Poetry: alive and thriving in Tasmania

You know how we say at home that there are more poets per square inch than any other province…. Well I’d say that Tassie would give PEI a run for its money. And that’s saying something since they have nearly five times as many people in an area that is twelve times the kilometerage of ours.

One of the first things I did when I arrived in Hobart was go to a poetry reading at the Republic – a pub that’s known for its alternative music scene and Sunday poetry readings. The following evening I sat in with a group of writers learning more about poetry in an eight-week class called “Poetry Alive” with poet and publisher Anne Kellas; Pete had been invited to talk to them about his long poems and he invited me to tag along. Anne then very graciously invited me to come back in October to talk about my prose poems, which I did this past Monday. It was such a treat to read some poems and then talk about them to this wonderfully informed and interested group of people.

From left: Anne Kellas (our teacher extraordinaire) with Esther, Hilary, Terry, Geoff, John, Jan, Karen, and Michael

So on the weekend of Oct. 1-3 I attended the Tasmanian Poetry Festival, in Launceston, a city of about 100,000 two-and-a-bit hours north of Hobart.

The festival was founded 25 years ago by Tim Thorne - familiar to many of us already as he was the most recent Tasmanian to come to PEI as part of the Tasmania-Prince Edward Island Writers’ Exchange. Over the years, the Festival has showcased hundreds of poets from around the world. Writes  the current Festival Director Cameron Hindrum in the 16-page program, it’s “almost certainly the longest continually held regional event of its kind in Australia (I keep making this latter claim, and as yet no one has produced any evidence to the contrary).”

(All weekend I kept thinking to myself how much it was like the Milton Acorn Festival, one of those rare gems that died a tragic death... It was the only Board that I, along with Joe Sherman and Frank Ledwell, was ever fired from!)

Festival Director Cameron Hindrum

So 25 years was pretty special, with guest poets reading alongside local poets in various venues, such as on board the Tamar Odyssey “as twilight settled over the Tamar River,” the Boatshed (home to the rowing club), Fullers Bookshop, Taste on Q café, the Mowbray Golf Club, and the Old Baptist Church. The Festival included two Canadians, including our very own Deirdre Kessler, who was a guest of the Festival in 2007.  She read from Afternoon Horses, published by Acorn Press (ME)! The other, Jacqueline Turner, also a repeat guest, is from Vancouver and is the author of Seven Into Even, Careful, and Into the Fold, all published by my friends at ECW Press in Toronto. (Such a small world, really…)

Poet Emily Ballou

Other Australian poets included Joe Dolce, whose 1980s song "Shaddap You Face" holds the five times platinum record for most successful song in Australian music for three decades in a row; he read from his first book of poetry, Hatbox. (Check it out on YouTube, and see if you remember it! I did!) Mark Tredinnick, author of The Blue Plateau: A Landscape Memoir, was thrilled to announce that his first book of poetry, Fire Diary, was making its debut at the festival. (I’m sure his publisher was happy, too!) Emily Ballou read from her award-winning verse-portrait of Charles Darwin called The Darwin Poems; Ray Liversidge read from Obeying the Call and The Barrier Range; Peter Bakowski read from his various publications, as well as from a manuscript of 202 witty, aphoristic, and often hilarious two-line poems he’s working on now; and Myron Lysenko performed some of his performance poetry (Myron was a founding editor of the literary magazine Going Down Swinging). Ben Walters from Hobart was the only official guest Tasmanian poet. He is the author of the “melancholy wilderness story” Below Tree Level and represented Tasmania in the first national poetry slam. After each of the featured events, the floor was open to local readers, who regaled us with more poetry of varying quality, from the already-published to the writing-for-sixty-years-and-never-read-before, and heaps in between – including some with rhymes. I felt right at home with our PEI Writers’ Guild AGM open-mic readings!

Poet Peter Bakowski

Poet and essayist Mark Tredinnik

The Festival culminated in the much-anticipated “Launceston Poetry Cup” on Saturday evening, which lays down the gauntlet to anyone willing to read a one-minute poem. “If you can generate the loudest audience response, the silverware is yours! It’s loud, it’s contagious, it’s the most fun you’ll ever have in verse” decrees the Festival Program. And it was great fun – 32 poets took up the challenge, and I, never known to sit on my butt when I could be behind a microphone, got up and read “How to Catch a Cowboy.” I didn’t win, but I reckon I was in the top ten! Joe Dolce, who by the luck of the draw went last, was the winner with a song called “Guantánamo Bay” to the tune of “Guantanamera” (count 'em – same number of syllables – just change the emphasis!). His scathingly satirical lyrics brought down the house and he got to take the much-coveted silver cup home to the mainland.

Back row: Jacqueline, Myron, Deirdre, Peter, Emily, and Ben; Front row: Joe, Ray, and Mark

Just some of the poets' books...

I had the privilege of travelling to Launceston and sharing a house with the lovely Ralph Wessman, publisher of the literary journal, Famous Reporter (in which one of my poems was published several years ago), and Walleah Press (which published Pete Hay’s Vandiemonian Essays and Silently on the Tide, as well as Tim Thorne’s Head and Shin); ...

... and the equally wonderful award-winning poet Jane Williams and her amazing 22-year-old daughter, poet/photographer Emily Kelly. Jane is the author of Outside Temple Boundaries, The Last Tourist, and Begging the Question. A veteran of the Festival from a very young age, Emily is working on her courage to get up and read some of her poems one of these years.

I urge you to check out Famous Reporter. It’s a fabulous mix of poetry and fiction a labour of love for Ralph. And he’s open to submissions from non-Tasmanians!

My favourite new poetry – besides Jane Williams, who didn’t read on the weekend, but I got to read some later – came from Ben Walters, by far the youngest poet on the program. He’s writing about his place – Tasmania. He’s grown up keeping his eyes and heart open to this gorgeous island, and he’s now writing it. Plus he’s just a lovely guy. I suspect we’ll be hearing more from him in festivals to come! 

Poet Ben Walters

I also liked Mark Tredennick’s work: accessible, elegant, with poetic preoccupations ranging from home life to his sense of place, which for him (I suspect) are the Blue Mountains in Australia. I’m very much looking forward to reading his books. Indeed, Ralph asked me to review Fire Diary, and after a slight hesitation thinking “what do I know about reviewing poetry?”, I agreed. I mean, duh…

SO much poetry… so little time… (Precisely nine weeks and counting for Ralph’s review!)

A poem on the Sober Poet Tree (there was also a Slightly Inebriated Poet Tree)