A Taste Of Words
16 September 2009
A Taste of Words
The Mildura Writers’ Festival has to be the Club Med of writers’ gigs. You shouldn’t miss an opportunity to attend, to enjoy mulled, literary lunches by the Murray river, the superb lectures and interviews held at La Trobe University, and the epicurean tastes of Stefano de Pieri’s cuisine. You get to meet his beautiful, and talented wife Donata, too. Among this year’s guests were elite writers like Sophie Cunningham, Alex Skovron, Peter Steele, who was awarded the Philip Hodgins Memorial Medal, and fellow medico, Peter Goldsworthy. I especially loved Rofel Brion’s bilingual poetry reading, Ron Sharp’s lecture on friendship, Robert Gray’s wit and the brilliance of Alexis Wright, reading us into hypnosis, from Carpentaria.
In July the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature was launched at Gleebooks in Sydney. I’m looking forward to reading as much of this book as I can, Peter Craven’s racially-tinged ABR review, notwithstanding. I commend Ivor Indyk for critiquing the absence of migrant voices in this anthology. If merit could be judged by weight alone however, at 1500 odd pages, this book would need no reviews. The dust cover of my autographed copy optimistically describes its Australian voice as one that draws on “Indigenous words, migrant speech and slang.” The cover photograph, by Indigenous artist, Michael Riley, depicts a feather against a vibrantly blue sky, suggesting unrestrained flight and soft vocal landings.
Vote 1 for God: 2009 Blake Poetry Prize
By Divine Rights, god is either a landscape of courtly love or an Anglo-Celtic philanderer, pervert, poet, take your pick, so I was delighted to learn that some of my Hindu god poems were highly commended in this year’s Blake Poetry Prize. I’m thinking next year they should introduce a popular choice prize, as they do on Dancing With the Stars.
Dancing and prayers aside, I can’t wait to go to the Ubud Writers’ Festival in October, where I’ve been invited to read and teach. I’ll be travelling, as well, to the ancient Buddhist shrine of Borobudur in Central Java. It’s a sacred place between rivers and volcanoes, where I’m sure to find some metta and inner harmony. More about the festival events here: http://www.ubudwritersfestival.com/
What I’ve Loved Reading
Aravind Adiga’s Between The Assassinations for its penetrating realism and black humour. Set in the 80′s after the assassination of Indira Ghandi, and before that of her son, Rajiv, it takes you inside the lives of an imaginary city midway between Goa and Cochin, where the corruption and caste differences create sharp, livid, and despairing reflections of India.
Paul Kane’s A Slant of Light, is beautifully printed by Whitmore Press. These wonderful poems are mannered excursions into rural Australia, a metaphysical wilderness, where time is ruptured.
