An unexpectedly exciting read!

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I’m no business woman, largely because I’ve never wanted to be. Yet I find this book – of successful business women who have self-empowered – utterly enthralling. They tell their own stories, and tell them well. It reads like a series of adventure stories. 'Courage, Strength and Perseverance' most definitely apply!

Their journeys are not without struggle and trauma, and often began in very unpromising circumstances. Even weirdos like me, who measure success by other criteria, can find inspiration here – because these women began by recognising and then following their passions, whatever those individual passions might be: hairdressing, aviation, caring for carers, or a whole range of other ventures. And it becomes apparent that we are not so different – ultimately these women see success by their own criteria too, as achieving what they set out to do.

It’s necessary that their ventures make money in order to keep going, but it becomes increasingly clear that on a deeper level they are, in fact, not only about fulfilling oneself but also ways of looking after other people.

All in all, it’s an exciting read!


Full disclosure: I read it because it's the brain-child of my friend Erik Bigalk, who is also its editor. I'm happy to say this book reveals him to be an excellent editor, as well as someone who dreams up great ideas. I didn't have to review it, though.  After reading it, I wanted to.

Anh and Lucien by Tony Page

Beautiful, fascinating, unique ... these are all words that occurred to me when I first heard about this book, and I reaffirm them now that I've read it. It more than lived up to my expectations.

Tony's an old friend. When I was last in Melbourne a few years ago (pre-COVID) we met for lunch, and he told me his ideas for this book. I loved the sound of those ideas, so I was excited to find out it has been published. In fact I lost track of time, and only thought to enquire this year – to discover that UWAP (University of Western Australia Publishing) produced it as a paperback in July 2020. 

I don't think I can describe it any better than the two distinguished poets who wrote the cover blurb so I'll just quote them: 

'Anh and Lucien is a compelling celebration of male desire and intimacy - and also a gripping clash of cultures and ideologies. Danger and death pervade Tony Page's sensuous and sensitive evocation of a risky love affair in an alluring, unsettled place and time, Indochina 1940. Intrigue and art, passion and espionage interweave to drive and doom the relationship between Anh, a young revolutionary, and Lucien, a disaffected French bureaucrat. Page skilfully deploys alternating dramatic monologues to increase the tension as loyalty and betrayal merge towards Lucien's final sacrifice.' -- Jan Owen

'The story of desire between two men is told with exquisite beauty and restraint using prose poems, epistolary poems, found poems and documentary poems to build from suspense a tragedy that is also a victory for humanity over small-mindedness and oppression.' -- Jennifer Harrison

Having been involved in the anti-Vietnam War protests of the late sixties, I thought I knew a bit about Vietnamese history. Now I understand rather more. Tony has obviously done his research, and presents this background in a way that involves the real lives of everyday people.

I'll be re-reading / re-exploring this lovely book.

It might be hard to get hold of by now (it's a shame that UWAP didn't run to an ebook version) but try eBay; it's listed there. 

A huge disappointment

 

Poems of Earth and Spirit: 70 Poems and 40 Practices to Deepen Your Connection With Nature by Kai Siedenburg
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

What a huge disappointment!

The title makes this book sound wonderful for those who love poetry, nature, and meditative practices. The well-written introduction, detailing the way the author arrived at creating and sharing these poems, is equally enticing.

Unfortunately, the poems are pathetic! They are homilies in chopped-up-prose, and banal at that. Giving this book one star (for the introduction) comes close to over-rating it.

I hastened to remove this book from my Kindle and nearly deleted it without reviewing. But maybe potential readers should be warned.

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Fiction that reads like memoir

A Secretive Life by Sara Hardy
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This enthralling novel reads like biography because it's full of historical facts and characters who were real people, famous people. And also because Cecilia, the fictional central character / narrator, rings so true. Though much of it is set in England, and in Berlin between the World Wars, I like that Cecilia also lives for a time in Melbourne, and encounters such legendary figures as Magareta Webber of bookshop fame, and renowned landscape gardener Edna Walling.

It's also a delight to an avid reader like me (a mere generation younger than Cecilia herself) that in England and Europe she encounters Radclyffe Hall and Vita Sackville-West. I never met any of these famous figures myself, but one feels one knows them because of reading so much about them, and in some cases their own writings. (Goodness, my first poetry book was launched in The Bookshop of Margareta Webber! Though she herself was not only retired but deceased by then.)

And yet those famous folk, so well and believably portrayed, are not the reason for falling in love with this book. That reason is the character of Cecilia herself, both as the rather jaundiced – but engagingly so – elderly voice telling the story, and the younger self going through all the adventures of her long life. Sara Hardy's a great story-teller who sets a rollicking pace in this novel. She makes Cecilia and her eventful story unquestionably real.

Now I want to read a lot more Sara Hardy.  

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Writing the Story of Your Life, by Carmel Bird

Carmel Bird is an Australian writer of novels, short stories and essays. She has written books on the art of writing, and has edited anthologies of essays and stories. In 2016, she was awarded the Patrick White Literary Award.     

– Wikipedia.

This book, written in 2010, I only recently discovered. Glad I did! I’d been flirting with the idea of a memoir for years, always deciding against. But Carmel writes beautifully, and we have a long history….

We knew each other as children, and again in our forties. 

I was born in 1939, she in 1940. We grew up in Launceston, Tasmania, in the same neighbourhood. We didn’t play together often – her place was around the corner and up a hill from mine, a longish walk for a youngster. But our families were acquainted. We remember attending each other’s birthday parties when we were in primary school.  

We both had elocution lessons, and recited (other people’s) poems in The Competitions – an annual State-wide eisteddfod for music and elocution students. We were at the same school awhile too, in different classes. Then, still in our teens, circumstances took us on separate journeys, geographical and otherwise. 

We met again in eighties Melbourne, as featured writers at Montsalvat Poetry Festival, and got to know each other all over again. We almost became the close friends we weren’t as kids. But, circumstances…. We became geographically distanced once more. Now we have only slight awareness of what the other is up to – both still engaged in literary life, but in different arenas; with rare contact, friendly-but-brief.

Nevertheless, the shared childhood place and experiences, and our similar feelings about them, creates deep understanding. We are both – as she calls herself in the book – expatriates, yearning for the home we remember. (We've both occasionally revisited.) 

Though each chooses not to live there now, the yearning is real. Whenever anything's on TV about Tasmania, I’m glued to the screen. This book, full of Carmel’s childhood recollections, from her journals, awakens and satisfies that yearning. 

She offers fascinating insights about memoir, related to both fact and fiction. She makes memoir writing sound like the most seductive of pleasures! The enticing exercises, though, I didn’t (yet) do. I told myself I was reading for the lovely writing and lovely reminiscences. Yet even before I finished, I began a new memoir I know I’ll complete – not about childhood, but a later experience I’ve been blocked from writing. This book freed me.

Note: This is a longer, more detailed and personal version of my Goodreads and Amazon review.

I'm sharing this with Poets and Storytellers United at Friday Writings #30:  Beloved Books, in which I invite people to write something inspired by one of their favourite books. This part review, part memoir celebrates a new favourite of my own – and the memoir it helped free me to write is the story about prison poetry workshops which I have recently been sharing, bit by bit, with P&SU.

We elected 'em. What shall we do with them now?

(Arising from a discussion I’ve just been having with a much younger friend who thinks history proves all political parties are essentially evil and nothing ever really improves no matter who’s in office. A useful exercise to me, even if unlikely to persuade her, as it helped me clarify what I think.)

Following the Australian Federal election 2022

OK, all you who are rejoicing with me – what now? We can breathe deep sighs of relief and go about our business knowing that Santa Claus has arrived and all will be well? Not quite. 

We mustn’t just sit back now and neglect our politicians.

Though some of them may look to some of us like monsters (you know who I love to hate) and others occasionally appear as heroes (Whitlam in his first two weeks in office, Rudd during the Apology, Gillard for the misogyny speech, even John Howard re both East Timor and gun law reform) politicians are just people too. They have flaws and failings; they are potentially corruptible; they are capable of moments of weakness; they may have blind spots; they will undoubtedly make mistakes. 

Let’s not judge them too harshly for that. Let’s not (or not immediately) go into despair and say they’re all as bad as each other. 

On the other hand, let’s keep reminding them of what we want. The ballot box may be the most powerful way of expressing our opinions, but it’s not the only way. 

I'm a firm believer in communicating with my local member. I’m not a great talker on the telephone, but I think that’s a very good way for those who are. Always preferring the written word, I send emails. They get answered too, and not with just a fobbing-off. In fact I’m pretty happy with the details of how my local member conducts herself in office, which is why I keep voting for her. I tell her that too! 

I have been known to communicate with other politicians also, particularly Government Ministers in charge of areas about which I have particular concerns. And I sign and circulate petitions on various issues. Before I became octogenarian and arthritic, I used to take part in protest marches too. (Since COVID, I’d be in two minds about that even if my legs would still cope.) The point is, there is always a way. If one thing doesn’t work, try another. Just let’s make sure that, somehow, our voices keep being raised, and heard.

We won’t always prevail; it usually depends on the NUMBER of voices raised. But to have a chance of being heard, you need to raise yours – in reminders when our pollies seem to wander off track, and in hearty cheers when they fulfil our best expectations. 

Meanwhile, we’ve elected a mob who stand for kindness, compassion and environmental responsibility, plus more respect for diversity and for both Indigenous citizens and women. I think it’s a bloody good start. 

Advice to Rejected Poets (and Storytellers)

 A poet posted on social media, asking if she should just give up trying to get published after a recent string of rejections.  

'Hang in there, keep trying,' said many in response. With which I do not disagree, but I added this:

Pardon me for sounding like an absolute barbarian, but –

When younger I used to get published often, even sometimes had editors of publications requesting submissions. Then I discovered blogging. I get many more readers this way! The circulation of even the most prestigious lit mags and anthologies cannot compare.

Maybe being selected for publication by someone else seems a sign that your work has merit? (Ignoring the fact that not all editors make perfect choices.) Well, you can do both, blog and submit – though many editors regard blogging as prior publication, so you have to be choosy about what you send where. But to me that just proves the point, that blogging = readers.

The cost is that you do need to interact with other bloggers in your genre, advertise your stuff on social media and so on – but that applies also to getting readers for other forms of publication, including your own books even if published by industry leaders.

International groups of blogging poets who post prompts and share work include dVerse, earthweal, Poetic Bloomings, Poets and Storytellers United (of which – full disclosure – I am currently Coordinator) and Poetic Asides. Google 'em. [But for anyone reading this here at my SnakyPoet blog, I've made links so you don't have to Google.]

I also like to post some things in poetry groups on facebook. Instant community, gentle feedback, and various opportunities for seeing latest journals to submit to or being selected for group anthologies.