Post-Celebration

So it seems that we are nearly half-way through 2015.
And what a strange year it has been, and will still shape up to be.


As usual, I feel like blogging when I need to figure shit out... And this has been prompted by my most recent trip away. I went to Tassie for the DARK MOFO festival put on my MONA in Hobart. It was... amazing. So much art, and food, and drink.

There were fires, and warm drinks, and fascinating art. What more could you want, really?

And then I come back here and spend my time at the same desk I've been sitting at for two years and wonder what I'm doing... Of course, I know what I'm doing: I'm earning money. Because without money I'm fucked.

But I'm starting to hope I might be able to find a way to make money that feels less pointless and wasteful. Because I do feel wasted. I'm a clever chicken, so I'm told. I have so much more to give than what I'm doing at the moment.


But how to take that risk? How to push? How to not be scared shitless of the down-side of risk... You know, the chance that I'll end up with no job, no money, and no security. I can't go there. I've seen my parents struggle there, and I don't want to do it.


So for now - I'm doing what I usually do at this point: I'm studying again (this time a combination of useful things and fun things - business and art), I'm sketching and painting to the point that I don't know what to do with the results, and I'm googling non-stop.

What exhibitions could I participate in? What art prizes could I enter? What other pathways are there out there? Where could we move to? What else could I do?


And that's where I am at the moment! Waiting for half my friends to leave (lots of people with big plans afoot), waiting to see if this job will offer me more (or if I could push for more), working on some study, and going crazy with the art.

There you go - the traditional "what am I doing with my life?!?!?!" blog: the foundation of my writing, it seems.

How I Am Not My Mother, Emily O'Neill

To be only bone. To be thin
chrome handle bars on a quiet bicycle.
Small & held like a pebble
underneath my tongue, assassin
of thirst. She used to run, before
all of the children. She used to be
knife fine. I saw a picture
of her glowing frown, her hips
with their ashtray curves. Muse
at dock’s end, endless black olive hair.
That’s what they called her:
Olive Oil. Angular, and animated.
I tore my voice off trying
to be uncanny, porcelain.
I want to be the same ghost.
I jog around the block,
a gasping hole in my sail.
Force my feet into tiny
wooden shoes and bleed.
Hope to become a lens
flare. A stoic.
Like her.

My First Lover Speaks to Me as I Sleep With Her, Raven Jackson (PANK magazine)

This is what it feels like to split the shell of a woman.

Shards of her everywhere. Animal light spread across

the walls. For a second, I feel like a boy entering
a woman for the first time. My skin shivering as if pulled

from the banks of a river. Clothes shapeless on the floor. When she moves
beneath me, I wonder how someone could enter her like a hook

thick as ropes. Tear her into two. And he comes to me as if I’ve closed my eyes.
The braided scar above his lip. The clench

of teeth on my ear. Like this, he says, showing me how to peel her back
like husks. Like this.

*****

Holy shit.

So much amazing.

Sometimes I go weeks without looking at much poetry. Some still filters in, thanks to some excellent poetry bloggers on tumblr (for example lifeinpoetry) and some poets, journals and magazines that I follow on facebook (for example Sam Sax, Australian Poetry). And PANK... when I remember to check it. But man, when I do...

Poems like the one above make me exhale audibly... make me throw my head back and say "fuck", or similar. 

They seem tangible, and I will be thinking about this poem for a long time. 

Audre Lorde, from “125th Street and Abomey,” The Black Unicorn: Poems

mother, illuminate my offering
of old victories
over men over women over my selves
who has never before dared
to whistle into the night
take my fear of being alone
like my warrior sisters
who rode in defense of your queendom
disguised and apart
give me the woman strength
of tongue in this cold season.

We Were Liars

We Were Liars by E. Lockhart
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I can't decide how I really feel about this book... which is probably why it has taken me so long to write this review. I did like it. It was a great YA novel, which didn't focus solely on the old "coming of age fall in love" tropes that get done to death in this (and every) genre.

There is foreboding, there is angst, there is revelation that spins your view of the narrative and the narrator again and again. You are reminded of your privilege. You are reminded of others' privilege.

But there was something about this book, despite everything I like about it, that made it drag. I struggled to not skip ahead because there is SO. MUCH. FOREBODING. That I found myself rolling my eyes and going "yes I get it - something is going to happen / has happened".

I didn't expect what happened though, which was nice. And in the end I was glad I persisted. I need more books in my life where the main conflict does not revolve around romantic interests (though there is some believable teen romance going on here too), and while I wish I could love this book more, that doesn't mean it shouldn't be counted in the list.

In the end I probably wouldn't recommend this as a "must read!!!" but if someone was interested in reading it, I'd encourage them to give it a go. And not to read spoilers... because then the pay off of all that foreboding would be pretty disappointing.

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