Australian Public Intellectual [API] Network

Another Universe: Friendly Street Poets 28

By Kate Deller-Evans And Steve Evans, Kent Town: Wakefield Press, 2004, 108 pages, paperback, $19.95. Reviewed by Cath Vidler in the February 2006 issue.

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In some respects, the experience of reading Another Universe has much in common with that of being an audience member at a live poetry event. One is struck by the uniqueness of each contribution to the collection, and one can imagine the corresponding individuality of each poet succeeding the microphone at Friendly Street. Hence, on first impressions, Another Universe presents like a bowerbird's nest, packed with shiny, original, mutually distinct material. If, at this point, one were to ask: 'so what binds the collection together?' the answer would not lie in any notion of a consistency of voice, but rather a consistency of surprise and pleasure.

However by reading this anthology from a slightly different and more generalised perspective, unifying elements emerge in the form of certain categorical similarities between groups of poems. It is interesting to approach Another Universe with an eye on identifying these stylistic categories, as the process helps explain why the poems were especially suitable for oral presentation, and therefore successful in being selected for the anthology.

Firstly, there are a number of narrative poems scattered throughout the collection, and such pieces seem natively appropriate for oral presentation. Having a speaker perform a narrative poem enables audience members to appreciate the anecdotal qualities of the work in a very visceral, immediate way. The addition of humour or other strong emotions only increases the potential of these narrative poems for a strong impact in a performance setting. Humorous examples include Amelia Walker's 'Domination', Geoff Kemp's 'Footy Poem', and Stephen Lawrence's 'Partnershipping':

Well it's the half-time point through Term Three --
and we've shantied off our little dears
for an extra long weekend.
So,
Welcome to our staff development morning:
Its English Teachers Which Make A Difference!

Even from the quiet perspective of the book reviewer, this entertaining introduction to an account of an English teachers' workshop makes an impression, but its natural aptness for live reading to an audience is obvious.

An example of a poem at the opposite end of the emotional spectrum is Louise Nicholas's 'The Tree'. This powerful poem centres on the death of a young man, and one can readily imagine the effect of such a poem when read to an audience. The poem begins:

Driving my son to his night-fill jobwe passed the tree where your son died:white cross nailed to the trunkflowers at its foot.

In contrast to longer narrative pieces, one also comes across a number of sparse, short poems in this anthology. In the case of short poems, it would appear to be the residual silence surrounding the succinct text, rather than the quantum of conversational sound that lies at the source of their performance potential. Examples include Ioana Petrescu's 'Tanka for a Cat' and Garth Dutton's 'Country Winter Night':

Cold clear winter night
Outside the bedroom window
A tree full of stars.

Poems characterised by rhyme and metre also feature in the collection. Even when read privately, villanelles such as Jeri Kroll's 'Villanelle': Portrait of a Lady and Dorothy Hamann's 'Villanelle for a Hotline Volunteer' achieve a quasi-hypnotic effect through their repetitions of language and rhyme so one can only extrapolate this effect to that attained by an actual speaker.

However, the poems in this collection that deal with the condition of being a poet, or the act of poetry writing itself, are perhaps the most manifestly suitable for sharing with a community in an oral forum. A number of poems fall into this category, including Adrian Robinson's 'Exposing the Threads' and Henry Ashley-Brown's 'My Wardrobe'. It is not difficult to imagine that the act of sharing these 'poems about poetry' at a reading would afford a meaningful, pleasurable opportunity for a community of readers and writers to reflect upon the art that brought them together in the first place.

Having identified the above categories of poems as particularly suitable for presentation at a poetry reading event, it is important to note that the special qualities of these poems do not exclude them from success in the quiet context of non-verbal reading. In fact, some of the poems in the collection, especially those that deal with interior states of being and quiet reflection on experience are exceptionally powerful on the page. Gaetano Aiello's 'Opening an Umbrella' is a good example:

I grasp the handle
of my umbrella
I sense the stirring
of the nocturnal,
the wings of a giant fruit bat
wriggle; grey flaps dangle
cartilage struts straighten
and skin tightens around the
frame of my shadow
as I walk down Grenfell Street
into the night.

Another Universe is an energetic, enjoyable and at times moving anthology. While first it seems like a long charm bracelet, sparkling with unique and mutually exclusive pieces, closer reading sheds light on the reasons why the poems were so successful in the context of a live reading at Friendly Street, and were therefore brought together in this collection.

Citation

Cath Vidler. 'Review: Another Universe: Friendly Street Poets 28 by Kate Deller-Evans and Steve Evans' [online]. Network Review of Books (Perth, Australian Public Intellectual Network), February 2006. Availability: <please cite the web address here> ISSN 1833-0932. [accessed 19 June 2013].

Back Cover Blurb

Award-winning authors Kate Deller-Evans and Steve Evans present the best poems of 2003 read at Friendly Street, Australia's longest-running public poetry venue. Another Universe brings together the work of famous Australian poets, expatriate poets, regulars and newcomers. Poems in this collection will surprise you, thrill you and always move you!

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