The Bridge
Last week I crossed a space between the territories of architectural criticism and creative writing at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane, and the re-vamped State Library. I enjoyed hearing about psychoanalytic interpretations of home and art from Katarina Wadstein Macleod, and it was very cool to meet Katja Grillner from Stockholm who spoke about shifting place perceptions. Howard Raggatt’s “Not Songs” carved out urban madrigals from the chaos of sound, while Niki Kalms brought us raunch culture from King St, Melbourne with its after hours strip clubs and lap pole dancing venues.
These low res pics are taken from Kirilpa Bridge.
Another bridge I’ve walked recently has been Michele Leggott’s Home and Away, a Trans-Tasman digital link connecting poets from New Zealand, Australia, Asia and the States. This is a diverse digital poetry experience of an exceptional standard, and you should check it out. You might like to contribute to the poems and conversations…
http://www.nzepc.auckland.ac.nz/features/home&away/sydney.asp
While walking a bridge, one may experience its steel geometries, the sway and oscillations of suspension, the panorama of rivers, harbours, the modernist or brutalist facades of skyscrapers, restaurants and boatsheds. One of my favourite bridges is the Glebe Island Bridge, quite mesmeric to drive across, particularly at night, when there’s not much traffic. I like too, the Brooklyn Bridge, its spun wire ropes over East river connecting Manhattan to Brooklyn. Hart Crane described its “swift/Unfractioned idiom” in a praise poem.
