What else but Doc Martens...?
Awarded the doctorate last year, graduation ceremony earlier this year...
Awarded the doctorate last year, graduation ceremony earlier this year...
 I'm delighted that acclaimed Australian poet Tracy Ryan launched my poetry collection nothing to declare (Puncher and Wattmann) on Saturday 31st October. It was a full moon and Hallowe'en so the Zoom connection didn't quite go according to plan (natch), however, a video and photo compilation is being put together, so all is not lost. This photo was taken at the launch by Warren Bredenhann. I'm standing in front of a stunning canvas called Kaalpakarti (going to Kaalpa, Well 23) created by Judith Anya Samson and Corban Clause Williams of Martumili Artists (from the Pilbara). Well 23 is on the Canning Stock Route. I'm so grateful to FORM and The Goods Shed for allowing me to have my launch there, and to the generous folk at Howard Park Wines for sparkling wine, and Remi Guise of Tripe Iscariot for the Chardonnay, Grenache Rose, and Syrah. A real celebration of Margaret River's best! A huge thank you to my friends, neighbours and colleagues for joining me, and also family and dear friends on the Zoomiverse.    In which Travel Editor Stephen Scourfield meets West Australian country music legend Sam Lovell at the Nambung Country Music Muster; Will Yeoman talks to poet Mags Webster about the art of the Pilbara, living in Hong Kong and her new poetry collection Nothing to Declare; and photographer Mogens Johansen shares some tips for photographing under a summer sun. 
Such a privilege to appear with Rochelle Potkar, Sara F. Costa, Kavita A. Jindall, and Usha Akella on this wonderful Isolation Break initiative devised by the New York Writers Workshop (NYWW) and the Asia-Pacific Writers and Translators Association (AWPT), and curated by Ravi Shankar. We were tuning in from all over the world: UK, India, Portugal, the States, and Western Australia (hence my late night, appearing at 1am, thoroughly worthwhile). We read from our work and participated in a Q & A session. So many borders are being crossed through all these virtual means. Time zones, combinations of writers, experiences. Unable to travel for real, it seems that thankfully we are still able to travel in other ways. No passport required. The full recording (and others in the same series) can be found here.  This weekend I am appearing at the Nanga Music Festival in Dwellingup, Western Australia, and looking forward to being in the company of many wonderful lyricists and musicians. Details of the festival here
 Trying out some wings for size at The Goods Shed, Claremont, Perth WA where I occasionally work. They tell me the halo is in the mail.
What is the taste of words? If we hold them in our mouths, why can't we taste them? Why can't we feel them? Crunch of consonant, eel of diphthong, ovum of vowel? How can speech - voice - just be air and vibration? Ephemeral, immediate, performative, speech is uttered and then it is gone. It lives in the sound and the moment of its delivery. Conversations can be transposed to memory, but speech is both made and erase in the moment of its utterance. What is left of it?
 Is this an auspicious day to begin a blog? I don't know. But if I start consulting horoscopes it will give me the excuse for yet another delay before writing anything. As I type, the gentlemen you see on your left (who I like to think of as my office guardians) are contemplating me with their usual inscrutable calm. I, on the other hand, (trying to write something witty and amusing which will keep your interest alive), am aware of grinding gears, and the sound of rough unpolished thoughts clanking together like rusty buckets in a well.
|
Photo by Bewley Shaylor
About MagsWriter, dreamer, apprentice human being Archives
May 2021
Categories |
||
RSS Feed