Verity La Poetry Podcast

REBECCA JESSEN: In this episode of the Verity La Poetry Podcast, Podcast Producer Alice Allan talks with Rebecca Jessen about her first collection Ask Me About the Future, out now from UQP. Rebecca and Alice discuss the idea of a ‘queer utopia’ along with issues like where mental health intersects with queerness, visibility, queer elders, socioeconomics and gender. Rebecca reads her poem Triage and shares In the dream by Jenny Johnson, along with ‘I am not myself at all’ from the new collection.  

Listen to the episode here. 

Missed our earlier episodes? Listen here!

Podcast producer: Alice Allan

Rebecca Jessen Rebecca Jessen is a timeless boi. a linen daddy. a random shy poet. a sleeping body that remembers desire. a comet trail. a groin anomaly. a body that is a bridge. a moonstruck adolescent. an incomplete list poem. a lesbian, but… Ask Me About the Future (2020) is her second book with University of Queensland Press.

QPF 2019: In this episode of the Verity La Poetry Podcast, Verity La Managing Editor Michele Seminara is joined at the 2019 Queensland Poetry Festival by poet Andy Jackson and Disrupt editors Amanda Tink and Gaele Sobott to discuss the intersection between artistic work and disability. Their conversation spans not only the challenges disabled creatives can sometimes face, but also the erasure of disability from discussions of Australian literary fixtures such as Henry Lawson, Judith Wright and Les Murray, plus the positive aspects of being a creator with a disability, and much more.     

In this episode we hear Andy’s poems ‘Mutual Obligation’ and ‘What I Have Under My Shirt’ along with Gaele’s poem ‘I Was Born (Misfit)’. Amanda reads Cheryl Marie Wade’s poem ‘I Am Not One of The’. And the panel recommend some great disability arts organisations such as Outlandish Arts, Disability Arts Online, Disability Literature Consortium and the journal Word Gathering. Dive in! 

Listen to the episode here. 

Missed our earlier episodes? Listen here!

Podcast producer: Alice Allan

Andy Jackson has performed at literary events and arts festivals in Australia, India, USA and Ireland – including the Castlemaine State Festival and the Queensland Poetry Festival, with Each Map of Scars, a puppetry-poetry-film collaboration on grief, bodies and empathy. His poems have been included in five of the last six annual Best Australian Poetry anthologies, and his most recent collection, Music our bodies can’t hold (Hunter Publishers 2017), which consists of portrait poems of other people with Marfan Syndrome, was recently featured on ABC Radio National’s Earshot. Andy has worked in call-centres, libraries, and as a creative writing tutor, and has almost finished a PhD in poetry and bodily otherness through the University of Adelaide. Find more from Andy at his website. 

Gaele Sobott has published a range of acclaimed works including, Colour Me Blue and My Longest Round. She identifies as a disabled artist and was selected for the first cohort of the Australia Council for the Arts 2014 Sync Leadership Program. In 2015 she was artist in residence at Google Australia. Gaele is the founding director of Outlandish Arts. She produced NoRMAL, a performance of stories by four artists on their experiences of disability, the Australian tour of Caroline Bowditch’s, Falling in Love with Frida, the Australia-UK creative development of Deaf Australian playwright Sofya Gollan’s play, MotherLode, in London, and Fools’ Gold, a series of poetry performances, workshops and critical discussion events involving artists who experience psychological and emotional distress. Gaele was commissioned to write Zaphora and Ali for Urban Theatre Projects’ Home Country staged by Sydney Festival 2017. She participated in the DADAA and Perth International Arts Festival Aesthetics of Access residency in March 2017 with Jenny Sealey MBE, Artistic Director of Graeae Theatre Company UK. She was also selected to take part in the two-week Jo Bannon Penetration and Performance residency in Adelaide in August 2017. Gaele facilitated the Access2Arts Embody project for disabled writers and is currently leading the Writing Me project. She has just completed a collection of short stories about life in an apartment building in Lakemba, Sydney, where she resides.

Amanda Tink is a writer, and researcher of Australian disability literature at Western Sydney University. She lives in front of her laptop and braille display with good coffee nearby, and tweets at @amandatink.

JORDIE ALBISTON: In this episode of the Verity La Poetry Podcast, Podcast Producer Alice Allan and Poetry Co-editor Robbie Coburn talk with Jordie Albiston about the relationship between poetry and mathematics, the place of mathematical poetry in Australia, and the role of writing courses in a poet’s development. Jordie also discusses her poem cobalt, which will be included in her next collection Element: The Atomic Weight and Radius of Love (forthcoming from Puncher & Wattmann), and reads Don Paterson’s poem Luing. 

Listen to the episode here. 

Missed our earlier episodes? Listen here!

Podcast producer: Alice Allan

Jordie Albiston has published thirteen poetry collections and a handbook on poetic form.

Albiston possesses an ongoing pre-occupation with mathematical constructs and constraints, and the possibilities offered in terms of poetic structure. Her work has won many awards, including the Mary Gilmore Award and the 2010 NSW Premier’s Prize. She lives in Melbourne.

KERRY REED-GILBERT: In this edition of the Verity La Poetry Podcast, Managing Editor Michele Seminara talks with poet, activist and Wiradjuri Elder Kerry Reed-Gilbert about her work and the place of First Nations writing in Australia today.

Kerry discusses The First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN) along with the Us Mob Writing Group and their book Too Deadly.

Kerry reads her poem ‘I Know You’, published on Verity La, as well as ‘Just leave your mark here’ from the Australian Book Review and ‘Who’s Responsible’ from her collection Talkin’ About Country. Kerry also reads ‘A New True Anthem’, a poem written by her father — renowned writer, artist and activist — Kevin Gilbert, from his book Black from the Edge.

Kerry candidly discusses responses to her work, plus shares her views on racism, sovereignty and treaty for First Nations Australian people. Listen up!

Listen to the episode here. 

Missed our earlier episodes? Listen here!

Podcast producer: Alice Allan

If you’d like to support the great work FNAWN do, contact [email protected].

Kerry Reed-Gilbert is a Wiradjuri woman from Central New South Wales who has performed and conducted writing workshops nationally and internationally. She was the inaugural Chairperson of the First Nations Australia Writers Network (FNAWN) 2012 – 2015 and continues today as a Director. In 2013 she co-edited a collection of works By Close of Business, with the Us Mob Writing (UMW) group, and was FNAWN co-editor for the Ora Nui  Journal, a collaboration between First Nations Australia writers and Maori writers. 2015 saw Kerry short-listed  for the Story Wine Prize, and in 2016 she edited a collection of First Nations voices from across Australia titled A Pocketful of Leadership in the ACT. Kerry is a former member of the Aboriginal Studies Press Advisory Committee and her poetry and prose have been published in many journals and anthologies nationally and internationally, including in the Macquarie PEN Anthology of Australian Literature. Her works has been translated into French, Korean, Benglai, Dutch and other non-English speaking languages.

In 2003 Kerry was awarded an International Residence at Art Omi, New York, USA. In 1997 she toured the South African spoken word national tour ECHOES, and in 2005 she toured Aotearoa, New Zealand, as part of the Honouring Words 3rd International Indigenous Authors Celebration. In 2006 she received an Outstanding Achievement in Poetry Award & a Poet of Merit Award from the International Society of Poets.

ANDY JACKSON: In this episode of the Verity La Poetry Podcast, Podcast Producer Alice Allan talks with Andy Jackson, author of Music our bodies can’t hold.

Andy discusses what it is to write from the perspective of others, leaving space for what we don’t know, and how his writing practice has changed over time.

He also talks about the influence of spoken word on his poetry, reads his poem No Shelter from the Verity La archives, and introduces us to some of his favourites from Adrienne Rich & Gregory Orr. 

Listen to the episode here.

Missed our earlier episodes? Listen here!

Andy Jackson has performed at literary events and arts festivals in Australia, India, USA and Ireland – including the Castlemaine State Festival and the Queensland Poetry Festival, with Each Map of Scars, a puppetry-poetry-film collaboration on grief, bodies and empathy. His poems have been included in five of the last six annual Best Australian Poetry anthologies, and his most recent collection, Music our bodies can’t hold (Hunter Publishers 2017), which consists of portrait poems of other people with Marfan Syndrome, was recently featured on ABC Radio National’s Earshot. Andy has worked in call-centres, libraries, and as a creative writing tutor, and has almost finished a PhD in poetry and bodily otherness through the University of Adelaide.

EILEEN CHONG: In this edition of the Verity La Poetry Podcast, Podcast Producer Alice Allan and Managing Editor Michele Seminara chat with Eileen Chong about her forthcoming book, Rainforest, out soon from Pitt Street Poetry, discussing its structure and the meaning behind its title.

We also talk about Li-Young Lee’s influence on Eileen’s work and hear his poem Persimmons before talking about how Eileen’s poem Measure was written. Finally Eileen talks about whether she feels pressure to be a ‘representative’ writer in Australia and the diversity of Asian-Australian experiences.

Listen to the episode here.

Missed our earlier episodes? Listen here!

image: Charlene Winfred Photography

Eileen Chong is a poet who lives and works in Sydney, Australia. Her publications include Burning Rice (Australian Poetry, 2012), Peony (Pitt Street Poetry, 2014), Painting Red Orchids (Pitt Street Poetry, 2016), Another Language (George Braziller, 2017), The Uncommon Feast (Recent Work Press, 2018), and Rainforest (Pitt Street Poetry, 2018). Her books have shortlisted for the Anne Elder Award, the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award, and twice for the Prime Minister’s Literary Award. www.eileenchong.com.au.

DAVID ADÈS: In this edition of the Verity La Poetry Podcast, Podcast Producer Alice Allan chats with David Adès about US poet W. S. Merwin along with David’s time spent in the Pittsburgh poetry community, coming back to Sydney, the role of editors and his poem ‘The Bridge I Must Walk Across’.

Listen to the episode here.

Missed our earlier episodes? Listen here!

David Adès returned to Australia in 2016 after living for five years in Pittsburgh. He is a Pushcart Prize nominated poet and short story writer and the author of Mapping the World (Wakefield Press/Friendly Street Poets, 2008), the chapbook Only the Questions Are Eternal (Garron Publishing, 2015) and Afloat in Light (UWA Publishing, 2017).

David won the Wirra Wirra Vineyards Short Story Prize (2005). Mapping the World was commended for the Fellowship of Australian Writers Anne Elder Award 2008.

David has been a member of Friendly Street Poets since 1979. He is a former Convenor of Friendly Street Poets and co-edited the Friendly Street Poetry Reader 26. He was also one of a volunteer team of editors of the inaugural Australian Poetry Members Anthology Metabolism published in 2012. His poetry has been published in numerous journals in Australia and the U.S. with publications also in Israel, Romania and New Zealand.

David’s poems have been read on the Australian radio poetry program Poetica and have also featured on the U.S. radio poetry program Prosody. He is one of 9 poets featured on a CD titled Adelaide 9. In 2014 David won the University of Canberra Vice-Chancellor’s International Poetry Prize and was shortlisted for the Newcastle Poetry Prize. His poems were also Highly Commended in the 2016 Bruce Dawe National Poetry Prize and a finalist in the Dora and Alexander Raynes Poetry Prize 2016.

TRICIA DEARBORN: In this edition of the Verity La Poetry Podcast, Managing Editor Michele Seminara chats with Tricia Dearborn about the many poems of hers we’ve published over the past few years including ‘I text you a photo of my knitting’, ‘The Change: Some notes from the field’ and ‘The running doll’.

We also hear how Tricia’s new book Autobiochemistry is coming along, what her writing practice is like, what it is to be a poet who also happens to be a woman and the politics involved in writing from one’s own life.

Listen to the episode here.

Missed our earlier episodes? Listen here!

Podcast Producer: Alice Allan

Tricia Dearborn’s work has been widely published in Australian literary journals including Meanjin, Southerly, Island Magazine and Westerly, as well as in the UK, the US, New Zealand and Ireland. Her work is represented in anthologies including Contemporary Australian Poetry, Australian Poetry since 1788 and The Best Australian Poems. She is on the editorial board of Plumwood Mountain, an online journal of ecopoetry, and was Guest Poetry Editor for the February 2016 issue. Her most recent collections of poetry are The Ringing World (Puncher & Wattmann, 2012) and Autobiochemistry (UWA Publishing, 2019).

DAVID STAVANGER: In this edition of the Verity La Poetry Podcast, our Podcast Producer Alice Allan and Clozapine Clinic Editor Tim Heffernan talk with David Stavanger about the launch of the 2017 Queensland Poetry Festival along with his poem The Electric Journal, published as part of our Clozapine Clinic project.

Ahead of the Clozapine Clinic’s presence at QPF this year, we also talk about the question of writing as therapy and whether such writing has, or needs to have, ‘merit’ (and who gets to decide what that means).

Listen to the episode here. 

Missed our earlier episodes? Listen here!

David Stavanger is a poet, performer and cultural producer. In 2013 he won the Arts Queensland Thomas Shapcott Poetry Prize, resulting in the release of The Special (UQP), his first full-length collection of poetry which was also awarded the 2015 Wesley Michel Wright Poetry Prize. David is the Co-Director of the Queensland Poetry Festival. His recent prose-poem ‘The Electric Journal’ was a finalist of the 2016 Newcastle Poetry prize. At the 2014 Queensland Literary Awards he received a Queensland Writing Fellowship. He is also sometimes known as pioneering Green Room-nominated ‘spoken weird’ artist Ghostboy, winning the 2005 Nimbin Performance Poetry World Cup and establishing poetry slam in QLD via his work with the State Library and Woodford Folk Festival.

Tim Heffernan lives in Wollongong. He was born in Hay, on the banks of the Murrumbidgee and after spending most of his life swimming upstream, has mysteriously ended up on the coast.