34-37 Degrees South - 2023

34-37 DEGREES SOUTH
COUNTRY
2023
An Anthology of Poetry
from the South Coast Writers Centre Membership

Published 2023 by South Coast Writers Centre, southcoastwriters.org
Copyright © 2023. All rights reserved. Copyright of individual poems
is retained by the authors.
Cover image: Ash Taylor, Mural Port Kembla 2022 (detail). Part
of the Wonderwalls Project Port Kembla 2022 commissioned by
Wollongong City Council as part of its public art program. The
mural is located on the corner of Wentworth Street and Church Street
Port Kembla. Ash Taylor is a muralist and multi-disciplinary artist
captivated and inspired by the beauty found in Australian landscapes
and our natural environment. http://ashtaylr.com
ISBN: 978-0-9803987-7-9
Photo credits. All photos Peter Frankis except p.1, David Clode
https://unsplash.com/@davidclode
Typesetting: Peter Frankis
Printed: Print Media, Wollongong
ii

Acknowledgement of Country
This publication was produced on unceded Wadi Wadi land and
the poems were written by poets living and working on the unceded
lands of Aboriginal people throughout the South Coast, Illawarra and
Southern Highlands of NSW and wider parts of Australia. On behalf
of the poets in this edition, the editors acknowledge and pay respect
to the Traditional Custodians and Elders of these lands, our nation’s
first storytellers and poets, and their continued spiritual and cultural
connection to, and custodianship of, Country.
iii

Foreword
Based at Coledale, near Wollongong, the South Coast Writers Centre
serves writers and the public between Helensburg and Eden and west
into the Southern Highlands (approximately 34 to 37 degrees South
latitude).
This is the second anthology from poets in the SCWC membership,
focused this year on the theme of Country with poems ranging from
haiku and tanka, through sonnets and free verse to prose poetry.
In this lively collection, I’m pleased to see some of our well-published
poets such as Tim Heffernan, Dr Elanna Herbert and Erin Shiel. Joining
them are newer writers to give the reader a sense of the variety and
diversity of writers working today. The anthology also features a piece
from Ms Fatima Sayed, a Syrian-Australian who we invited to write
about her refugee experience.
Sadly, 2023 saw the passing of Ron Pretty AM, after a long illness.
Ron was instrumental in establishing the SCWC along with Five
Islands Press. He was a remarkable poet and teacher, known to many
in the Illawarra and Australia-wide. The collection closes with a poem
in tribute to Ron’s work from local poet Moira Kirkwood.
I congratulate and thank every poet who submitted to this second
anthology. It is available in both hard-copy and in digital form. In
addition, this year we are bringing you the voices of the poets reading
their work on the website.
I am delighted to present 34 to 37 Degrees South for 2023.
Dr Sarah Nicholson
Director, South Coast Writers Centre
November 2023
v

Introduction
Between My Country—and the Others—
There is a Sea—
But Flowers—negotiate between us—
As Ministry.
Emily Dickinson, Verse 905
Whatever your politics, however you voted on the Voice Referendum,
country remains a foremost concern to modern Australians, whether it’s
the journey of reconciliation between Australia’s original inhabitants and
a settler society, the tension between urban Australians and the bush, or
finding ways to nurture country in times of global environmental change.
Sometimes country can mean finding a place of comfort; sometimes it
can appear as strange and unfamiliar.
One of the many delights in editing this volume has been enjoying each
poet’s creative response to the theme. Here you’ll find thirty unique
perspectives, ranging from the personal and the intimate to the grand;
poems about trauma, change and hope, and some wry humour too.
The collection is divided into three chapters. ‘You Are Here’ gathers
poems with local concerns: the passing of two beloved chickens,
swimming in the Murrumbidgee River at Wagga Wagga or a salutary
re-take on Dorothea Mackellar’s I Love a Sunburnt Country. The poems
in ‘Voyages’ explore international concerns: returning to a graveyard in
Silesia, learning Spanish at a picnic or remembering a garden in Tokyo.
The final chapter, ‘Inland Empires’, explores more personal issues:
loss, transitions and the body itself as a territory marked by signs and
experience.
vi

The editorial committee, Linda Godfrey, Zohra Aly and Peter Frankis
would like to thank each of the poets who submitted work to this, our
second anthology. To those who were selected, bravo; to those who
missed out this time, keep writing, keep working at this most difficult
craft.
Our thanks also to this year’s reader panel—Linda Albertson, Amelia
Fielden, Kai Jensen and Erin Shiel, who along with the Editorial
Committee read all the submissions and provided clear feedback and
guidance. And a special thanks to Ms Sky Carrall, SCWC’s intern for
this project.
We hope you enjoy reading these poems and also listening to the
poets performing their works and talking about the making of these
poems.
vii

Contents
Acknowledgement of Country
Foreword
Introduction
iii
v
vi
1. YOU ARE HERE 1
walking country Judi Morison 2
By the saltwater lake Alisha Brown 4
at wagga beach Tim Heffernan 5
Country Song Myfanwy Williams 6
Winter solstice Kai Jensen 7
After the fires, January 2020 Melanie Weckert 8
My Country Not My Country Stephen Meyrick 9
Red Joni Braham 12
Funeral birds Alisha Brown 13
“Everyone knows I cry” Linda Albertson 14
(response to Meaghan)
Illawarra Haiku— Lajos Hamers 16
Cardinal Points—Ordinary Lives
She’s Not A Sun-Burnt Country Linda Mcquarrie-Bowerman 18
2. VOYAGES 21
Eggplant Elizabeth Walton 22
Looking for the missing gravestones Elanna Herbert 24
The Country Upstairs Amelia Fielden 26
Go Go Jonathan Cant 28
Princes Highway / Sunset / Winter Elias McKinley 29
water cycle Tim Heffernan 30
After the funeral Linda Albertson 31
Road Trips Brid Morahan 32
Tears of Homeland Fatima Sayed 34
Language swap Stella Hatzis 36
viii

3. INLAND EMPIRES 39
signage Sandra Renew 41
Memento mori with
swallowtail butterflies Erin Shiel 42
Life by the lake Kai Jensen 43
Strange country Kathleen Bleakley 44
‘Life’s a beach, and then you die’ Christine Sykes 46
Country of Mind, Country of Love Janette Dadd 47
My country Bríd Morahan 48
On the poet’s country Moira Kirkwood 50
NOTES ON THE POETS 53
ix

1. YOU ARE HERE
1

walking country
Judi Morison
at the waterhole
feet tread black soil, connect with earth
walaaybaaga ngiyani yanawaanha
we are walking country
we call out to the Old Ones
tell them our names
ask them to guide us
follow bandaarr tracks along the bank
past boundary-markers
—gulabaa, bilaarr, yarraan
past wounds proud on scar trees
that gifted tools the people shaped
—coolamon, shield, canoe
we make a fire and sit
while sweet smoke whispers
welcome home
listen to the creek
hold its breath
as it rests in morning light
until a skein of wood ducks
soars, pulsates
arcs across the sky
2

and opposite, with rippling wake
head up, whiskers dry
gumaay the water-rat hunts
we find his mate downstream
drowned in a cotton-cockey’s yabby trap
walaaybaagabala ngiyani yanawaanha yaluu
still we are walking country
3

By the saltwater lake
Alisha Brown
I stripped like a stonefruit
leaving
only the hard seed
not yet sweet or bitter
ripe or rotten
just a rough, round likeliness
tea trees ached their creaky necks
and, carefully
I dodged the shoremouth spittle
searching for a soft place to be born
or to die
or whatever grace occurs
when things become
my knees found the sand
and it held me
simply
there was silence, and
then sound
blue echoes on the surface
a small fish
me, nameless
and
remaining
4

at wagga beach
Tim Heffernan
on the weekends and after school you went down
to the beach and this was when you were young and
worrying about pubic hair, breasts and dickheads.
it was about a decade since you almost drowned
in the murrumbidgee at hay and well past that
memory of the woman who dragged you up when
you were heading down, downstream. seeking
shade those summers we unfurled our towels under
the red gums down at the beach where the river’s
curve stopped the sand. we walked upstream past
the caravan park to the rocks where we slid into the
river and swam to the other side, swinging on the
rope and jumping from the trees that overhung.
mostly we went with it and floated down to the
beach on tractor tubes or just with our bodies. it
was nice, waiting for the five o’clock wave. a kiss on
the other bank. a glimpse of your breast. walking
you home. it was a place to skim tennis balls.
but then once, across the river where the current
undercut, where we all jumped from the bank into
the river, someone decided to
dive
5

Country Song
Myfanwy Williams
here now on Biripi land
where country hugs
city ravaged soles
into ancient ravines
perched on red gums
black cockatoos sing of
coming rain and later later
sister sings murder
ballads/ First Nations meets Tennessee
and there is something
about grief when sung in language
something about rage
when chanted in hymn.
morning wakes with the kookaburras
the lychees twinkle holy on
their stems red baubles
in post-rain
iridescence.
Note. Biripi land is located on the mid-North Coast of NSW.
6

Winter solstice
Kai Jensen
The calendar’s stuck
on a picture of two crested grebes
courting on a South Island lake
June goes on forever
sinking into darkness
the cold deepening
winter doonas, heavy quilts
on the bed and possums
shivering on the front deck
longer by far than the year’s
first five together
this month lingers
hangs about like wood smoke
in the chill night air
when the waves’ drum beats loud
and in the dark of the moon
just above our roof
the galaxy wheels.
7

After the fires, January 2020
Melanie Weckert
Grey tree fringes on the silent hill-corpse
sprout from the pelt of fire slaughtered slopes.
Once green—grasses, bushes, trees
teeming with power and life
the rustle of echidnas, lyre birds, skinks.
Now silent, the brittle charcoaled limbs
the wombat burrows of burnt flesh
singed fur
bones
feathers
beaks.
I recall the agony through aching eyes
of black carcasses plunged from burning sky.
Now, dense undergrowth over hill contours consumed
so bright rocks show through burnt soil skin
above, a lone black cockatoo squeals,
Gone
Gone
Gone.
8

My Country Not My Country
Stephen Meyrick
I
D’harawal country. Stolen country, never ceded.
Ancestors’ country, Spirit country. Story country.
Goanna country; Black Snake country; not whitefella country.
The website says that Cataract Dam’s our heritage.
It notes the barbecues, and that the loos are clean:
‘here you can have a picnic and enjoy the view.’
There is nothing of Captain Wallis, though we know.
About fourteen killed by troopers, though we know.
About the severing of heads, although we know.
Gerontion’s cry: ‘After such knowledge, what forgiveness?’
II
O’Brien’s folk, from County Clare, had English overlords,
five acres and two pigs; they scratched a peasant living—
until the Hunger came. John Frost, the Newport rebel,
was first condemned to death, but (as an act of mercy)
was sent out here in chains; and fifty thousand blackbirds
came as human cargo to cut white sugar cane.
John Grushka fled the Nazis in nineteen-thirty-nine;
Mirjam swam the Elbe, and left a life behind;
Fatima lost a son on Christmas Island’s reef.
Heidegger knew Gerworfenheit must be Dasein’s ground.
9

III
Some came here with intent to plant the Empire’s flag.
Some came to dig for gold or build the Snowy scheme;
to find some space to breathe, or for adventure’s sake.
Their children’s children mine and farm on land that knew
another people’s feet; or squat in cities where
the track is harder to remember than forget.
But love was never bound by right, doled out to each
according to desert. And country’s polyamorous;
she will embrace all those who know and care for her
and hold all kinds of lover in her many-chambered heart.
10

Notes.
The Goanna Man and the Black Snake Woman feature in the story Bah’naga
and Mun’dah told by Auntie Frances Bodkin in the D’harawal Dreaming
Stories series. https://dharawalstories.com/
Captain Wallis led the troopers in the Appin massacre, which took place in
the vicinity of the Cataract Dam.
‘After such knowledge, what forgiveness?’. cf. T.S. Eliot, Gerontion.
Collected Poems: 1909-1962 (2020) Faber and Faber.
Most of the references in this section are to documented individuals. (The
exception is Fatima.) See Conversations with a survivor: John Grushka.
https://sydneyjewishmuseum.com.au/shop/events/survivor-talk/survivor-inconversation-john-grushka/.
Mirjam K. from Monica G. Durrer’s Migrating
Identities Across Time and Space: Life Experiences of East German Migrants to
Australia. PhD thesis, UWA, 2016.
Blackbirds. Between 1863 and 1908, over 50,000 people from Pacific
Island countries were brought to Australia to work in primary industries
in Queensland and NSW. Some were kidnapped and forcibly removed;
many were persuaded to come by promises that were never fulfilled; most
were abused in one way or another; almost one-quarter died. This practice
was referred to as ‘blackbirding’, and the people conducting this trade as
‘blackbirders’.
‘Heidegger claimed Gerworfenheit must be Dasein’s ground.’ Heidegger’s
terms are notoriously difficult to pin down and translate, but Gerworfenheit
is usually translated as ‘thrownness’, meaning that ‘we did not choose that
into which we were sent, yet it forms, shapes, and influences our past,
present, and future’. Dasein is usually translated as Being.
11

Red
Joni Braham
Red as a shearer’s careless nick
on an unsuspecting sheep,
Red as the wool press
waiting for its fill,
Red as the Kelpie
taut and wired for action,
Red as the roustabout’s blood dripping
from a cloven hoof fight back,
Red as the chalk cross
across the next sheep to slaughter,
Red as the dirt stirred through my nostrils.
Red as the blood all over the country,
all over unceded land.
Red.
12

Funeral birds
Alisha Brown
There are six black cockatoos
scattered through the squiggly gum
that homesick siren screech
sharpening my bones
shaking the sun free from its rosy basket
to yolk across the sky
delightfully
I’m not sure why people call them funeral birds
when this is surely a wedding
let me find my abalone earrings
I wish to be an ornament atop morning’s mantelpiece
another lucid dewdrop
teasing colour from everything
God! let me hold all of this –
the birds, the sun
and the crisp significance of it all—
within a finite
sort of intimacy
The cockatoos, they
hop from branch to branch
doing nothing
but the very thing itself
13

“Everyone knows I cry” (response to Meaghan)
Linda Albertson
Let your tears flow.
Let their moisture
revive
the colours
of the spirits
who stir up
your courage.
Your tears mark the path
revealed to you by your ancestors,
who step out with you into
twisting waterways
through Country.
Let each tear
drip
into the cracks of my heart
split
by ignorance
and guilt
and sorrow.
Your heart lets me see you in the waters,
your grace allows me into the waters with you,
to stumble
in your slipstream
as you let the healing flow.
14

Note. Meaghan Holt is a poet, performer (Sassi Spirit) and truth-teller born
on Gunai–Kurni land to an English–Scottish mother and Wakka Wakka–
Pitjara father. Linda first met Meaghan on the lands of the Djiringanj
people and wrote this poem in response to a talk Meaghan gave on her own
Facebook Live which started by Meaghan saying, “Everyone knows I cry.”
15

Illawarra Haiku—Cardinal Points—Ordinary
Lives
Lajos Hamers
northern villages
black diamond’s last sentinel
the dormitory fringe
cartography trains
trace lines of metal & sand
the tides shift the shore
✵ ✵ ✵
escarpment west
spies writer, spies painter, spies muse
veiled untimely dusk
the painter’s hand falls
in the dark tor’s ill shadow
the Berry hills mourn
✵ ✵ ✵
eastern horizons
road, green zone, sand, ocean, sky
clouds punctuate thought
Sandon Point corellas
far from habitat, annoy worms
another migrant tale
✵ ✵ ✵
16

southerly change hints
chill winds & potential harm
un-ceded land
last exit to somewhere
& smeared suburban boundaries
given every latitude
✵ ✵ ✵
17

She’s Not A Sun-Burnt Country
Linda Mcquarrie-Bowerman
she’s a well-fed mongrel dog, a bitsa,
runt of the litter birthed first to a pair of strays
who locked like dingos and stayed that way until one let go
in death: a wave surging and rolling, sacrificing itself
on some shore somewhere with regular monotony;
not fashioned in the shape of one country or another, all flat plains
butted up against softly curving hills descending
into the odd valley or two where rain pisses down, or not, depending on
her seasonal climate, the sun definitely shining (sometimes) out of someplace
south of her border or so some have said, and that tongue
gibbering one language and stumbling over several others
with its unforked flicker.
18

2. VOYAGES

Eggplant
Elizabeth Walton
(after Eggplant, Peter Balakian)
So much wrapped
in the leaves of stuffed cabbage,
the sweetness of late-season love apples, and slow-roasted romas.
My laptop played “Eggplant” in my homeland, my kitchen,
while I sliced mad fruit—
listening to the mussel stock brew—
listening to Balakian’s voice
journey his purpled mood.
I cried at the white dishes on his table—
how the moon looked in that part of the world.
Sunday, I travelled the state, to homelands of old,
for Dad’s birthday. I carefully refrigerated the stock for the soup.
There were no platters at his house anymore
they’ve been given to neighbours,
and grandchildren, who threw them away
before they went overseas. No plans to return.
I arranged the prawns and mirin drenched peaches
22

for the guests on a plate from next door.
Dad did not wait for me to ladle his lunch. He used his
nonagenarian hands.
Note. Peter Balakian’s poem Eggplant, published in New Yorker
May 28, 2018
23

Looking for the missing gravestones
Elanna Herbert
Under the unexpectedly blue sky, canola paints itself across
the horizon to the outside corner of a red cemetery wall at
Tyniec Legnicki village. here, I imagine Kandinsky’s riders
or Marc’s blue horses passing by, heads flicking with
impatience, before the First War put an end to such flagrant
expressionism. but now, in this spring, yellow floods
warmth back to your church, reconfigured for the newcomers’
saints, still – nothing is left of your past, even your church’s
name is gone. yet somewhere, tightly buried here lie the
bones of my ancestors, bundled into soil with the stoic
prayers of a foreign language. inside the cemetery walls
between European trees and knotted ivy, the last
smashed gravestone or a broken granite cross piled to
rubble is all that was left.
“Niet Polskie”.
the head-scarfed grandmother shrugs their absence
asserting her control like a practical boot. beyond her
24

neat white-painted house, those others, long tainted by
war, are left to one side, to fold and slump towards your
soil, as slowly as things of clay and straw and wood are
bound to do. orange tile roofs collapse on themselves, as
once fired ghosts of a European fairy-tale were abandoned
here through fear and disdain. only in this village, where
I am and I am not, can I understand the visceral wound
of contested land, feel unfamiliar shadows as a hollow pit.
this glorious yellow farmland was never my country, but
it was yours. this soil grew thin bones into hope-filled youth
this church washed a wavering soul with divine certainty, until
that moment when you chose life. you changed my history.
you walked away from Gross Tinz. you caught the rigged
ship, and you landed on the edge of a desert, mein Auswanderer.
Note. Tyniec Legnicki is a small village in Lower Silesia, south-western
Poland. Prior to end of the Second World War the village was in Germany
and was named was Groß Tinz.
25

The Country Upstairs
Amelia Fielden
spring-time now
in my other country
the iris
will be winding in bloom
along Meiji Garden’s stream
sixty years since
my hosts took me to that shrine
then Shibuya,
showing off the wonders
of post-war Tokyo
sixty years
exploring from Hokkaido
to Kyushu,
discovering what it is to love
a foreign country
in my southern home
on sleepless nights I count
rosary beads
of natsukashii scents:
new-woven tatami
26

an pillows
drawers of folded kimono
lacquer trays
sushi rice and barley tea,
persimmon globes on black branches
not my country,
not where I will die …
every year
sakura in pale clouds
blossom, fall, scatter
Note. The Country Upstairs by Colin Simpson, 1956, is the author’s
impressions of Japan following World War II
27

Go Go
Jonathan Cant
I FLY west in a Rocket 88,
I take the open road—Route 66
—my freedom ride. I’d escaped from AA,
just enough cash for Mexican XX.
On the highway, Illinois to La La
Land with its tanned band of sand where can-can
dancers in cages do time in Sing Sing.
Such a fan: wish I coulda seen J.J.
Cale play Cocaine or those Texans—ZZ
Top—headline at the Whisky a Go Go
in WeHo on a go-slow, ain’t so-so.
Ah, the clear waters of Bora Bora!
Take me there, or give me Lomaloma.
Catch the seaplane back to Savusavu.
Leave Vanua Levu to write bang-bang
headlines, eat phô soup and sip cold Ba Ba
beer on Old Saigon boulevards. Didi
outta there and home to mama Curl Curl
or south to ski powder at Mount Baw Baw
or north to ride the cane train at Bli Bli—
I have kin there, but no kin in Kin Kin.
Never Never seen the lights at Min Min.
28

Princes Highway / Sunset / Winter
Elias McKinley
on that so-close-yet-so-far
final stretch of highway
between Quaama and Bega
the sunsetting western sky
unironically like a postcard
ablaze in red and umber
set against the cardboard black
of the mountain range’s sharpened silhouette
the majesty
of coming home
29

water cycle
Tim Heffernan
the thing that got me about it was its arrows. the diagram
of the water cycle i learned to draw in high school. it was
perfect too—what went up came down. transpiration
evaporation precipitation—everything was clean again.
water always there and pure. the water cycle had no bottles.
water was storage—out of the cycle, drained from
aquifers by nestlé and left plastic wrapped and shipped
off to countries where water is not a human right. water,
water everywhere and not a supermarket in sight.
30

After the funeral
Linda Albertson
(On viewing Light in the Valley, Lawrence River 2019 by Caroline
Bellamy at Oamaru Art Gallery, Aotearoa New Zealand.)
A special blue
streams over greywacke boulders and rocks,
more than one tone
catches the light beyond mountainous slopes.
A bank of sand
intersects the landscape and pulls the water
towards the dip
where white sheaths angle across distant outcrops.
Under the un-shadowed sky
I wade in the winter water towards a vastness,
my eyes magnetised
by the bleu céleste above an almost invisible
halo where the hard rocks
bruise, where my grief will melt.
31

Road Trips
Brid Morahan
Remember that one when I sang along with the chorus of ‘Flame Trees’
on the AM band, roared it out the open window on the road to Bourke?
Just to keep my spirits up—no aircon in the Datsun
and over fifty in the car.
How about the manic humming, the fog was thick and hazy
on the road from Bright with the heater on full-bore?
Eye-skin peeled back peering into white to avoid hitting the bikes
and going off the edge.
No music on the road from Walgett on dusk with roos all over,
head gasket blown, fuel light on, no water and no phone,
no coverage anyway, seventy-five clicks and busting for a wee
til I made it to the Ridge.
That time I rolled the car on a backroad of Uralla
and stepped out through where the windscreen used to be—
the bush looked the same all round and when you found me, I was walking
the wrong way—back to where I’d come from.
I remember petrol rations—odds and evens on the rego plates,
the locust plague gumming up the grille and the time Snow the cat
jumped out the window on the road to Warrnambool—she was waiting on the
doorstep when I got home two weeks later.
32

The one with the girls: we stopped to pick some cotton outside Narrabri,
picnicked at Sawn Rocks. The songs were swapped for games,
questions big and small, and too many where the answer was ‘George
Bush,’
but so much laughter.
Now I drive the long road south through the Eurobodalla forest.
Wattle stains the air and wind whips the bark off stringys,
I’ve picked up the brandy snaps, the songs are lusty on my lips.
Soon I’ll be dancing to the music,
soon I’ll be back home, with you.
33

Tears of Homeland
Fatima Sayed
The calamities did not stop crushing us, they stabbed us in the heart
of life, the pains became great, and the responsibilities weighed heavily
on our shoulders.
We are a nation that embraced death until we became familiar with it,
and it became part of our daily routine. We are no longer afraid of it.
The war has been going on for more than twelve years, which claimed
millions of lives and has not ended.
Some of the people became displaced, refugees in a country of different
languages, culture, customs, religion, and laws. They missed their
family; some of them left their parents in old age. Parents who had
raised them and still tried to take care of them even at this stage, but
they went, leaving tears and broken hearts.
As for others in inhumane prisons, they faced trumped-up charges
and torture to death, daily. They wished to die a thousand times while
they are alive. The cells are overcrowded, and the number are huge. All
because they demanded freedom from the dictator whose policy was
based on genocide, killing, displacement, compulsory conscription,
and stole the country’s capabilities. This was the price of freedom paid
by the Syrians.
34
For the people who migrated across the sea their options were limited.
Either death in their home country or death by drowning, facing the
high waves for a better life in Europe. Syrians have become food for
fish, many of them died, and lost in the middle of the sea. The bodies
of children and women were scattered on the beaches, and their
symbol was Ryan

Many Syrians left their homes because of shelling and sniping to live
in worn-out tents for fear of the bombing. Water entered from all
sides, the cold was unbearable, the children’s clothes were wet, and the
mattress was full of water and mud. The children’s dreams became a
heater and a plastic sheet to patch their tent—this in a country rich in
oil resources.
In the end, the Syrians paid the highest price. They sacrificed their
children as martyrs, homes, money, to find freedom away from injustice
and exclusion to live in dignity.
Note. Ryan was Olivia Espie’s five-year old son who drowned after falling
into a swimming pool while on holidays. The pain of loss came rushing back
after seeing images of two young Kurdish brothers washed up on a beach in
Turkey in 2015. They had drowned along with their mother as they made
a desperate bid to escape the violence in Syria. Olivia started a fundraising
drive to help refugees fleeing war-torn countries.
35

Language swap
Stella Hatzis
A sunny day in a week of autumn chill. “I was too sick to cook,” she
apologises, “and I didn’t get to study any Greek.” She leans over the
picnic basket, bumping her straw hat into mine, and produces a bottle.
“I brought milk for... Oh, no.” “For the tea?” “I forgot the tea.”
bright clouds
competing
with white linen
Cake crumbs scatter, shaken off loose sheets of Spanish vocab. The air
smells of orange. “Will you be wanting this back?” I follow her pointing
hand to the cream cheese, freckled with ants in a sticky picnic of
their own. She studies my face. “Want me to teach you how to say
‘damn ants’?”
36

3. INLAND EMPIRES

signage
Sandra Renew
to you, in all our uncharted newness
my lesbian body is freshly inked country,
a tattooed archaeology.
you ask me what happened here?
Queer Queensland happened, gay hate crimes
I am somebody, a body with history.
broken ribs, hips replaced, sun-blemished skin,
scars and marks etch topography,
lay down in palimpsest on skin and bone
vein and nail, a map, an artistry of landscape
my life on record—discovery,
sites and artefacts, evidence in sediment of a time
before us.
a body is signage I say, to help you find
a way through the terrain
to the middle of somewhere
to the heart of us
41

Memento mori with swallowtail butterflies
Erin Shiel
Swallowtails enter the open door and fly
out the window unaware of any walls
or roof. One day they will reclaim it all
and trees will grow through
the floor, their branches prodding the timber
boards until they jemmy the cracks. The rain will teem
through the roof sending shards of terracotta tiles back
to the earth. The swallowtails will polish my bones and shine
my skull as their wings brush through one eye socket and out
of the other. Contented with the quietened world they will
lay eggs in the crevices. From the remnants of my desk
their spindly legs will scatter my dormant words.
Down to the floor of the forest to rot
with the humus and improve
the tilth of the soil.
42

Life by the lake
Kai Jensen
1.
Yesterday we buried Viola, one
of our two old hens, tucking her
orange-feathered body gently
down into the square hole,
nestled on the damp clay layer
that underlies our garden, then
heaped on the topsoil to make a mound.
Today, from my desk, I see that
the joey, freshly out of the pouch, exulting
in its new-found self-locomotion
has made a playground of the grave,
hopping up on to the pile of earth
then down again, over and over
beside its mother snoozing in the sun.
2.
Next day Miranda’s gone too – I find her
keeled over in the straw of the roost box
as though a pecking order and lifelong
married love aren’t so different–
an idea that makes me pause
and think of couples I know.
I fetch the spade, dig Miranda a hole
close to her mate’s, remembering
how they loved to get involved
in garden excavations, so, Hamlet-like,
among other closing remarks, I say:
Okay, now here’s your grave.
The good news is, it has lots of worms;
the bad news, you don’t eat them.
43

Strange country
Kathleen Bleakley
Disenfranchised Stanley is hospitalised: seizure after seizure,
muscles collapsing
he wakes, tries to stand, alarm goes off
they won’t let him walk unaided
There’s been a mistake, it was just a fall
Disoriented
Pearl takes Stanley to the bathroom
no flush - she finds him standing between
door and wall
Stanley tells me he can’t find his way around
this big place full of oddballs.
Dad, I point to the sign above his door:
Mr Stanley Lane
he smiles
Discombobulated What do you think of this place, Stanley asks
I like the gardens and the light, I say
he nods but don’t you think it’s strange?
Distanced
Nurse says Stanley, your wife Pearl and
sister Beth are here
He stands on the other side of the room
Beth has flown across the country
Nurse walks him over, Stanley stares at Beth
44

Disheartened
Stanley is found by Nurse at the servo
Have you seen my wife and dogs?
Moved to the secure ward
seeking his wife and dogs
Stanley gets to the door at the end of the corridor
—won’t open
Dissipated
Disillusioned
Stanley’s stomach growls, roast chicken and
potatoes wafting
his mouth is gummed up, jaw stuck,
it’ll be a pureed lunch
In the courtyard: There’s a fence, you can’t get out
I pick a sprig of lavender, place it in his palm
On the phone: he knows who I am today
How are you?
The food is good but everyone wants to be home
45

‘Life’s a beach, and then you die’
Christine Sykes
Message on a banner: It doesn’t matter where you go in life...
as long as you go to the beach.
Standing on the foamy, driftwood littered shore,
after-storm waves lapping at my ankles,
I imagine a green-aged bottle.
Bobbing in the waves, pushed onto the wet sand,
drawn back into the swell, as if toying with me.
I reach—it disappears under the seventh wave.
The next one drops the bottle at my feet.
Touching the green slime glass. Lifting it to the gleaming sun.
Seeing inside a parchment scroll.
I twist turn the sealed bottle stopper,
wriggle wrestle the paper out and read the Sea Poem.
Message in a bottle: The meaning of life lies between the waves and the
shore.
It is both the beginning of earth and the end. There
in that split second, that infinitesimal space where sea meets land.
Now you see it, now you don’t.
The space shifts constantly moving with each grain of sand.
A whole beach oscillates, becomes hard, yet not fixed.
Water on rock. In the melee of motion,
the instant remains. Pure. Sparkling.
Catch it if you can—see
The depths of darkness. The lightness of being
The infinite in nothing. The lost and the found.
There it is. Now it’s gone.
46

Country of Mind, Country of Love
Janette Dadd
I
In the country of mind currawongs play seed pod maracas
their power beaks of divination freeing seeds of truth.
Faithful apostle birds gather and divide
always the number true, but country changing
so patterns, contours, gradations of experience wear away old
tropes
and new seeds of enlightenment are tended,
held in the quiet centering of being.
II
In the country of love green birds explore the winter garden
dappled light revealing tonal sheen. Sisters together,
no male seen, content in harvesting, investing in futures.
Spring’s epicormic flush sees a bower constructed and bright
eyes tempted
by refracted light of gathered blue, a gambit for one who entered
intrigued
while the others flew, not bound to nest and eggs,
choosing solitary journeys to pursue.
47

My country
Bríd Morahan
Warm breezes swarm to cross blue mountains where splayed gums reach high, skyward
and where once I showered beneath Wentworth’s falls, bathed in the tea-stained pool below,
rich umber from a long-stood pot—beautiful to me, but foreign
Tufted grasses hug the golden rock shelf where yellow sunshine brights Balmoral’s dusky sand
and where once I plunged beneath the kelpy waters, bathed in salty aquamarine with
fallen leaves from drains—vital to me, but strange
Frosted crystals settle over purple fields where hedgerows plump with finches sing and sway.
I late trekked the pebbled shore at Blackpool’s seaside, bathed—just my toes—in granite-grey water,
shadowed by the oil rig, blanching at the cold—familial to me, but dreadful
The holy scree slope stands as sentry to Clew Bay’s silver strands, the vivid green and blue
when sunshine whispers. I late slipped between the rocks, bathed in island’s lee, and the sparkle of the sea
cleared ages from my skin, my breath was sharp like fortress rocks—special to me, but like any oddity
48

In sleep I float above the earth seeing wonder hung in darkness spinning soft and deft on its axle wound
hard edges and soft curving, deep trenches and the blue, cutting land in segments of function, force and form.
I bathe in merest starlight—but all is alien here
From Wentworth Falls, Balmoral Beach, Blackpool and Clew Bay, from all the world and all of space I return—
I go within
I see the ancient peoples, I hear the laughing children, I taste the cod and chips, I smell the peaty soils
I soak in all the waters of lands inside myself:
potch and clay and loam and silt and grit and rock and soil
streams and brooks and rivulets and rivers, lakes and seas
all scour and wash, abrase and rinse
until it is all clear—
my country
49

On the poet’s country
Moira Kirkwood
(in memory of Ron Pretty)
He says: I’m here every day. Moves
easily, anticipates where the land falls
away and when it’ll vanish into cloud.
I don’t think I’m built for this. The bush
crowds me, pushy as a commuter on
a peak-hour bus. My feet whimper.
He asks: What are you working on?
I trust him with my overworked scrap.
He reads but more, he listens. Waits.
For a moment there’s a Presence and
I’m electric. I think about messages
from birds, a smudge of smoke telling on
the horizon.
My teeth chatter, but then he’s talking,
making room so we walk side by side.
I feel oddly, wonderfully grown up.
50

NOTES
ON THE POETS
53

Originally from Aotearoa New Zealand, Linda Albertson has lived
in Bega on the lands of the Djiringanj people for the last twenty-two
years. Her poetry explores family and connection against a backdrop of
reconciling the tension between belonging and the heartache of leaving.
Linda’s poetry has been published by Ginninderra Press and The Canberra
Times.
Kathleen Bleakley lives primarily in Wollongong, second home is
Milton. kb has six published collections (poetry with some prose). Her
latest three: chapbooks, available www.ginninderrapress.com.au
Joni Braham, artist, musician and writer, lives on unceded Dharawal
country. Retirement has opened up wonderful opportunities and time
for writing. Joni’s poetry and short stories have been published and she is
currently navigating the tricky landscape of memoir.
Alisha Brown is a poet and traveller. She won the 2022 Joyce Parkes
Women’s Writing Prize and has featured in Westerly, The Australian Poetry
Anthology, and other major Australian literary publications. You can find
her on Instagram @alishalouisebrown.
Jonathan Cant won the 2023 Banjo Paterson Writing Award for
Contemporary Poetry. His poems have appeared in Cordite, Otoliths and
Live Encounters.
Janette Dadd completed her Bachelor of Fine Arts in February of this
year and held her first solo exhibition in July. She is now working on her
third book of poetry.
54
Amelia Fielden, a professional Japanese translator, mostly writes Japanese
form poetry in English. Her new collection, Adagio Days, was launched
in October.

Lajos Hamers is a storyteller of Hungarian folk tales, writer, actor and
musician. He recently completed a stint as writer in residence at the
SCWC space in the Creative Studios in Wollongong where he began
writing a dramatic monologue about his 25+ years as Santa Claus.
Lajos also recently had a poem published in the Admissions:Voices
within Mental HealthAnthology which formed the basis of an episode
of the A Good Mind To … podcast series.
Stella Hatzis is a lover of all things lexical and has a background in
epic and digital poetry.
Tim Heffernan was born on the Murrumbidgee and moved upstream
to Wagga and Cooma. He now lives in Wollongong. He mostly writes
within these latitudes.
Elanna Herbert lives on Yuin country, NSW South Coast. Her
writing appears in numerous literary journals and anthologies.
Elanna’s first book of poetry, sifting fire writing coast, is available
through Walleah Press. Elanna holds a PhD in Communication.
https://elannaherbert.blogspot.com
Kai Jensen has had poems published in many leading Australian and
New Zealand literary journals. Kai lives at Wallaga Lake.
Moira Kirkwood is aiming for one step at a time through the fog.
She has to remind herself to stay humble, grateful and bendy.
Elias McKinley exists in the bush, trying to figure out how to live
in a time of climate crisis. He tries to write poetry. He wishes he
wrote more often, but he writes a lot more than he did when he was
stuck on that city-life treadmill. Sometimes he likes what he writes,
sometimes he’s indifferent. But he always likes how he feels when he
writes.
55

Linda Mcquarrie-Bowerman lives and writes poetry in Lake Tabourie,
NSW. She is completing her Degree in Creative Writing at Curtin
University.
Stephen Meyrick was born in Wales and raised in Perth and now lives
and writes in Wollongong. His work has been shortlisted for the ACU
and Calanthe poetry prizes. His aspiration is to write well-crafted poems
that are accessible to, and can be enjoyed by, a broad audience.
Bríd Morahan is a writer living on the South Coast of New South Wales,
where she writes, reads, swims and plays.
Judi Morison is a Gamilaroi writer whose work has been published
in various literary journals. She is the recipient of the 2022 Boundless
Indigenous Writer’s Mentorship.
Sandra Renew’s recent poetry collections are Apostles of Anarchy and It’s
the sugar, Sugar, Recent Work Press. The Ruby Red’s Affair, Ginninderra
Press, is a prose/poetry narrative exploded moment. Her web page
is sandrarenew.com
Fatima Sayed was born in Aleppo, Syria. After war broke out she moved
in 2012 to Lebanon with her family. In 2015, she completed a degree in
nursing and began working as nurse. Fatima arrived in Australia 2017
and is now living and working in Wollongong. In 2022, she won first
prize in the Illawarra Multicultural Services Refugee Week Writing
Competition.
56

Erin Shiel won the SCWC Poetry Award in 2022. Her first
collection, Girl on a Corrugated Roof, was published in 2023 by
Recent Work Press. Website: erinshielpoetry.com Instagram: Erin
Shiel (@erinshielpoetry)
Christine Sykes has three published books: her award-winning
memoir, Gough and Me: My Journey from Cabramatta to China and
Beyond and two novels: The Tap Cats of the Sunshine Coast and The
Changing Room.
Elizabeth Walton is a musician and writer working on the
37 th parallel south. She received the Macquarie University Award
for Academic Excellence in her Masters of Creative Writing and is
completing a Masters of Research and PhD in Creative Writing.
Recent works: WA Poetry Anthology, Swamp, Overland, Guardian,
ABC. Elizabeth received the Anne Edgeworth fellowship in 2022 and
was second place in the 2022 Woollahra Digital Literary award.
Melanie Weckert is a retired environmental microbiologist. She now
lives in Merimbula on the Far South Coast of NSW and spends her
time writing poetry and fiction.
Myfanwy Williams is a poet and novelist, who grew up on the South
Coast of NSW. Her writing explores ecology, conservation, politics
and intergenerational trauma. She is currently working on her first
poetry collection and her second novel. Her Instagram handle is
@writermyf
57

The Editors
Linda Godfrey lives and works on the land of the Wadi Wadi people and
is thankful to be here. She writes prose and poetry, but especially prose
poetry
Zohra Aly is a latent pharmacist whose work been published in various
literary journals and anthologies. She also curates and chairs panels for
writing festivals.
Sky Carrall writes on Dharawal land. She is a UOW creative writing
graduate and facilitates SCWC Young Writers workshops. She is currently
writing a young adult manuscript.
Peter Frankis lives and write on Wadi Wadi land. His first poetry
chapbook, Shorely, was published in 2022 by Ginninderra Press and
his poem 8 ways to look at an octopus was joint winner of the 2022
Wollongong Art Gallery Prize.
58

This anthology from the South Coast Writers Centre
presents fresh country poetry from emerging and awardwinning
local writers including: Judi Morison, Alisha
Brown, Tim Heffernan, Myfanwy Williams, Kai Jensen,
Melanie Weckert, Stephen Meyrick, Linda Albertson,
Joni Braham, Lajos Hamers, Linda Mcquarrie-Bowerman,
Elizabeth Walton, Elanna Herbert, Amelia Fielden,
Jonathan Cant, Elias McKinley, Brid Morahan, Fatima
Sayed, Stella Hatzis, Sandra Renew, Erin Shiel, Kathleen
Bleakley, Christine Sykes, Janette Dadd and Moira
Kirkwood.