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New Writing from In this Issue 62.1 Western Australia Fay Zwicky Fiction Peter Rose Poetry Jill Jones Essays Tony Birch Reviews John Kinsella ‘The Ones After Them’ Peter Rose ‘It’s hard to put it into words— it’s been so long.’ ‘You should have told me.’ ‘I suppose the gist is—’ ‘Gist? …We’ve got gists.’ ‘I guess I’m curious.’ ‘Curious?’ Westerly Volume 62 Number 1, 2017 New Writing from 62.1 Western Australia Notice of Intention Publisher Fiction Westerly has converted the full backfile of Westerly Centre, The University of Western Australia, Australia Poetry Westerly (1956–) to electronic text, available General Editor to readers and researchers on the Westerly Essays Catherine Noske website, www.westerlymag.com.au. This Reviews work has been supported by a grant from Editorial Advisors the Cultural Fund of the Copyright Agency Rachael Robertson (prose) Limited. Elfie Shiosaki (Indigenous writing) Cassandra Atherton (poetry) All creative works, articles and reviews converted to electronic format will be correctly Editorial Consultants attributed and will appear as published. Barbara Bynder Copyright will remain with the authors, and the Delys Bird (The University of Western Australia) material cannot be further republished without Tanya Dalziell (The University of Western Australia) authorial permission. Westerly will honour any Paul Genoni (Curtin University) requests to withdraw material from electronic Dennis Haskell (The University of Western Australia) Westerly publication. If any author does not wish their John Kinsella (Curtin University) work to appear in this format, please contact Susan Lever (Hon. Associate, The University of Sydney) Westerly immediately and your material will John Mateer be withdrawn. Tracy Ryan (The University of Western Australia) Andrew Taylor (Edith Cowan University) Contact: [email protected] David Whish-Wilson (Curtin University) Terri-ann White (The University of Western Australia Publishing) Westerly acknowledges all Aboriginal and Ambelin Kwaymullina (The University of Western Australia) Torres Strait Islander peoples as First Corey Wakeling (Kobe College, Japan) Australians. We celebrate the continuous living cultures of Indigenous people and their Administrators vital contributions within Australian society. Lucy Dougan, Asha Ryan Westerly’s office, at the University of Western Web Editor Australia, is located on Whadjak Noongar Nina-Marie Thomas land. We recognize the Noongar people as the Production spiritual and cultural custodians of this land. Design: Chil3 Typesetting: Lasertype Print: UniPrint, The University of Western Australia Front cover: Nina-Marie Thomas, Ten, 2017. © Nina-Marie Thomas. All academic work published in Westerly is peer-reviewed. Copyright of each piece belongs to the author; copyright of the collection belongs to the Westerly Centre. Republication is permitted on request to author and editor. Westerly is published biannually with assistance from the State Government of WA by an investment in this project through the Department of Culture and the Arts and from the Literature Board of the Australia Council. The opinions expressed in Westerly are those of individual contributors and not of the Editors or Editorial Advisors. Government of Western Australia Department of Culture and the Arts This project has also been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body. From the Editor 6 Poetry Brendan Ryan John Mateer Everything Becomes From João 170 Metaphor 17 Charlotte Guest Tricia Dearborn Pleistocene Soup 180 Fiction Stephanie Bishop From The change: some notes Claire Potter In the Wild the Male is Always from the field 18 Beneath Parliament Hill 182 the Most Beautiful 10 Carol Jenkins Adam Ford Susan Midalia Les Lolitas 31 Thursday Morning 184 Creative Fay Zwicky Women in fragments 28 Non-Fiction Ambushed By Hope 19 Renee Pettitt-Schipp Eileen Chong Tony Birch Redtails 50 What I Know 196 John Weller Sissy 41 Wellington Location 205 32 Dick Alderson Fault 197 Rosemary Stevens Moon at Midnight 51 John Kinsella Stevi-Lee Alver Let the Heart Move the Hand 96 Memory Refrained 94 Nandi Chinna A New Norcia Subset 198 Helena Kadmos Immolation 52 Rachael Petridis Danielle Clode Public Relations 101 When in Rome: An Essay in Grace Yee Repartee 209 Ruins 140 Peter Rose tachycardia 91 Carolyn Abbs The Ones After Them 128 Christine Burrows Marjorie Main The Silver Bracelet 210 Rejection Tanya Dawes Marri and Milk 92 Jill Jones (behind a thin grey curtain) 160 Dumping Ground 154 Jessica Wraight Small Things 231 Caitlin Maling Emily Paull Titanium 126 Gone In Terrain 232 Travelling Through the Dark: Six Sister Madly Deeply 172 Maureen Gibbons Anna Ryan-Punch Weeks in Oregon. 162 Graham Kershaw For Judy Cassab: portrait artist Trainspotting 234 Daniel Juckes Treasury 202 (1920–2015) 125 Heather French The Australian Flatback Sea Paul Hetherington At Rest 242 Turtle 211 Ascension 168 Paul Knobel Dorian Rose Hunter Conversation as you died 243 Breaking the Cycle 235 watermelons 169 Writers’ Miah De Francesch and Essays Annika Herb, Brooke Development Catherine Noske Collins-Gearing, Henk Huijser Program 2016 A Note on the Writers’ Of Windows and Mirrors 110 Development Program 54 Hannah McGlade Chris Arnold Reading Follow the Rabbit-Proof plane, rail 56 Fence—Aboriginal Child Removal Taxodium distichum (detail) 58 in 2017 185 Rachelle Rechichi Peter Mathews Hundred Acre 59 Art, Beauty, and the Problem of Consciousness in Tim Winton’s Sophia O’Rourke Breath 219 Skip-A-Rope 65 Alexis Lateef Bonfire on South Beach 71 Review Nandi Chinna Peacock 74 Review of Border Crossing 244 Amanda Gardiner Submissions 252 Smoke 76 Subscriptions 253 From the Editor Fay Zwicky, in her journal (Notebook XIII, August 2012), documents the Department of Culture and the Arts (WA), for which we are very grateful. experience of rage—a strange contrast with her lyrical prose and elegant (My thanks also to the wonderful team of people who have helped pull hand: ‘I haven’t, however, forgotten my fury about the illegal Iraq war. It this issue together.) It seems to me that the value of this funding is not belonged to me, and I remember shouting my rage… I can still feel the simply in the Magazine’s ability to continue publication, but in the space surge of anger and frustration, no less urgently…’ (25141, see ‘Surprised it creates for the representation of voices dealing with such anger, and by Hope’ in this issue). Zwicky extends her rage to a list of social issues such hope. and injustices, a litany of various forms of violence in the world that sits This writing, challenging and pressing at sites of pain in our society, at odds with the simplicity of the yellow Spirax notebook. This is the same suggests we are living in a moment when these wrongs cry out to be journal that catches memories, poetry, anecdotes and ponderings, which felt. Zwicky’s sense of frustration might be a common feeling, enacted notes inside its cover the Latinate name of the ‘Moon Orchid carried at generally in silence—the incoherence of indignation, the apoplectic my wedding’ as ‘Phalynoxis Orchid’. The passage which records her anger inexpressibility of rage. Writing, it seems here, helps us find a voice for is followed immediately by the memory of a childhood pen-pal. what immediately might seem unspeakable. The violence in this issue Writing has the capacity to wrangle with violence in this way. Zwicky’s may be alarming, met regularly with anger and pain. But at each point, it ownership of her own anger has remained with me as an important also demands recognition. This rage is mine, these pieces say. It belongs response. It is a fleeting but powerful moment in her document, seemingly to me. removed from the general train of thought which surrounds it. It points to the fluidity of the written space, carrying such strong emotions, but in a Catherine Noske, June 2017 way also unencumbered by their weight. Reflection and representation, the hope of recognition. Writing can, of course, engender violence and create conflict. But it also can offer acknowledgement. It can hold more than one thing in place. In several of the pieces in this volume, there is a version of anger which points also to the hope for change. This is not a themed issue, and the material here was not collected with the intention of responding to the wrongs of the world. There is much here too which is playful, beautiful, happy. Several themes are taken up for consideration, including the writing of women, personal relationships and natural spaces. But regularly we found in the pieces submitted for this issue a desire to recognise and respond to violence. Westerly has received support this year from both the Australia Council for the Arts and the 6 | Westerly 62.1 7 | PATRICIA HACKETT PRIZE The editors have pleasure in announcing the winner of the annual Patricia Hackett Prize for the best contribution to Westerly in 2016, to TIMMAH BALL For her creative non-fiction essay, ‘In Australia’ Published in Westerly 61:2, 2016 In the Wild the Male is Stephanie Bishop’s latest novel be drawn back each time someone wanted to enter or leave. Then, with Always the Most Beautiful is The Other Side of the World. a flourish of his arm he’d close the metal grill, and the panelled wooden She is a lecturer in Creative door with the frosted glass. As the lift ascended he lowered his gaze to the Stephanie Bishop Writing at the University of red-carpeted floor, hands clasped loosely in his lap. We stopped at level New South Wales. two (Menswear and Shoes, he announced, and level three Lady’s Attire, Designer Labels). Of course he was still there when I took the lift back down to the ground floor. This time I was the only customer.