Louise Oxley and Ron Pretty read tonight at the Lark in Hobart. A small audience; possibly due to St Patrick’s Day. Format for the evening was ten minutes to each reader; a fifteen minute break; with another ten minutes each followed by questions, if any.
Ron Pretty is first to read. “In this section I’ll be reading a number of poems from a new collection to be published in May or June entitled ‘Postcards from the Centre’, and in the second section some poems I’ve written during my residency at the Writers’ Cottage in Hobart’. Poems in the first section include ‘Keats Hereafter’ “written some time before the movie ‘Bright Star’ came out, at a time after I’d been reading quite a few Keats’ poems, ‘Cottage Collage’ “speaking to the dichotomy between art and craft” and ‘Witches Hook’, “possibly the only outcome of my only attempt to write a novel”.
Louise Oxley opens with a whale poem, written about the overnight stay she’d shared with Ron Pretty and other members of the Five Islands New Poets’ Series 9 some years ago. “We travelled across much of the country, on the trip between Adelaide and Perth we were averaging 900 kilometres a day. This is a poem that came out of one of the overnight stops we made on that trip”. Next follows a poem that came out of a Hobart Mountain Festival collaboration, and ‘After the Diagnosis’, and finally a couple of love poems written after a visit to Wales.
Ron Pretty, following the break, suggests that since his next bracket of poems were written during his ten days in Hobart “if some of these seem a little raw you’ll know why it is’. ‘String Theory’ is first – and much admired – then a series of eight sonnets “that go by the title of ‘No. 1 Kelly Street’ “. There’s humour in the last of these, “if you’ve seen the flyer that’s circulated for this reading you’ll see me referred to as ‘the elder statesman of Australian poetry’. Must have had an effect because it’s triggered a decent poem. ‘Where is Boswell I want to know,’ asks Pretty.
Louise Oxley’s second piece opens with two poems about the joys of going backwards, including ‘Lagging Behind’. Next she reads ‘Sitting with Cezanne’. “I’ve just been to Canberra to see the post-impressionists ‘in the flesh’ so to speak; Cezanne’s always been important”. She follows with three in a suite of new poems in response to the journals of the French naturalist Labillardière. “This seems to be a sonnet evening, the first of the three is a double sonnet, the other two are more formal. Labillardière is exacting in his description of the flora he encounters in his explorations; I see the same trees on the channel and realise I’ve come to take them for granted … these poems are an attempt to see them through his eyes”.
Following the reading there’s time for questions. Ron Pretty speaks of his plans to set up a poetry imprint entitled ‘Profile Poetry’; a couple of titles a year, and probably by invitation. He notes that while he’s committed to poetry and its publication, he’s well aware of problems facing the industry, particulary with distribution. He suggests that support for the multitude of very good poets in this country is poor and in consequence, we have a situation where poets see poetry as its own reward – not bad in itself – but with publication not being sought because it’s just too difficult. “At present as poets we’re merely writing to one another; and that’s selling poetry short”. Ron mentions the positives – groups such as Red Room “who are doing lots of good things, poetry on pigeons, for instance” – and the negatives: the festivals designed for poets but not for audiences. Conversation turns to the loss of poetry publishing opportunities; Ron points out that when Penguin withdrew its support for poetry, it also meant the loss of the company’s poetry publicists. “Thus the resources for getting poetry out into the mainstream were also lost”.
Ron Pretty will be conducting a poetry workshop – ‘The Poetry of Witness: How can poets write about issues – politics, ideology, ecology? Can a non-indigenous poet write about indigenous issues?’ – in Hobart on Saturday afternoon from 1 to 4pm. At this stage a handful of vacancies remain for this workshop, ring the Tasmanian Writers’ Centre if you’d like to take part, tel 6224 0029.