Polonius With Metaphor by David Cookson

My English Teacher

I sometimes wonder what might have happened had I not had a year 11 English teacher who brought Hamlet to life by casting me as Polonius at our class’ first reading of the play. Or, who showed me the poetic genius in Shelley’s Ozymandias, preparing the way for my style of writing and lastly, but by no means least, extracurricular, introducing the class to TS Eliot, Louis MacNeice and Dylan Thomas. That teacher, Reg Bayliss, moved on at the end of that year and is now doubtless deceased. I did not realise my debt to him until later.

You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose…

My whole family, except my wife Veronica, views my writing with a mixture of puzzlement and the tolerance one might show a three-year-old. Even when we returned from our Egypt trip where I saw Ozymandias’ statue and excitedly told the family, the most positive reaction was, ‘Well, that was nice, wasn’t it?’ Nice? There I was, and the guide said that some Englishman had written a poem about this statue. I may very well have been standing where Shelley stood when the lightning struck. Frisson stuff!

They are also bemused by my choice of prose authors, people like Jack Kerouac, JP Donleavy and strangely, Thomas Hardy. I began to write a la Jack Kerouac when I was about 21. I still have examples of this and cringe when I read them now.

But writing took a back seat for a while. I was, and am, a keen surfer and had several trips, both intra and interstate chasing waves.

This love of the sea has now come full circle. I am now happily ensconced with Veronica in the family’s beach house, 100 metres from Moana’s surf, which is a continuo to our daily life.

I have all writers’ curiosity about people and unashamedly eavesdrop on situations and conversations, which go into my notebook I carry like my navel. I am fascinated by the folk who don’t quite fit the scheme of things, such as the old fellow in the shopping centre. Irresistible. He became ‘The Bloke’, below.

Folk fascinate me how they speak in shorthand, at Gatling Gun speed, often not completing sentences, relying on the listener to understand. No wonder people from overseas reckon we’re hard to follow. Perhaps because of mobile phones, they have become inured to lack of privacy, but it leaves them open to the ever-hungry writer.

Voices on the Bus

Travel and Toil

Poetry has not been the only thing in my life. I’ve been lucky enough, often with Veronica, to have travelled to many places in the world — China, India, Egypt, Italy and the UK of course. It is trite but true that travel does broaden the mind, especially those later trips which have inspired many poems, especially China.

Our guide warned us that road rules and signs were just ‘suggestions’ and not to believe that a pedestrian crossing was sacrosanct. I know. I nearly got cleaned up by a moped. My China experience was ripe for my style of don’t tell, but show. I’ve spent many an hour trying to find unique and unusual metaphors and similes to really illuminate my work.

Australia’s arid outback also inspires and I liken some of it to Bach and the early plainsong, for it has the same contemplative understatement. Often I use composers’ names in my work; such is my belief that music and poetry go hand in hand, despite being unable to write music, or to rhyme and write metre in the classic sense.

Hi Ho, Hi Ho and off to…

I am always interested in how other poets work, especially those who seem to plan a poem through notes; the form of the poem or the word order — all of it sounding like some pesky sonnet. Mine usually start from something seen or heard which rolls around in my brain like a Bathurst Burr until I put pencil to paper (yes, an HB) and is often the first line and the last to go.

My drafts can go as high as 15, by which time almost every bloody word has been changed. The theme of the poem gradually appears like some shy rodent from a hole, but sometimes not. Then I end up with a poem I am unsure of, especially the meaning, but my instinct tells me it is worth keeping. Such a poem is ‘Allegory’ below. If you know what it means, let me know. It was published in Hobo 20, so it must have had something going for it.

…and all the rest…

I’ve had a go at other genres, a play which was actually performed — once — a nihilistic thing mocking society, but have had more success with short stories, back in the days when they were published in magazines, now subsumed by electronica. They ranged from pure fantasy through low-key romance to comedy. This latter genre had several stories based on my late father-in-law and his fishing boat. I had a few broadcast on the now-defunct University Radio. Most of these stories had a liberal sprinkling of metaphors etc. Can’t keep them at bay!

I don’t know about other poets, but it seems to me that as soon as non-poets know of you, they poke possible themes at you and say ‘Hey, write a poem about that’ as if ordering a pizza. I really can’t, won’t, do that. I’ve tried, it doesn’t work. The inspiration must be mine. Even if I do try, it seems that as soon as the idea is mooted, I lose interest and the poem is dead in the water, even before the keel gets wet (bloody metaphors again).

Lest it be said, ‘Oh, another one-trick pony. Poetry…Is that all? Give us a break.’ I can play the flute, if quite badly and have had a life-long interest in sculpture, especially the work of the late Alexander Calder, who developed kinetic sculpture. These are designed to move in the wind, providing a series of changing but inter-related shapes. I have made several of these, and they dangle in our pergola.

AUTHOR BIO

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Text, images and poems remain the copyright of David Cookson.