My first Lark

I’d already heard of the Lark Distillery from Tasmanian Sue Dilley when she was part of “Tasmanian Frenzy” at the Frank Ledwell Storytelling and Comedy Festival at St. Peter’s Courthouse in July. Hosted by Patrick Ledwell, and featuring comedian Fraser McCallum and Poet Laureate Hugh MacDonald, the evening included Deirdre Kessler on guitar, Sue on mandolin, and their friend Terri Lukacko on old-time fiddle collaborating on some trans-hemispherical tunes. Sue’s a regular at the Lark when she’s home in Tasmania – Richard Lemm had shown us some pictures on her band when he did his talk on Tasmania in UPEI’s Faculty Lounge earlier this spring.  

 

So my first night at the Lark – which doubles as a distillery, café and bar (with Moo Brew!) - featured "Novelists on Place and Experience," with Danielle Wood, author of the book The Alphabet of Light and Dark and Robyn Mundy, author of The Nature of Ice, set partly in Antarctica. Danielle has also been in our Faculty Lounge – she was the first Tasmanian to participate in the PEI-Tasmanian Writers’ Exchange, and I attended her writing workshop probably four years ago now. I don’t blame her for not remembering me… it’ll be a miracle if I can remember all the people I met in my first days and weeks here! But our host, Chris Gallagher of the Tasmanian Writers’ Centre, was a familiar face, and of course Pete came along.

And Robyn is a friend of my officemate, Antarctic scholar Jenny Scott. Robyn and her partner Gary Miller are in Tasmania for a couple of weeks, preparing for a four-month caretaking stint at the lighthouse in the Maatsuyker Islands. They fly in and out by helicopter... reminds me of Sable Island off Canada's east coast. Talk about being situated in place!

Robyn Mundy and Jenny Scott

The evening opened with the awarding of a poetry prize sponsored by the UTas Departments of Philosophy and Geography & Environmental Studies, as well as Fullers Bookshop, the Tasmanian Writers' Centre, and Island. The theme was "Place and Experience," and organizers received 268 entries from all over Australia. Unfortunately, neither the winner nor any of the finalists was from Tasmania, but we got to hear some wonderful place poetry to start the evening.

Danielle Wood and Robyn Mundy

We took a short break, then Chris, Danielle, and Robyn took their chairs around the coffee table. Both women read and then Chris asked some amazing questions about place. Here are some sound bytes from the evening:

Danielle quoting Pete Hay: “Place is not to be trifled with.”

Robyn: “Place is more than a setting; it’s as animate as any human figure. For me, Antarctica is a human character.”

Danielle: “I’m very much from Tasmania. Long-term relationships with and deep affections for places are very important, especially places we’ve spent our childhoods. Inheritance factors strongly, too – the fact that generations before you have been here… And, most important is taking inspiration from the environment we’re in… Place is all around us: our city, our countryside, we connect to it. Do we value our natural environment enough? Probably not.”

 

Robyn: “I was listening to the ABC news the other evening, and not once were Tasmania (where I was born) or Western Australia (where I now live) mentioned. There’s something about being on the edge – being separated by the Bass Strait – isolation, segregation, being quite separate from the mainstream…”

Danielle: “Writing in a place is different from writing about a place. My book was written in Western Australia, not Bruny Island – but my longing for Tasmania infused my writing.”


Danielle: “Place, character, and time – these three things all create you, and they’re almost impossible to untangle.”

Pete said later that he’d planned to be a fly on the wall and not say anything, but of course he couldn’t… He talked about place discourse being a political act; that it’s in resistance to globalization: “In the name of market rationality we must resist homogeneity and claim and catalogue particularity of place.”  Writers and artists can do that. Danielle cited two examples: protecting the Tasmanian forests and Lake Pedder – these rallying points, so central to the environment, offered Tasmanians the opportunity to do something different here.

Danielle: “I’m immensely proud to be here, where there’s a strong tradition of being different.”

Finally, I can’t remember who said this: “Who do you become when you go to the coast? The go-go-go of day-to-day existence becomes a time when you get to know yourself.”

Sounds like the best reason to live on an island…

PS
Deirdre and I have been invited to be guest poets at the next "Lark" on Wednesday, October 27, starting at 6 p.m.!

Pete Hay with Tasmanian poet Adrienne Eberhard