Death of a Poet and Humanitarian

  

R.I.P.

It takes me an hour after waking

to remember last night’s news. 

In that time I hugged the cat,

had breakfast, read a new chapter

of the current novel, reviewed

my shopping list in my head,

worked out what day of the week this is …

and suddenly, somehow, memory

rises like a sudden spectre – 

oh no, Allan’s dead. 

Last night I cried, sent messages 

to a few people who would want 

(and not want) to know, lit a candle, 

spoke a prayer, removed

his photo from my healing grid …

‘Death is the greatest healer,’

my Reiki Master always said.  

There is nowhere else to go

with this. Perhaps I’ll re-read

his poems – again – or perhaps

not just yet. There's a day to encounter;

ordinary, practical things to be done.

I'd looked forward to showing him 

the two books, so soon to be released,

in which he features. At least 

he knew they were happening. 

‘He wanted to go

swiftly when it was time,’

his friend told me, ‘and he did.’

30/9/23

© Rosemary Nissen-Wade 2023

When I wrote my memoir* about running poetry workshops in Pentridge Prison back in the eighties, I didn’t identify particular prisoners I mentioned, but used labels such as ‘Tallest’ and ‘Youngest’ in order to protect their privacy. (Not that I had anything bad to say about them. My experience of them and with them was one of friendship and respect.)

One man I called ‘Mr Outstanding,’ because the visiting poets agreed that his powerful work was the most outstanding of all the amazing poetry being written there. He was finally freed many years ago, and since then has quietly done much good in the world, e.g. working to help the homeless and the disadvantaged.

One of the visiting poets who formed a friendship with this man, and kept in close touch with him all these years since, emailed me a few days ago to tell me he had just died, in hospital after a fall. He was 68 years old.

So I can tell you now (what readers of my memoir who were involved in those prison visits will easily guess) that he was Allan Eric Martin, whose book, Spitting Out Sixpenny, was published in 1984. He also had poems in various literary magazines, notably Overland. 

A serious poet with a true vocation, he was happy to give me permission to republish his particular poems in a new edition of Blood from Stone, the prison anthology first published in 1982 under my then imprint, Abalone Press. In his private life he was indeed a very private person, but he was happy to be known through his honest and revealing poetry.

We who liked and admired him are sad now.

I had been so looking forward to sending him the new edition of Blood from Stone, as well as my memoir and spin-off chapbook which are to be released simultaneously. I try to console myself with the thought that it would have been painful for him to revisit those difficult times. (A last-minute delay in the printing of the memoir is the only reason he didn't already have the books. The progress of this whole project has seemed blessed by the Universe; perhaps I may trust that this apparent glitch just at this time has been for the best too.)

Despite his earlier problems and mistakes, for most of Allan's life he was a man of great integrity.

* Breaking Into Pentridge Prison: Memories of Darkness and Light, to be launched in November 2023, along with the prison poetry anthology Blood from Stone (2nd ed.) and the chapbook Letters to a Dead Man.

Home for Me

Home for me must have a cat.

And for that cat – there have been 

many, each in turn, in their time, 

the most important in the world –

for that cat, I say, my home must be 

their home, their own, with every 

comfort, all safety, each need met,

where they are always loved, and where

they know they are free to be loving. 

Written for Friday Writings #96 at Poets and Storytellers United: What, for you, conjures up Home?

The Track of Time

It goes staccato now –

when I bend to the past,

see the miles covered.

I’d like a softer flow,

lento or legato.

Prompted simultaneously by Friday Writings #95 at Poets and Storytellers United, where Rommy invites us to be inspired by the idea of losing track of time, and by Grace at dVerse introducing us to the Flamenca or Seguidilla Gitana form.

Boomerang Metaphors, invented by Hannah Gosselin

 As it has become difficult to access the instructions for this form, I post them here:

Boomerang Metaphors (invented by Hannah Gosselin)

* Create three, “This poem is a ____,” statements.

* Support each statement in separate stanzas, (one can choose the length of the supporting stanzas and whether or not to rhyme or employ free verse).

* Restate the statement that’s being supported in the last line of these supporting stanzas, (as mini boomerang metaphor refrains).

* Then name the list of three, “This poem is a _____,” statements again as a boomerang metaphors closing refrain.

Note: One may choose to state the closing refrain slightly morphed but mostly the same. As it seems, words that go out into the world do tend to come back touched – slightly transformed.

* The title encapsulates the three listed elements, “This Poem is a ____, ____ and a _____”

For examples, check the label in the right sidebar of this blog.

This Poem is Storm, Ink and Love

 

This poem is a storm forming on the horizon.

This poem is the inky colour of thunder-clouds.

This poem is my love of the brooding before the eruption 

(and of the eruption).

This poem is a gathering darkness, both threat and promise.

When the storm comes, we know it will be explosive,

wild and shattering, in a way that stirs the blood …

and that afterwards there will be clean air, sunlight, peace.

This poem is dark grey, or smokey blue, deepening to black.

This poem is made of ink and passion, sensual arousal and observation,

elements collecting at the edge of consciousness until,

with a roar and a flash of light, they overflow onto the page.

This poem is the way I love the hunkering down of the sky,

love the birds, alert and aware, hurrying to safety ahead of 

the coming downpour and relentless wind – and afterwards

love the re-awakening of cleansed earth, clear sky, birdsong.

This poem is a necessary clearing of the air; a burst of inspiration.

This poem is all the ink staining my fingers in many years of writing.

This poem is my love of words, my love of feeling, my love of life.

This poem is written for Friday Writings #94, Storm, Ink, Love, at Poets and Storytellers United, in which Magaly invites us to use these words in a piece of writing.

I thought this prompt was tailor-made for Hannah Gosselin's Boomerang Metaphors, a favorite form I love to return to from time to time. As it has become difficult to access details via link, I post a summary here.

The Smell of Suntan Lotion

 

The smell of suntan lotion, 

and I’m straight back

to that beach in Bali

that afternoon, with Bill

and our little boys.

It was 1973, our first

holiday outside Australia.

We were carefree, 

and full of wonder. 

We still loved each other.

Written for Friday Writings #93: Scent of a Poem at Poets and Storytellers United.

The Presence of the Observer Changes What’s Being Observed

 

I start my walk to the shops.

Few people along this village road.

A toddler, pushed in a stroller,

spies me going past the other way,

cocks her finger at me and gurgles.

She changes me. I fill with smiles,

waggling my hand back at her,

exchanging grins with her mother.

She changes us all, and

changes our interactions.

 

I take the upper path, above

trees and river – almost step

on a flattened cane toad

some driver didn’t miss. Think

of the handsome goanna

sprawled across half the road

the other day, his proud head up.

Luckily no traffic there.

I tooted, swerved and missed.

He took off into the bush.

 

Next day my sleek black hunter

nosed at an open drawer.

I thought he was trying to climb inside

(he likes cubby-holes, that cat)

but later he brought out on to the floor

the upturned white-bellied body

of a small lizard, dead.

I wondered then,

does Nature demand

a life lost for a life saved?

 

I contemplate, too, the woman

who shares her space with wombats.

“They think so differently

about the world,” she says,

finding that charming. “We forget,”

she adds, “That we are animals too.”

I am an event in nature,

like a wombat or goanna.

I am an agent of change,

like introduced cats and toads.

 

 

Written 29/9/09

 

I recently fished this out of my 'Drafts for Reworking' folder to ask the other members of the (offline) LitChix writers' group for their opinions, because it was the only one in that folder I couldn't readily see what to do with: tighten or ditch. They told me it didn't need anything doing; it's charming and interesting as it stands. So after years of hiding it away, I'm at last sharing it here.