THE TIPPING POINT by Linda Stevenson

(Poetry chapbook. Melbourne, Blank Rune Press, 2016.)

This slim volume is a feast! Linda Stevenson is a thoughtful poet whose work ranges from intellectual word play to direct and simple appeals to the emotions. One of her own paintings forms the beautiful cover illustration. Her words paint pictures too – scenes and images that continue to haunt the reader after the words have been read.  And her language is full of music.

It's exciting for me in various ways to be reviewing Linda’s first poetry chapbook. During my long acquaintance with her poetry, I have always believed it deserved publication and a wide readership.

Yes, we have a history. Once upon a time we were two young women living in Melbourne, who happened to sit next to each other at Library School. We got talking and found much in common, such as the fact that we both wrote poetry. We're still doing a lot of talking five decades later, though nowadays we live in different parts of the country so it's usually by email. And we are still deeply engaged with poetry.

I am also well acquainted with Linda’s encouragement and support of other poets, myself included. In a way, the wheel has come full circle. Thirty-one years ago, in her capacity as Melbourne City Librarian, Linda Stevenson launched my first book of poetry at Margareta Weber's bookshop in Melbourne. 

In that capacity she also gave the Melbourne Branch of the Poets Union a meeting place for a number of years, at North Melbourne Library. In those days she didn't seek to promote her own poetry – busy enough, no doubt, with professional and family life; and, more than that, focused on bigger pictures and community issues rather than personal ego.

She says now, on her recently begun poetry blog, 'Written there on skin' :

My poetry is a part of my life, that creative part so vital to our human individuality. It has been a lifelong habit, scribbling words down, from childhood on through adolescence, adulthood and now into mature older age.

I love the process that takes the poet from the raw first phrases on through the building of themes and expressed ideas and finally to the crafting of a satisfying work. The sharing of that creation with others is the icing on the cake.

We both left librarianship eventually, I to give more attention to writing and she to concentrate on art. As well as becoming a painter, still her primary focus, for some years she ran a successful business involving an innovative technique of print-making. All the while the poetry continued.

It took our old colleague, Valli Poole, now proprietor of Blank Rune Press, to persuade Linda at last to compile a chapbook. I hope it's the first of many.

I remember her telling me, long ago, how much she loved understatement. In this book, with its environmental theme, she uses it to excellent effect – by no means shirking the confrontation of unpalatable truths, but without unnecessary dramatics (the facts being sufficiently dramatic in themselves).

A personal favourite, which I featured recently in an online column for the poetic community Poets United, is Adani Coal Mine Approved, which works by painting a contrasting picture to the facts. It deserves quoting in full.

It pares down

to the palest of skies

to a native fledgling

thirsty, untended

to whether a black stinking

mess of outmoded greed

is claimed as our chosen soil

when we might have lifted

up into the quiet transparency

taking the winds

undisturbed

carrying the young bird

with us

as our token.

Her environmental concerns inform the whole book. She is fully cognisant of the issues she addresses. She worked as a full time volunteer in the environmental movement in the early seventies and has retained interest and involvement since. (See footnote*)

The title, The Tipping Point, comes from a piece called Solar Winds, which is as despairing as we all often feel about the planet's and humanity's situation. It begins:

So weary

at this juncture

here, where the turning on a life’s edge

is pivotal…

Yet this is a book full of beauty. It ends, though still sadly, on a softer note with this small untitled poem:

Searching for haiku and other poems

I find instead a quiet place in the garden;

in its still shadow I stand

upright as bamboo

soft and weeping, like orchids.

The book is to be launched in Frankston on April 23^rd by well-known Melbourne poet Ken Smeaton. It will be available later from Collected Works Bookshop (Level One of the Nicholas Building in Swanston Street, just a few minutes from Flinders Street Station).

Orders and pre-orders
From Blank Rune Press, via Linda’s poetry blog ‘Written There on Skin’

Via the Blank Rune Books Facebook page

By email
Valli will take a firm order, supply payment details, and forward the book after the money is received in the account.

Order price: RRP $15 AUD including P&H.

*Asked for details, Linda said:

In early 1971, I became intensely involved with the then environmental movement, as a researcher/liaison officer for the 4th International Congress on Human Relations: "Environment: social/industrial responsibilities". I researched global environmental problems, potential solutions, and helped to plan and organise this major Conference at the Dallas Brooks Hall Melbourne in July 1972. Speakers included high profile environmentalists from overseas such as Barry Commoner and Rene Dubos and local speakers and delegates from universities, trade unions, political parties, business and industry, along with significant individual voices such as Judith Wright and Robin Boyd. During this period I also became a full member of the Round the Bend Conservation Cooperative, a shareholder of its land at Kangaroo Ground, and served on its Committees of Management for several years. Since then, I have maintained a strong interest in all aspects of conservation/preservation of the natural environment and related concerns.

Linda Stevenson

Literary Melbourne

From my visit in August 2O15

Meeting up with poets Jennie Fraine (left) and Leah Kaminsky (centre). We three have been friends and colleagues for decades.

Leah was about to launch her first novel, the much acclaimed The Waiting Room, set in Haifa, Israel. She took a long time perfecting it – which you may understand when I tell you  she was raising children and working as a General Practitioner at the same time. Jennie and I were privy to some early drafts and even precursors of this novel.

I don't live in Melbourne any more, and Leah had recently spent a lot of time out of Australia. We wanted a private get-together before the large public occasion of the launch.

After coffee, Jennie and I visited Collected Works bookshop, and had a chat to proprietor Kris Hemensley, whom we've also known a long time. We found one copy of my Secret Leopard still on the shelves, and also Jennie's Sexy Guys Kissing, her poems for teenage girls. (Hurry, buyers!)

Another day I paid a visit to City Basement Books for some good second-hand volumes.

This photo was taken a few nights later, at Leah's book launch. Here is Leah trying not to blush during a delightful speech by Graeme Simsion, author of The Rosie Project and The Rosie Effect. He said he read The Kite Runner at much the same time as Leah's book, and was interested to note that the scenes and characters of The Waiting Room stayed with him far more vividly afterwards.

The book itself, which very soon sold out.

The launch was at Readings book shop, St Kilda. My son David was my escort.

And while I was in town I finally caught up with old crony, poet Ken Smeaton, one of my colleagues long ago in the poetry theatre group Word of Mouth. Nowadays he makes videos recording poetry performances in Melbourne, as well as continuing to write and publish his own work. We reunioned at the home of our mutual friend, poet and artist Linda Stevenson.