for well-known writers of that generation including Ernest Hemingway, Ezra Pound, Scott Fitzgerald and James Joyce. When no publisher wanted to publish James Joyce's Ulysses, Sylvia Beach published it in 1922 under her shop imprint.

Following the Nazi occupation, Beach closed her shop and was sent to an internment camp. Although she returned to Paris in 1944, her bookstore never reopened.

With its motto 'Be not inhospitable to strangers lest they be angels in disguise', George Whitman's bookshop - which used to be a monastery in 1600 - has hosted many well-known writers since he opened it in 1951. It used to be called The Mistral, but he renamed it Shakespeare and Company in 1964 in honour of the late Sylvia Beach.



The shop is full of cubbyholes with low ceilings and mini stairways, and is a delight to explore. Like its predecessor, Shakespeare and Company on Paris's 'Rive Gauche' became a sanctuary of sorts for writers and thinkers. They could always bank on finding a bunk to lie on and a book to read.



Thank you for reminding me of a wonderful place, Graham.

Posted by Jennifer Liston

I'm working my way (slowly) through Gabriele Rico's book Writing the Natural Way.

I'm quite enjoying the discipline of doing each writing exercise. The book claims to 'help unlock natural styles and storytelling abilities'. Maybe that translates to 'using the discipline of writing with the old left brain editor switched off so that creativity has a freer run'.

The author presents a technique called 'clustering' to release creative inhibition and to create links between apparently dissimilar thoughts. It's actually a version of mind-mapping, which I've used quite often, but not for writing poetry.

I'm only up to chapter five (of 14 chapters) so I'll be a while yet! What I really like is that the book is peppered with great quotes about writing, creativity and psychology from all kinds of interesting people.

Here's one:

My question is "When did other people give up the idea of being a poet?" You know, when we are kids we make up things, we write, and for me the puzzle is not that some people are still writing, the real question is why did the other people stop?

William Stafford, Writing the Australian Crawl

I might share a few of the exercises from the book with you soon.

Then again, I might not.

You'll have to be very nice to me.

Posted by Jennifer Liston

I posted an excerpt from a poem here. It's a love poem of sorts.

Here's the full text of the poem, which is included in my book Lead Skeletons.

Let me know what you think.


Note to him/self

You've seeped through every living cell.
You've made my bones your home.
Your presence shades my past uncertainties,
colours my tomorrows.
Your stillness punctures the racket of sleepless thoughts.
Your gentleness swabs wounded memories,
your faith congeals in the bullet-holes in my self-belief.
Your anger reminds me that you need healing too.


© Jennifer Liston 2010

Posted by Jennifer Liston

Here are a few fun photos from the fab Australian launch of my book Lead Skeletons on Friday 6 August 2010.











A big thank you to all who supported me, who came along to the launch, and who bought books.

And another reminder that 10% of the sale price of each book will be donated to Ovarian Cancer Australia: a worthy cause.

Posted by Jennifer Liston

Lead Skeletons is officially released!

Visit White Wave Press to hear my interview with Galway radio station Flirt FM and my book launch in Galway.

Posted by Jennifer Liston

Okay, so here's an excerpt from a poem I wrote after doing the free writing exercise I described in my previous post.

I opened the SA Weekend magazine, selected the headline, and off I went. Here's the first half of the resulting poem. Enjoy!


Thereby hangs a tale...

The night-black bat
with buggily-busting gut
paw-paw plumped
spiderliciously sated
gazes longingly
from his branch
where he and his family
hang (out)...
He nurses to himself his
sordid
socky
secret.
He can hear the
seductive swing
of humans' items
on the clothes line.
His little bat-heart beats
ten times faster
than the rate at which the
sultry
socks
sway
in the night breeze.


© Jennifer Liston 2010
...


Who would have thought that a headline in a weekend newspaper would have lead me to write about a sockaholic bat? As some might say: go figure!

What do you think?

Posted by Jennifer Liston

I attended a fantastic workshop recently run by poet and novelist Lorraine Marwood. She shared three techniques with us to stimulate our writing 'flow'.

My favourite one was the 'free writing' exercise. In the centre of the table, Lorraine placed a big selection of cards with questions printed on them. We each chose a card. With a timer running for five minutes, we had to answer the question in writing. We were not to stop, think or edit, for the entire time. This meant writing ANYTHING that came into our heads as a result of the prompts. Then for another (timed) five minutes, we reviewed what we'd written, selected a few key words or phrases, and wrote a poem including them.

The results were bizarre, interesting and downright entertaining.

Since then, I've done this exercise about eight times. I usually open a page of the newspaper and select a headline or a phrase at random, although once I used a word from our new vacuum cleaner's warranty booklet!

I love this process. It kick-starts my brain, and the free or unconscious writing that I vomit forth brings up some very interesting stuff indeed! I probably have the guts of six or seven fairly decent poems so far.

It's great fun; I never know what my incessantly chattering and eternally 'on' brain is going to serve up. I'll definitely keep doing it.

Maybe I'll share a few unedited lines from one of these random poems in another post.

Posted by Jennifer Liston

Here's the start and end of a poem I wrote in 2002.

This is its first time getting an airing (even a virtual one).


One hundred nautical miles

Scarlet
star lit night
becalmed
in phosphorescenced waters
...
up on deck
lying side by side
under an ink velvet
silvered canopy
one hundred nautical miles
already between us.

© Jennifer Liston 2010

Posted by Jennifer Liston

Many people ask me are my poems suitable as lyrics for songs, can song lyrics be called poetry, and is songwriting a very different genre from poetry. These are interesting questions to which I have no definitive answers.

Most of my poems have internal rhymes and rhythms which only become obvious when the poems are read aloud. I feel that I have hundreds of songs just waiting to bust their way out of the lock-up in my head. And the prison gate is this idea – right or wrong – that writing a song and writing a poem need a completely different approach.

This is definitely worth discussing, but perhaps in another blogpost.

In the meantime, today I start a songwriting course with Deborah Conway and Willy Zygier. I’m hoping it will kickstart my songwriting habit and unleash some of those falsely imprisoned songs.

In spite of the lock-up, some songs do escape!

Last year, my very talented and kooky DJ pal Paul Allan aka The Krakafaktri wrote a tune, I wrote lyrics, then we recorded it (I sang).

You can hear it here.

It's had some airplay on Adelaide's Fresh FM radio station.

I thought I'd share the lyrics with you here.


Serenity Now

Inner space
is where I find that place
safe from grief
safe from disbelief
bring me to that space:
a state of inner grace.

Serenity now
that blessed state
I had to wait
such a long, long time

to feel
to heal
to reveal
my real self

serenity now
in your arms
I float
my boat
on the sea
of serenity.


© Jennifer Liston 2009

Posted by Jennifer Liston

Here is an excerpt from a poem that will probably be included in my third collection:

Note to him/self

You've seeped through every living cell
you've made my bones your home.
Your presence shades my past uncertainties...


...What do you think?

Posted by Jennifer Liston

...so I'd better get writing!

Posted by Jennifer Liston

I was thrilled to do two poetry readings in Galway last week: one at the Roisin Dubh (4th November) and one at the Crane bar (9th November).

Both were well attended, and it was great to share the podium with such talented local poets, and with Canberra's own Tobias Manderson-Galvin, who is Munster Slam Champion 2009.

Many thanks to Kevin Higgins of Over the Edge, Laurie Leech and John Walsh for organising speaking slots for me at short notice.

Much appreciated...and I'll definitely be back mid-next year to do another few readings. Perhaps even a book launch...

Posted by Jennifer Liston

...in dreams I see
a wise old man
draw our lives in sand: they meet
our old, vibrant spirits
dance
close
to another dimension’s beat...

Posted by Jennifer Liston

The Hon. Michael Atkinson, MP, Attorney-General and Minister for Multicultural Affairs, launched my second poetry collection in the SA Writers’ Centre, Adelaide today.

Entitled 17 poems: one for every year of innocence, it is published by White Wave Press and is available for purchase here.

Each edition includes an audio/mp3 CD of me reading the 17 poems. The CD also contains bonus readings of two poems from my first collection, Exposure (2003).

Only 150 imprints of 17 poems: one for every year of innocence have been created.

Go here now and buy a book or several.

Posted by Jennifer Liston