Negative Capability

Spring has arrived in the suburbs of the metropolis. There are school girls sitting on our nature strip conversing at dusk. The nymphs and gardeners have been diligent. Peach trees are covered with pink blossoms and the magnolia we cut back last year has flowered thickly in dark, opium-scented maroon. Abundant species of wattle cross-pollinate, colouring the freeway, north and south.

In my semi-sedate state, after dropping Tegan off at school, I flew to Brisbane last week for the Queensland Poetry Festival, where among the highlights were readings by Andrew Taylor, August Kleinzahler and performances by Emily XYZ and her partner. I was there to receive a poetry award, and I think it all went well enough. It was nice to have a few hours alone to write in my hotel room, which surprised me with its brash vista of plazas, appartments, cranes, billboards advertising condoms and the cropped foliage of palm trees. And it was fun getting dressed-up formally, curling my stubbornly straight hair, before stepping out into the Valley’s balmy night and heading for the Judith Wright Centre, a revamped industrial art space, which has a great vibe. I got to meet the poets Bronwyn Lea, Felicity Plunkett and Graham Nunn, whose work I really admire.

Half-way through the announcement I realised I had brought the wrong poem with me, having entered two. It was a funny and arbitrary moment, which I recall slipping away quite perfectly, proving and disproving Murphy’s indefatigable law of errors, and the notion of impermanence I am forever failing at learning to absorb. May the goddess bring me rest, if not restylane.