On one of these days of "work" at the festival, I had a few sessions circled that I wanted to attend. I was sitting in the near empty theatre waiting for a session on researching to begin when a few scruffy looking men approached the stage. The session started and it slowly dawned on me... I was in the wrong theatre, at the wrong time.
It turned out to be a brilliant mistake. The session featured three poets I had never heard of in my life... discussing the poetics of ecology. They were John Burnside from Fife, Forrest Gander from Virginia and Robert Adamson from Sydney. By the end of it, I was spun out and grinning from ear to ear.
Each poet read selections of their work for about ten minutes and then there was a discussion.
First off, I felt terrible for knowing nothing about Robert Adamson, why don't we learn about his work at school? He writes the most amazing nature poems relating to our immediate landscape. Adamson has lived on the Hawkesbury almost his entire life and most of his work centres around the river, the bushland and fish. It's that really personal, Australian perspective that's severely lacking in the Australian high school English curriculum... but anyway I digress.
Adamson read this stunning love poem he had just written for his wife Juno, a rough draft and it was dynamite. I was just in awe of this scrawny old man with the most fantastic mass of grey hair and baby voice reading this big crashing love poem, blowing everyone away.
Love poems, poets... all very underrated in this day of age.
Next was Forrest Gander, who is currently a Lit Professor at Brown. He read some translations of work by female Mexican poets, namely Coral Brancho. He also read some of his early poems which were haiku like, almost little riddles, with their structure directly relating to the rock or crystal after it was named, like if it was six sided, it had six lines and so on. And he got a real kick out of this little nerdy trick, which he admitted he only crafted for his own satisfaction.
His Mexican translations were so beautiful though, definitely my favourite. I've since read a few of his essays online, they're fascinating because he has both a scientific background and knowledge coupled with this beautiful erotic lyricism. I recommend the Nymph Stick Insect to start.
At the end of it all I came out totally energised and inspired, more aware of the landscape I inhabit and it's beauty. What a blast. I hope the simple act of reading poetry aloud, the way it should be done, will never bite the dust. Sometimes it can be like a little electric current directed straight to centre of things.
Night is the place
that illuminates memory
It's an enormous structure built
over the sea. It's an unfolding
and a sequence.
Endless walkways extend over white pillars.
The open terraces shadow the waves,
and one turns inwards...
From That Space, That Garden by Coral Brancho, translated by Forrest Gander
So I guess sometimes it's a good thing to find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time?
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