transit (2008)

for Dorothy

how can you say goodbye to all
your kindred at once? sometimes
the emotion must be sung, be
sounded darkly. this time it is
someone in proximity, another
glass broken, one in whose clear
chamber you held this liquid to
the light, as if answers could be
held that way. her words must
keep moving, tongue of fire, will
not pause for you, lick of the blade –

Dan O'Connell, Saturday 13/12/08

On Saturday, after standing in the rain for an hour or so outside the State Library to protest the Australian government's plans to introduce mandatory internet filtering, I headed on down to the Dan O'Connell for the weekly open mic.

As a tribute to Dorothy Porter, I read the Overture from her Carmen sequence (which I posted below). This was originally featured in Driving Too Fast, her book from 1989. Then I read Drive-thru, which I originally wrote for Dorothy's creative writing class at Melbourne Uni in 1998 (Elizabeth Campbell was one of my classmates). I also read Down slow, which I'd been working on during my mentorship with Dorothy in 2007, and which she seemed to take a shine to.

The open mic was as diverse as ever. Several other poets read Dorothy Porter poems. Featured poet Anthea Bartholomeuz was impressive. I'll probably be back again some time in the new year.

Below: Reading Dorothy's poem (photo by Michael Reynolds).

Vale Dorothy Porter

Dorothy Porter 1954-2008

Poet, verse novelist, lyricist, trailblazer, music lover, mentor.

Dorothy Porter

In August 2006 I was awarded a mentorship through the Australian Society of Authors (ASA), which entitled me to a year's instruction with a mentor of my choice.

I'd taken a creative writing / poetry class Dorothy Porter gave while she was writer in residence at Melbourne Uni in 1998, and her advice and views on poetry had a strong impact on me. So it was a great honour that she was able to make herself available as my mentor during 2007.

We had meetings throughout the year at the Royal Hotel in Clifton Hill. Hers was a Sauvignon Blanc, mine a mineral water(!). We'd chat about what we were writing and how we were writing it; what we'd been reading, watching, listening to. We exchanged books, CDs, DVDs and talked at length about their arcane properties and effects. I was given further insight into the scenes, cliques, politics and history of Australian poetry. By way of barter I offered what I could in terms of insight into the current state of rock & roll (I compiled several mix CDs as evidence, each a labour of love), electronic media and online poetry...

Dorothy's sage advice came thick and fast throughout the year, but in particular, there were two acts of generous and wise counsel from Dorothy that will continue to reverberate...

First of these was Dorothy's passing on of the vision of her own mentor, the late Bruce Beaver. Some of his poems had been familiar to me beforehand, but Dorothy was able to offer a much more fully realised picture of his life and life's work. Not only did Beaver provide Australia's own enduring answer to the Confessional Poets (Plath, Berryman, Lowell, et al), he is also one of 'our' great visionaries. For the uninitiated, Dorothy's brief biography of Beaver and selection of his poems over at Poetry International Web will provide some proof for these claims.

The second piece of especially wise counsel was Dorothy's insistence that I re-read Euripides' The Bacchae. This was to be partly considered as research for my book-in-progress, How to be hungry, with its themes of drug use, (dis)connection, alternate ways of seeing/experiencing the world, and how the status quo demands to be threatened by Bacchic/Dionysian rites. All of these themes are mirrored (and magnified) in The Bacchae. A very good call on Dorothy's part.

Thank you, Dorothy, for everything. And thankyou to the ASA for offering and organising this brilliant opportunity.

- Stu