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- RALPH WESSMAN
Tasmanian
Poetry Festival 2009
Launceston Poetry Cup evening
By 7.10 pm
there are but a handful of patrons who’ve arrived to listen to and take part in the
Launceston Poetry Cup, the premiere event of the Tasmanian Poetry Festival. A table of
interstate invitees mass at one end of the room, and a small group of locals settle in
nearby. But the kitchen’s busy, where sandwiches are being produced en masse for
inclusion in the $10 entry fee. The query ‘Need a hand?’ is met with a polite
but firm refusal.
By 7:30 though,
the hall’s full and Festival Director Cameron Hindrum commences the evening’s
proceedings. As ever, the keynote - as it’s been since it began under Tim
Thorne’s direction in 1985 – is friendliness and informality. ‘And as
I’ve a habit of saying every year: if you’ve any complaints, keep them to
yourself,’ Hindrum continues. He mentions the quiz which will be run during the
evening and which he now puts in train with his first couple of questions.
‘That was
the first one. Now question two: who was the winner of the 1991 Launceston poetry Cup?
‘Can we
write down who should have won?’ a disembodied voice queries from offstage.
‘No Tim,
that won’t do,’ comes Hindrum’s courteous but steady response.
The first event
of the evening is Tim Thorne’s launch of the poetry collection Far Beyond the Sun
which features the work of poets Andrew Hardy and Chris Rattray. Thorne compares
Hardy’s contributions here to the poems appearing in his first collection, Cornford
Press’ High in the Paw Paw Tree (2003). ‘Andrew’s poems in this
book match the quality of the work in his first,’ he attests. ‘His untimely
death in 1997 deprived us of a very valuable contributor to the running of the festival -
he was always willing to get in and lend a hand; not so much on Sunday mornings perhaps
– and it’s a matter of incredible sadness that we’re not able the
witness the development of Andrew's poetic career. The release of High in the Paw Paw
Tree drew a number of critical reviews, one of which likened him to a younger Eric
Beach, and that of course is very high praise indeed.’ Chris Rattray, present in the
audience, is welcomed to the microphone to read from the collection.
Cameron Hindrum
returns to introduce the next segment of the evening’s programme. ‘Normally our
festival guests are not programmed to read as a precursor to the Launceston Poetry Cup,
but we’ve made an exception for Kristin Hannaford who needs to catch a 7 am flight
back to Rockhampton tomorrow morning.’ Kristin is an assured performer, completely
‘Relaxed and Comfortable’ (to coin a Thorne poem). Her first offering is an
extended poem moving from the northern Midlands of Tasmania circa 1972 through 1840’s
Victoria, Sydney around 1880 and then to various Queensland locations. Next follow a
number of Queensland poems, ‘Displacement, ‘Pumpkin Island Notes’
("first published in Tasmania!") and ‘Night Storms’, speaking of the
tail end of the cyclonic storms that sweep down from the north to vent their fury on
central Queensland, ‘sticky with possibilities / of greater than average
rainfall’ and their resulting inventories of ‘windows closed, children in."
‘I wondered if the poems I chose were too serious,’ Kristin says later, but it's
doubtful. Rappers Choo Choo and Wire M.C. who performed at last year’s festival were
deadly serious, as was ‘scribesisterspeaking’: ‘but we always knew that we
were lucky / lucky country, young and free, this wide brown land for me / so we’d
periodically bake cakes to raise money for those less fortunate / because injustice was
something that happened elsewhere / mainly in Africa actually // full stop. next
chapter.’. Admittedly, their gigs weren’t scheduled for Cup night.
Robin Archbold
from Lismore takes the stage. ‘I’m a sophisticated new age man…’ he
murmurs in what begins as perhaps the gentle serenade of an ideal partner but soon
achieves its discombobulated apogee. It’s time for the Cup….
‘In the
annals of great cupness,’ Hindrum begins, after the break…. Cameron’s
frequently expansive. Fronting a classroom – day in, day out – could cure him
you'd think, but apparently not. He revisits the rules - ‘Bribery won’t work,
but feel welcome to try: preferably with beer!' – before settling down to business.
‘For this evening there are twenty-eight entries, a very big field; last year there
were just twenty-two’.
‘People
often ask me,’ Hindrum continues, ‘what is a Cup poem? I exempt myself from the
Cup because I’m the festival director – I mean I know this is Tasmania, yet I
have my standards – so here’s a typical cup poem: topical and funny.’
Cameron entertains on the subject of Brendon Fevola, who ‘thinks he’s a
Porsche’. (Perhaps he’s a Corolla?)
‘To kick
off,’ Cameron continues, ‘here’s Jacqui Williams.’
It’s never
easy to be called to read first, and Jacqui’s brief piece – cleaning: ‘I
hate it!’ – is met with polite applause, as is Jocelyn Cooper’s reflection
on the inherent dangers of gardening roses. Then follows a poem on junk mail, followed by
perhaps the first serious contender for the evening, Kevin Gillam complete with his cello.
Above the music’s pitch appears to be a reflection on ‘wet … is the colour
of thinking’. ‘There goes Kevin Gillam: what a very fine cello he is,’
Hindrum intones as Kevin departs.
It’s left
this evening to Sheila Burchill to introduce the topic of the proposed Tamar Valley pulp
mill, with her reflection on Gunns’ little Green book: in Sheila’s view it's not
so very dissimilar from Mao’s little Red one. Clara Murray asserts that in the
beginning ‘all was iambic pentameter’ before Valerie Tinmouth takes off where
Sheila left off. ‘You may think I’m rather queer / cos I made love to a Finnish
pulp mill engineer’, (a reference to the interest of Finnish firm Jaakko Poyry in the
pulp mill proposal). Evidently, for Tinmouth, it was far from a relationship made in
heaven because following the lovemaking his little Finnish feet ‘vanished into Finn
air’.
‘Okay,
I’m game to go there,’ Hindrum continues. ‘ When he was in bed, did he
Finnish early?’
Rob Morris wins
plenty of support with his panel van perceptions, while Joy Elizabeth takes another swipe
at political support for the pulp mill which she fails to see as sexy in the least.
Mentioning the Libs, the Greens and Gay, she openly wonders about ‘intersex’:
‘Not quite Jack and not quite Jean’
‘What if
you have sex with a Finnish pulp mill person, what’s that make you?’ Hindrum
teases.
‘Traitor!’
comes the rifled response.
Vicky Riette
visits Tasmania’s fox dilemma – ‘it’s tallyho, a hunting we go’ -
while Ron Moss offers a cricket haiku and the competition’s first duet entry tackles
a survey of Aboriginal education. Yvonne Gluyas is convinced her cat can speak, and Ian
Howard declares himself a defender of rhyme. ‘Faster than a speeding metaphor,’
adds Hindrum.
Ross Donlon, visiting from
Castlemaine, gathers immediate support with his entry. ‘To be born, press 1. / To
know your mother and father press 2. / To speak to either parent, press 3....’ But
though there’s sustained support for Ross, there’s plenty too for Ros Lewis, the
next contestant. ‘Sixty-four days to Copenhagen / nineteen hours forty-five minutes
and twelve seconds.’ Does Tasmania care, she asks? Does Princess Mary know
what’s going on?
Zenobia Frost takes the stage -
Cameron lowers the microphone - with a spiel about her namesake, the Warrior Queen
Zenobia. Nick Flittner wonders why we spend so much time in supermarkets, those
‘cathedrals of consumption’. Tony Rayner makes an intelligent point with his
cleverly composed creation questioning the island’s forest agenda- ‘yet we cut
down the trees / acidify the seas’ - while Ross Coward capitulates to the
‘descent into twilight’ and the unrecoverable dreams of the mind. Jenny Neill
garners support with her ditty of the perfect couple, who’d be awesome together
‘if I wasn’t a poet / if you didn’t hate haiku’, Belinda Jeffrey
alludes to hardships in Kings Cross, Long Bay Jail and Steve Davis caricatures cows and
cars. Robin Archbold declares his is the best f****** poem ever written, ‘all the
great poets: Shelley, Keats, Thorne / wish they’d written this little rhyme’,
concluding with ‘I will say without any fear / that the meaning of life is in
here.’ Tim Thorne offers a dark piece about re-education possibilities for members of
Timber Communities of Australia, and the final Cup entry concludes with the razing of a
relationship over stealing someone’s boyfriend.
Judges move to appraise the
winner, and to the astonishment of each there’s all but unanimous agreement. All
judges have placed Ian Howard third. Two of the three have awarded Ross Donlon first place
and Valerie Tinmouth second, while the other has placed Donlon second and Valerie first.
For only the second time in twenty-five years, a non-Tasmanian resident – Ross Donlon
- has won the Cup, (the winner the other occasion being Lauren Williams).
‘It’s a tradition of
course for the winning poet to repeat his or her poem,’ demands Hindrum.
‘Thank you,’ says
Donlon. ‘Thank you Launceston, thank you Tasmania, this lovely little island in the
Bass Strait, thank you, thank you,… I'd like to dedicate this poem to Telstra.'
‘Don’t thank
Gunns!!!’
‘Oh no, not Gunns! Mmm: do
I still have to recite it in under a minute?’