Poem Stories
In 2023, I published an ebook called Dressed & Uploaded: Poem Stories. The title, of course, comes from the way I ‘dress’ poems for Wattletales, both in my posts and those of my wonderful guests. Some may find this practice tawdry, but I think of it as a visual poetic feast. So, I thought I’d add a few of my new poems (and a couple of oldies), freshly dressed, to tell their tales here as I do in the book.
You can download a free copy of Dressed & Uploaded either as an epub (best for Mac users) or in .pdf format for Kindle or desktop reading. The links take you to Dropbox, where you can click to download. It takes about 30 seconds. It is also available to purchase online.
Without further ado, here are today’s poems. I hope you enjoy their stories.
On Love
I wrote A Love Poem to Myself in response to one of Palette Poetry’s regular Facebook prompts because I do not like love poems at all, especially not soppy ones, which, as it feels to me without due research, are primarily written by men. My TramsEnd Poets compatriots think I’m nuts, and I may well be precisely that, but I’m happy to be wrong to protect my belief.
As the following poem from Dressed & Uploaded shows, I do occasionally refer to love, albeit obliquely.
I read Yearning on Gabriella’s popular Radio Adelaide 101.5FM program, Poet’s Playlist. which aired on February 13th in her special Valentine’s Show on love. Thank you, Gabby. The link will take you to the program to hear me and other TramsEnd Poets on love.
Losing Control
Do you remember that old saying, used in elocution lessons in my childhood, ‘What noise annoys an oyster? A noisy noise annoys an oyster most.’ Well, today, beeps, bells, and whistles drive me up the wall. Everyone is deadly serious about mental health issues, but they only look at psychological factors like a bad childhood or a harsh mother, the ‘when did you first hate your horse’ sort of thing.
Very few people talk about the incessant demands made on us by everyday electronics over which we have no control. Most of you will be familiar with Karl Marx’s wisdom that alienation is discombobulating. Being pushed around by machines is worse; it’s personal.
Mobile phones and personal computers constantly upgrade their operating systems or software — note, the agents here are technical objects! We frequently feel out of control with these insidious invasions of our private lives by the World Wide Web (and, yes, it is a proper noun). They even infiltrate our televisions. Everything technological changes faster than we can!
As for streaming services, there’s another headache in the making lately. When you’ve paid a subscription to one provider, Apple TV or Netflix, for example, you may suddenly find the item they promoted is actually on another streaming service like Paramount or Binge. Pay up, please. There is simply no respite.
The Natural World
The Wedge-tailed Eagle
I love and admire the wedge-tailed eagle (Aquila audax) whose colours match our earth. The wedgie was declared the Northern Territory’s first emblem in 1975, just after Cyclone Tracy, which my children and I experienced in 1974. I have loved the bird since childhood when I was a member of The Gould League of Bird Lovers in rural NSW around Albury. Founded in 1909, the League was the first to foster and encourage a love of Australian native birds, and it is still active in schools.
Since 1975, the wedge-tailed eagle has also been a protected species across Australia. I genuinely don’t remember where I first saw a dead bird slung through fence wires, but the image has remained with me. A bird of prey can be a pest for farmers with small animals, so the image was probably burned into my mind during my preteen years in the NSW hinterland, which is sheep country. Yet, I also spent many years before (and after) 1975 in the outback, so it could well have been anywhere.
Mother Nature
Storm Enlightenment comes from my love of the wet season in the Northern Territory, where I spent many happy years. Need I say more? Even when it was hot, thunderstorms made you feel chilly enough for a cardigan. All I can say is that it is an experiential poem. Even now, I love to snuggle when it storms. They bring out the philosopher in me.
Back then, the wonder of waking in the morning as Tracy abated was like being re-born, re-ignited with joy and anticipation, emerging from a cocoon. So, too, when the sun peaks through the clouds after a storm. Although capricious, nature is precious and teaches those of us who survive its fury how fragile life really is.
Personal Journeys
Each poem I write has something of me in it. Most of my poems have a message or tell a story. I was 12-13 when we lived in Albury, where my parents first managed the Hotel Albury and then bought a guest house called Tara, which had a giant mulberry tree in its backyard. That tree and my childish musings in it stayed with me for 70 years of yearning to be a writer. I used to say that life got in the way because I didn’t write creatively until I retired, but the truth is, I needed life in order to have something to write about.
Last but Not Least, a Bit of Fun
What can I say? These odd little pieces come from story fragments, phrases or words that catch my eye and touch me somehow. The phrase ‘She married in a drip-dry dress’ came to mind one day recently after I told a friend about my mother taking me to Woolworths on Rundle Mall after my first (violent) marriage broke up to buy me a new dress for Darwin, where I was heading for the first time. I was around 18.
Mum thought the dress was suitable for a tropical climate and said that nobody up there would know it was a cheapy from Woollies (Darwin’s population when I first lived there was 14,000, and nobody had heard of Woolworths).
I wore that ghastly green floral, pleated drip-dry dress to my first Darwin job interview and got the job, which was just as well because I’d arrived with only ten shillings in my pocket. I never wore it again as it stuck to my sweating body with static electricity in the humidity. The dress didn’t last as long as the brief, failed marriage I’d left behind.
If you are curious, you can read more about that disastrous marriage at the bottom of this linked page.
Happy Writing
Wattletales
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Thank you, Veronica, for reading Wattletales. I’m so glad you enjoyed these poems, new and old.
Another good read. I have, of course, seen a few of the poems before, but not all of them, and they hung together really well.
I especially liked Our Times and Storm Enlightenment. I realised while reading On Becoming a Writer that it was your story, sitting up the mulberry tree so long ago, and you did mention it at the end. And the last laugh-out-loud poem, The Wedding, I love just as much as ever. It is very clever. I recall your wedgie poem from when you were invited to write a blog post for Steve Parish’s website, Nature Connect, and it’s a beauty, too.
Dear Val, As always, I value your reading and comments. Of course, that was me, up the mulberry tree so I appreciate that feedback. It’s funny, though, how life plays with us, so easy to see with the distance of time 🙂
Dear Lindy, it is amazing where our poems come from. Yours are always entertaining and informative. Thank you for the lovely lineup of poems, each giving us food for thought as you always write so well.
I felt sorry for the girl in the tree in your poem ‘Becoming a writer’s but she certainly turned out to be a very successful writer. Sending congratulations and all the very best. Keep writing my friend. Cheers Val x