The Creative Existence by Deb Stewart

Nurtured by Words

My relationship with words and reading began well before I started school. When I was around eighteen months of age, my mother, Valerie, began teaching me to recognise and pronounce words using flash cards with words written in black felt-tip pens.

Apparently, the first proper words I uttered were ‘brown boots’, but these didn’t come from the flash cards. Somewhere in the early 1960s, there was a ‘song’ on the radio by Stanley Holloway called ‘Brahn (brown) Boots’, and I had learned the phrase from listening to it. I recently looked up this song on YouTube and discovered that it is a humorous monologue / spoken word piece. Quite a revelation, as it could well be the first form of poetry I encountered! Could it have inspired me, at such a young age, to follow the path of poetry?

How I Learned to Love Nature

As a young child, I spent a lot of time outdoors in the sunshine, first in my pram and then in my playpen, and I associate these experiences with an awakening of my senses. I smelled the lawn and the flowers. I stared up at the blue sky to watch the butterflies, birds, and bees. The sun warmed my skin, and the birds’ songs were a joy to listen to. These are simple pleasures I still enjoy, and I often write about the natural world in my poems.

When I was a little older, I romped in the dirt, smearing it on my arms and legs, and one of my favourite pastimes was playing with water in a plastic bowl. I lived in England until the age of seven, and for much of that time, we lived near an airport and army base. I remember the excitement of very loud and fast jets, including the Red Arrows, flying over our back garden, creating a sonic boom. This excitement was akin to the feeling I get when I listen to good poems read aloud.

For a couple of years, we moved to a village in the countryside — a place called Cholsey, near Wallingford. I remember mist and rain and open fields, the smell of hay and the distant sounds of horses and cows.

The Importance of Encouragement

At School

In primary school, I wrote stories or compositions, and at home, I wrote short pieces I called songs, but essentially they were poems. Many were inspired by the music I listened to back then, such as Suzi Quatro, The Beatles, Sweet and David Bowie. I wrote these pieces in a lined exercise book, and I wish I still had it to look back on, but it was probably thrown out when we moved from Elizabeth (North of Adelaide) to Christies Beach (South of Adelaide) in the mid-70s.

At high school, like many other children, I was often bullied, and my escapes were either reading in the library or focusing on creative writing in English classes. I wrote one short story called Through the Rain and hid during the creative process to tune out the taunts of girls further along in my row. I still have a copy of this story. My mum typed it up for me many years ago.

I’ve come to realise that the next poem, which I experimented with for a YA verse novel, draws upon my experiences of high school bullying.

I was lucky, though, because three or four English teachers encouraged me in various ways, one of whom was also my class teacher in years 9 and 10. I have recently reconnected with her via Facebook, and it was wonderful to thank her for her support back then. One of my music teachers, Mr Z, also encouraged my songwriting and offered kind words when I was upset after being bullied. Encouragement is so important, I feel.

As An Adult

As an adult, I spent many years in situations that actively discouraged my writing, but despite this, I continued as best I could and became involved with Friendly Street Poets in the late 80s to late 90s. I was the treasurer of Friendly Street for a couple of years and edited the 23^rd anthology in 1999 with the late Stephen Lawrence.

Other groups I have initiated are SPIN (Southern Performers Interactive Network), which I was involved with for 4 ½ years, and the Australian Poets’ Exchange (a national Facebook group), which I still run today, with Adrian Heathcote’s help. This group has over 3,000 members.

In the mid-90s, I started a poetry workshop group, A Passion of Poets, and was encouraged by the support of fellow poets at monthly meetings. When I was unable to continue with the group, other members kept it alive, and I believe it is still running today, although the membership has changed.

My Professional Life

In the early 1990s, I went to university as a mature age student and completed a BA (Honours), majoring in English. My honours thesis was, in part, a collection of poems, and I believe that completing my two-volume thesis gave me the confidence I needed to go on and publish a collection of poems.

My first slim volume of poetry wasn’t published until 2003, a few years after I completed my Graduate Diploma in Library and Information Management, and I have since published two further collections and a chapbook.

I also collated and edited an anthology of poems about the city of Adelaide, Adelaide: Mapping the Human City, which was published in 2021. While working on this anthology, I was selected as poet-in-residence at the Adelaide City Library, which provided an opportunity for me to involve participants in writing poems for submission to this anthology project.

Finally, Time to Write

I always longed for the day when I would have more time for writing and perhaps even write a novel, and now I find myself retired, albeit busy, and living at Milang, on the shores of Lake Alexandrina, with my husband Ash. I am currently putting the finishing touches on my first novel, for which I am very grateful to have received an Arts SA grant, and I am working on a second chapbook.

I enjoy living in Milang, walking by the lake and watching the pelicans and other bird life gliding over the surface of the water or congregating on the jetties. I walk as often as I can and ride my bike occasionally. After a walk or ride, I feel relaxed and ready to create, be it poetry, songs, or fiction. I also believe it is important to make time for reading every day, and I like to read the work of other poets, as well as novels, song lyrics or historical non-fiction.

A sense of place is important to me, as is being attuned to nature, and I believe this is often evident in my work, as in this poem that attempts to capture a Milang sunrise over the lake.

The poems here illustrate my story. If you’d like to read more of my work, you can purchase my recent publications, The White Line of Language 2019, and Love Songs & Naughty Bits, 2023, from Ginninderra Press. I also have a poetry page on Facebook.

AUTHOR BIO

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

‘Water in a Blue Bowl’ and ‘’Returning’ both previously published in Slow Notes (2008), and The White Line of Language (2019)