Friday 14 August 2015


"...your nerve system, your heart...Music is an expression of life"
- Elliot Hammond (Delta Riggs)

Words From Writers was created as a result of thinking about the issue of accessibility in festivals.  Throughout the festival I began asking 'who is here?' and "who is not here?"
Below is a list of some questions I began to ask regarding some impediments affecting community accessibility to festivals:

  • Is the festival ticketed?
  • Where has it been advertised?
  • Is it in English, and if so are there any translation services?
  • What about technologies and services for people requiring assistance with hearing, vision or mobility as well as other factors?

    We (Writers in Action) had been discussing the festival as a bubble of sorts. A space that although taking place within a town or city is almost engulfed by an invisible skin. This invisible membrane of the festival is one of the key elements, a commonality of purpose and passion shared by those in attendence and presenting. However this membrane can also be a barrier seperating those within and those 'on the outside'.
    Therefor the idea came to my mind that I would like to do something that presented an opening up of the festival membrane. My answer to creating this 'opening' was by planting quotations from presenting authors around the city of Bendigo.
On small paper tags I referenced quotes from selected authors and placed them around the city.
Below I  have included a few pictures of the tags placed throughout Bendigo.

My hope is that we can find new ways of interacting with space, passion and writing whilst keeping on extending the skin of the festival out just that bit more.


 "Writing is hard work for me, and i do it because i want to work through and resolve certain things."
-John Marsden

Wednesday 12 August 2015

A skin stretches over the city

A skin,
Stretches over the city
Silently creeping.
Embracing those within.
Words hushed,
Written,
Left unsaid.

This elastic casing
Expanding and contracting
In contemplation.

A collective membrane, or something whole within?

Saturday 8 August 2015

This Is Poetic Justice

                                                                                                                    Saturday 8th August, 2015

                                                         Inspired by harpist Michael Johnson’s Mindfulness At Twilight’



The music rings towards you
first
this is poetic justice

This resonant frequency softly cascading towards
skin humble

In the space of words your music flows forth.

For I am not these words that I speak
or the thoughts within.
And in these moments I have stillness.

I can almost feel it.

As can she. Standing there behind the stairs.
Maybe she didn’t know this was the space for her
but the music called.
Where words were silenced and invitations left unsent

The music just was

This is poetic justice.

My heart has fluttered a few times today

I begin to write this blog in the late night of Friday, the first scheduled day of the festival.

My heart has fluttered a few times today. And it has been a delight.
I was not sure what to expect when I left the house and made my way to the Ulumbarra theatre. Walking up the hill to the old Bendigo goal I was told to look out for the high brick wall. When I orientated myself to the front of the former goal I saw it for what it was, a beautiful historic building, yet entering the main entrance I was caught by the history within. Iron railing and platforms above are the remains of passageways walked by prison guards and the unknown interned.

I had just come to Bendigo, a day before. And it was evident that much history is within the walls of these grand buildings


It seemed an initially odd place to hold a theater, but upon entering this former goal and walking the light filled corridor I began to hear the faint sounds of multiple voices. Walking further, the sound grew stronger, until I could hear a cacophony of young students’ voices. So, perhaps, despite the uncomfortable original purpose of the building it is now entering it's next phase. 

I actually don't know how to put it all into words, yet I want to capture this;
these moments
and acknowledge its sweetness.

Listening and writing into my notebook quotes and advice from the presenting authors has been inspiring. However for much of the day the gems were in the moments between these sittings.
In the thoughts, the exchanges on the steps, the sharing of food, heart and laughter that weaved itself between the scheduled exchanges. But how do I savor them? 


Inspired by Sue Gillet’s project of a similar kind, I will, each day of the festival, attempt to write a poem in response to the the day just had. Here goes my first one.

                            

                                                                                                 Sketching thoughts        7th August 2015

We sketched

Our conversation onto the table. 
Words, thoughts, themes etched into the cream face of the butcher’s paper.

We didn’t think that we would be siting here.

Me with lemon and lime and you both with beer and wine. 
These words, recollections
trace our histories.
To this present

Moment.

You called it serendipitous; that we happened here

Maybe.
See computers can get in the way, but this talking, seeing, feeling is magic
through the word, finding our way
Orienteering
Each buoys in an ocean of uncertainty and imagination



See, I have just returned. I came ‘back’. 
But not backwards you remind me
You said life was like mountains. 
We can remind ourselves of the peaks and of the troughs
and then
we can each
plot our way onwards.