A Poetic Road Map by Mike Riddle

Isolated Waterholes

What follows is an unashamed and unapologetic South Australian road map to a list of poetic waterholes that have provided sustenance and provoked at least a degree of creativity throughout my life. Please forgive me for offering a specific sample of poems – after choosing the first two, I continued to select only those titles beginning with W to pay homage to (Lindy) Warrell’s Wattletales.

Born in Yorketown, I was blessed to be raised by a mother who treasured poetry, from Shakespeare and Coleridge to Ogden Nash (and whose performance in Ionesco’s The Lesson in the splendid theatrical isolation of Southern Yorke Peninsula, ignited my passion for drama); by a father, the town’s overworked newsagent, who would make brief appearances around the house to quote his favourite poem, Fuzzy Wuzzy Was a Bear or impersonate Mo McCackie; and in a family where puns went unpardoned.

It was a glorious childhood of books, wordsmithing and 78 rpm records; my soul being drained with every play of Bing Crosby reading Oscar Wilde’s The Happy Prince. Amongst all this, surely there had to beat a poetic pulse. While never attaining the moderate achievements of Shakespeare, I have given Nash a crack.

A Different Decade

Roll forward a decade, and following Dad’s loss of health, the family moved to Kensington. Late secondary, early tertiary years saw confusions and wisdom; long-haired and bearded protest against nukes in yak jacket and alpaca beanie; and theatrical inspiration from Samuel Beckett, Howard Brenton and surprisingly, Mother Goose (the often-suppressed nursery rhyme, Barney Butt triggering the writing of my first publicly acclaimed script.)

Poetically, Yeats and McGough had influence, but the purchase of Richard Tipping’s Soft Riots/TV News had a huge impact. The title work and the sexuality, angst and breakdown of the literary form of Multiple 1 exploded my preconceptions of poetry. It could be brief, biting or sometimes beautiful. As Rory Harris said in our one meeting, it could also be the silence before the boot goes in.

Parenting, teaching and community involvement in Port Augusta, Waikerie and Minnipa dominated the late seventies to early nineties, but tiny ponds of inspiration like Porta Bloody Gusta, Bald Man’s Bravado and The Ballad of Western Districts entertained the locals. Collisions, poems with a vehicular or crash-referenced title, upon impact, reduce speed, turning circles, about people I had collided with, were self-deemed as worthy.

Directing two full-length and one shorter production per year, coordinating music and end of year concerts at Naracoorte High School and Lucindale Area School for the twelve years leading into July 2006 left little time for reflection and anything creative but incidental writing. The exception was a successful short but deviously clever (for deviously clever read silly) absurdist play, Sometimes We Lie.

Then, the World Changed

Then, just after beginning to write for and reinvigorating the outrageous Lucindale Players, the world changed, not because of the excision of the twice misdiagnosed malignant squamous cell carcinoma on my right cheek, but possibly because of the extensive chemo’ and radiotherapy that followed. Having dealt with the head and neck dissection, I returned to teaching only to become aware of ever-increasing facial pain. By March 2008, fatigued and reliant upon high-end opioids, a wealth of other medications and Botox, to relieve palsy and promote neck movement, my career of working with children was over.

I grieved, particularly in the dream state, but maintained what I believe to be a commendable positivity and within a year had splashed wholeheartedly into an entirely new plunge pool, writing and self-publishing. A company – Caught Jester Books – came into existence. Interaction with illustrators led to excellent collegiate relationships being formed as a mixture of homegrown and professionally printed children’s books and illustrated poetry anthologies were published.

Melbourne-based Jody Pratt, a beautiful soul, delightfully illustrated the poems of Missile Annie & Whinging William, tales to be read aloud of a three and a half-year-old missile and a four-year-old whinger. Attendance at local markets began CJB’s association with charities, with a percentage from each sale donated to the local branch of the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Three Cornered Hat included three separate anthologies. The Way to Dusty Death, sparked by my original party piece, Four Hairs Had I, an adolescent male taking a bath with his rubber duck called Spot, reflected life’s journey in five-year intervals from zero to ninety with a Macbeth reference in every poem. A Lesser Life chronicled the experiences and emotions of the early years of my cancer journey while The Word Mugger mucked about with words presenting quirky poems with titles ranging from A to Z.

Mandy brought poems about distorted Australian animals such as the evil title character, The Pitypus and The Numbutt, to life, with humour and verve. But may it never be forgotten that all began with the cancer-attacking warrior wombat, The Wombattleon!

Launched by Peter Goers (who joyously for my ego, twice declared me Hot in his Sunday Mail articles), The Kanceroo (supported by I’m Confused with its granting of human characteristics to Australian animals) was given to ailing and grieving friends and their families, to children in the Adelaide Children’s Hospital, the Leukemia Foundation Village in Northfield and distributed around the country by the Lions Club of Naracoorte. A percentage from sales was directed towards Cancer Council SA.

Trying to raise interest in poetry in Naracoorte led to the establishment of The Poet’s Pen.

A small group of five or six gathered monthly to share offerings but gradually dwindled over two years until there was only ex-colleague and good friend Joyleen Gibbons (now of Happy FM fame) sitting around the dining-room table.

By 2016 Mandy Foot and I had collaborated a second time upon Animaulia, humorous, sadistic poems in which insects, birds, crustaceans and small mammals experience life’s difficulties or come to sticky ends. No one to my knowledge, apart from me, has ever written a page-filler poem entitled Marvin the Maggot, the Sequel to the Sequel.

New Horizons

It’s been since arriving in Goolwa to nest in the creative wetlands of the southern Fleurieu that I believe my writing has reached another level. Never have I lived in such a rich, poetic and artistic environment. Suddenly I was exposed to the inimitable enthusiasm and openness of performance poet Nigel Ford, the acute, astute and superb poetry of David Cookson, the equally observant, gloriously complementary poems of Veronica Cookson, the short, sharp knifing of Geoff Aitken’s social poetry. Suddenly I was listening to the mellifluous voice of Keith MacNider stunning me just by saying, that man, to the sincerity of Margaret Clark and the naughtiness of Christina Haack. Suddenly I’m writing poems with Cedric Varcoe and Clyde Rigney Junior for Jen Lyons-Reid and Carl Kuddell of Change Media.

These days, I spend the second Saturday of the month critiquing with the Ochre Coast Poets. The second Sunday sees me reading in the Signal Point Theatrette with the Southern Fleurieu Poets. And a wealth of further opportunities exists should I seek them out.

My writing has developed over time and walks around the Goolwa wharf and the Southern Ocean coast. The fertility of the poetic environment has allowed me to explore more in style (apologies for lack of punctuation – blame Tipping) as I become more comfortable with the content and finding and expressing personal beliefs. Through mentorship by the exceedingly encouraging and poetically insightful Jude Aquilina, I’ve almost finished another anthology, which may, one day, be published. The title poem follows.

Am I yet a poet? Perhaps, some days. I don’t know. After all …

Author Bio

You can find out more about Mike’s work on his website and Facebook.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

What’s under your chin?  Published in one talk (Caught Jester Books 2015)

Wombattleon Published in The Kanceroo (Caught Jester Books, Hansen Print 2013)

whale Published in Three Cornered Hat (Caught Jester Books, Hansen Print 2011)