Writer-a-Day: Suzanne Edgar reading from “The Painted Lady” and “Talking Late”

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Hello, I’m Suzanne Edgar. I’m reading to you from my book the painted lady and my new collection, Talking Late.

The first poem is Old Dubbo Gaol.

OLD DUBBO GAOL

In Dubbo Gaol

the stone is cold,

the window slits

are narrow.

Dark photos there

of eight they hanged

will crack your bones

to the marrow.

Their pallet beds

were knotted wood

with a blanket

but no pillow.

In Dubbo Gaol

the nights were long,

men’s dreams all stank

of sorrow

for the pale ghost men

who faced the drop

with nothing at all

to follow.

HOME ALONE

When I am home alone

the rooms subside and settle with a sigh,

I hear the breathing of the fridge, that tap.

Our house is mine, for now,

and I’m a kindly ruler,

the only law is solitude.

I can forget to dress,

I write in bed and read while eating,

open all the doors

to let in light and air.

Time stretches generously.

I take another chocolate,

turn the Schubert up

at both ends of our house

and leave a book on every chair.

I stroke my walls in passing,

notice self-effacing pictures,

become so friendly with the place

I even wash its kitchen floor

and clean the window with the view.

Alone, I meet myself again,

discover misplaced thoughts

and talk with favourite birds.

These are the games I play when safe,

knowing you’ll come home.

and from Talking Late

SONG of the CRESTFALLEN PIGEON

for Samantha Littley

The pigeon on my window-sill

adores a bird of wood

that gazes from this other side

as if she understood.

Brought here from America,

she wears a perky crest

feathers brown with a hint of pink

adorn her lovely breast.

The pigeon on the outer ledge

believes he woos a dove

and cannot comprehend the glass

that keeps him from his love.

If only I could speak with him

of love’s elusive flame

I’d cure his sad obsession with

a bird he cannot claim.

All day he paces up and down

and pecks upon the pane

his doting Morse-code plea for sex

like any featherbrain.

ABOUT SUZANNE EDGAR:

Suzanne Edgar grew up in Adelaide, settling in Canberra with her husband, historian Peter Edgar, in 1963.  At ANU she taught literature and women’s studies; and was an editor with the Australian Dictionary of Biography for which she also wrote 53 articles, the last concerning Lionel Logue, hero of `The King’s Speech’.

These jobs, undertaken while raising two daughters, have been combined with writing: criticism, fiction and, more recently, poetry.  She was a member of Seven Writers (1984-98) and now workshops with Four Poets.  A lifelong bird-watcher, she loves the bush capital, for its rural setting and its cultural institutions.

“My fellowship was in the early days (August 1992) and I found the place enchanting, conducive to work, but challenging.  Despite Peter Bishop’s kindness, for most of the month I was alone; there were no other Fellows.  This was spooky.  It got spookier when I learned a bush-walker had been murdered where I took my evening walks: and, the killer was still loose in the neighbourhood!  I didn’t know, then, of Varuna’s unlocked cellar door that could have admitted an intruder.  Luckily none came.  Snow fell, the daffodils flowered and I survived to dine out on the story.  I also completed a large body of work and have remained grateful for the experience.” Suzanne Edgar

PUBLICATIONS:

Talking Late

The Painted Lady, an Indigo Book from Ginninderra Press 2006 .  Reprinted in 2007, that year it was short-listed for both the ACT government’s Book of the Year and for the ACT Writing and Publishing awards.

Canberra Tales (with Seven Writers), 1988 – republished as The Division of Love, 1996

Counting Backwards and Other Stories, UQP 1991 (short-listed for Steele Rudd award, 1992)

POEMS IN RECENT ANTHOLOGIES: 

Central Coast Poets, Bird Before Landing, 2002; Suburbs of the Mind, 2004; Off the Path, 2010;

The Best Australian Poems, Black Inc., 2004 and 2005 and 2011;

A O’Keefe & S Vizard eds, The Best Australian Humorous Writing, MUP 2008;

J. Harrison & K. Waterhouse eds, Motherlode, Australian Women’s Poetry 1986-2008, Puncher & Wattman 2009;

K. Brophy & J Rodriguez eds, The 155^th Sonnet, Melbourne Shakespeare Society, 2010

Les Murray ed., The Quadrant Book of Poetry, (I have 18 poems) 2011

EVENTS:

April 2010, Reading `Birth Control’ with the Motherlode group at the Australian Poetry Centre’s `Salt on the Tongue’ Festival of Poetry, at Goolwa, SA; `Birth Control’ selected from this and later broadcast by Mike Ladd on ABC Radio National’s `Poetica’.

April 2011, Readings in `Poets Over Breakfast’, and chair of the panel, `The Dance Between the Genres’, at The Two Fires Festival of Arts and Activism, Braidwood, NSW;

October 2011,  A Talk with Readings in `Meet Local Author’ series, Canberra Public Library, Civic Branch.

CONTACT:

sedgar@internode.on.net

On the 10th March 2012 Varuna is hosting its inaugural Dr Eric Dark Memorial Dinner and “Doctors Who … ” event. You can view the program and MJA writing competition by clicking here.

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