Jennifer Liston

Speaker 1
This is a Vision Australia Radio podcast.

Speaker 2
On Vision Australia Radio, welcome to our conversations on the work and experiences of emerging writers. I'm Kate Cooper. This month we're doing something a bit different. And featuring readings and conversations recorded live at the No Wave Poetry series held at the Wheat Chief Hotel in Thebarton. In the coming programs we have four guests, poets Jennifer Liston, JV Birch, Yelena Dinnich and Caroline Reid, who was on our very first Emerging Writers program. We'll be bringing you live poetry readings followed by a conversation about their writing.

We begin with readings by Jennifer Liston. Jennifer is originally from County Galway in Ireland, now living in South Australia. Her solo show of original poems, songs and music, Grace Notes, Grace O'Malley, Irish Rebel, Pirate Queen, was a sellout at the Adelaide Fringe Festival in 2020 and performed in Panola in 2021. Jennifer is the author of a chap book and three poetry collections. Exposure, published in 2003. Seventeen poems, one for every year of innocence, published in 2008. And lead skeletons from 2010. And Jennifer's poems have been published in many journals and anthologies.

Jennifer also publishes a number of her poems on her website, jenniferlliston.com, along with recordings of some of her poetry readings. Jennifer has an MA and PhD in creative writing from the University of Adelaide. So here is Jennifer Liston, recorded live as part of the No Wave series at the Wheat Sheaf Hotel. And the September 2023 No Wave Poetry readings were curated by the poet Jill Jones.

Speaker 3
Thank you all for being here. Thank you Jill for inviting me to say some poems here and to the other beautiful, fantastic poets. So I'd just like to say, I'm from Aarish, Bawal and Aanthasurth, the winter Gharna, it's a great place for people who live in Aarish, and are from Adelaide. I'm going to read three poems. They're a little bit longer. The first one is pretty new, so you might see the steam rising from it. And it's basically a homage to William Butler Yeats. Now, you know, most people think he's one of the male poets that you kind of know of and think, yeah, he was of that ilk.

But actually, where I grew up in County Galway, Cork County Galway, I was very, very aware of him even as a young kid, because where I came from was very close to Cool Park, and to the Round Tower Tour Balli Li, both of which were very important to WBEY. Cool Park was owned by Lady Gregory, and she herself was founder of the Abbey Theatre in Ireland in 1904. And she hobnobbed with all of the Irish literary people of the time, including George Bernard Shaw, Douglas Hyde and others.

But WBEY was a very close pal of hers. So he visited her a lot. They spent a lot of time together. And there's actually a fabulous autobiography by Lady Gregory's granddaughter Anne Gregory, who talks about the times when Yeats and other people visited and what they were like through the Isaac child. Anyway, Yeats bought Tour Balli Li, the Round Tower, so he could write in it. So he and his wife, George, lived there terribly prone to flooding, because it was right beside a stream that flooded every few years.

But he wrote there, and his poetry was full of mysticism and all sorts of things. So this poem that I'm about to read is written as a kind of a homage to him and his mysticism and other aspects of him. And also Biddy Early, who I mentioned, but I loved Biddy Early. Biddy Early was a witch who lived in the area several hundred years before, but everybody knew her, and she had all sorts of predictions. And Yeats and Lady Gregory were fascinated by Irish folklore and tales and all the mysteries associated with that. And Yeats' tombstone epitaph has cast a cold eye on life on death, horsemen pass by.

Portrait of an artist through the years. I cast a backward glance through time and space, to that place and from. I catch a sound, a faintly tumeless humming. There he is, writing with precision, keeping pace. He hums to guarantee a poem's pause. He pens wild swans and girl with yellow hair. Seven woods, a turlock, a secret rose strewn across the russet path. Recalls strolling arm in arm with Lady Gregory. The way of wisdom is his quest. He writes to understand the symbols and the signs, to ponder all the mysteries, all the visions. He bites his lower lip. He's so absorbed in the rhythm of his beats and words, that little Anne and New would never dare to interrupt his musings, but they think he's rude to not say thank you for the tea.

That is cool. It's here in Ballé-Lis, which George and William rescued from the wild, and although Bidi -Early said a cure of all evils would be found between the two mill wheels, it couldn't stop the floods. Through the years he climbs the winding stair, casts a fishing line into the stream, perceiving what has been and what will be. He glimpses Mary Hines, who shines in sunlight, her beauty praised by Raftery on Phyllis, beloved Maude, forever in his dreams, while automatic script communicates metaphors for poems from elsewhere. Yet now he doubts his immortality, and he faces looming twilight and dark night. His being, a mere mouthful of sweet air, it's time now. Hear the horseman passing by?

So as Jill said, my poetry collection Grace Notes, based on voicings of Ireland's pirate queen, Grace O'Malley, is hopefully going to be published this year, later this year, by Salmon Poetry. So the next two poems both are from the collection. And Grace O'Malley was a pirate queen, a chieftain, in the west of Ireland, lived between 1530 and 1603. During that time, which was an extremely turbulent time in Ireland's history, one of many turbulent times in Ireland's history, she and her crew traded by sea with Scotland, Spain, and Portugal from her base in Mayo in the west.

So she commanded fleets of ships and hundreds of men in a time where that wouldn't have normally happened. And it's crazy, but until Anne Chambers wrote a biography of her in 1979, she hadn't been written in any Irish history at all, in spite of her huge influence in the politics of the time. And so it's only through subsequent telling of her exploits that she came to be known as Ireland's pirate queen. And so in this poem about treat, it was one of the ones I performed at the Fringe Show in 2020.

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I re-imagined Gronya, aged 16. She's marrying Donal O 'Flaherty, who's the son of a neighboring chieftain, Clann. And it was a strategic marriage and lasted many years, but he was quite a firebrand, and he was always up for a good old war and a good old skirmish whenever anybody was ready. And Gronya lived in Mayo, which is, as I said, in the west of Ireland, but it was at the foot of the mountain, the holy mountain called Cro Patrick, but it's also known as the Reek, which is the derivative of Reek about the small hills of Turf.

That's what it was called. So the locals call the holy mountain the Reek. Wedding day, 1546 AD. The weather is hiding the holy mountain, the way death hides our loved ones. I enter Murisk Abbey, my slippered feet silent on rose -petalled stone. O'Malleys and O’Flahertys pack the church, lavender and daisies deck the pews. Donal O'Flaherty, Donal of the battles, here today, you and I marry before God. You stand all squat and warrior-like at the marble altar. Your dark gaze burns, anticipates, the schetaminies on me. I step towards you, smooth satin, underscour caressing my legs. I touch the wild flowers in my braided hair, pale blue linen and lace gently in my arms.

Donal O 'Flaherty, Donal of the battles, you're older than my 15 summers, and yet I feel the wiser, eager to be mistress of Bonoan. Keen to know you better, handsome boy. Though I'll miss my clan, my father's boats. Donal O 'Flaherty, Donal of the battles, we stand side by side. Your scrutiny reflects my grace. Your heart, your hands are safe with me. You see, take mine. The priest in tones the mass, we voice our vows.

Ancient words and chorus sing us on our way, bind us in a day that clears in the shadow of the reek. APPLAUSE Thank you. And so this next poem, and the last one from me, is also from Grace Notes. But this is its first airing.

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I didn't use this in the show in 2020. It's my reimagining of how Gronja's relationship with her mother enabled her to become the extraordinary woman she did become. And in it I use some Irish terms. A Thor is the Irish for my darling. A Warher is how you dress your mother. Mami, a Warher, a Warherine, darling mother. And the poem also refers to the Irish sea god Mananon Maclear. And also to a Sheel and a Gig, which is a medieval stone carving which is found, there are loads of them found around in the ruins in Ireland. And they are from the medieval times, and they're about women's fertility.

Mother and daughter, 1572 AD. The smell of the sea is on you, a Thor. A war. You knew the sea roared in my veins. I was always scrambling to go to the shore and roll in seaweed into the waves. I spent hours on the strand, a girl chanting tracks of Latin lessons like ancient spells that might raise Mananon, Maclear, large and great and carrying treasure in a bag made from the skin of a crane that was once some jealous or bitter woman. Or maybe a shenanigan to teach me the lushness of women's flesh and yes the luxury of its juicy riches. And I bellow the names of the Irish tribes, holler my history and my lineage to the wild, wild ocean and angry sky, not knowing how many leagues between me where I stood and the edge of the world.

The smell of the sea is on you, Asthor. Tis you smelt the sea on me, Awaharim, and whispered my ancestry foretold my future, that I'd be great, have the weather I gift, that I'd wager on love and loss and win. Oh I braided my hair, you ruled Velclerc, while my chieftain father sailed the seas and I, desperate to be his crew, hacked off my hair to look like a boy. And that is how I first went to sea. And you in shock and then resigned.
When he returned, you tendered your lips to his dear cheek and him all meek like a deer in your arms. But later I sneaked to your chamber, my little girl, eyes and ears, beholding great loving, not yet knowing.

The smell of the sea is on you, Asthor. From you I learnt the way men think. From you I learnt to value toil. From you I learnt to persevere. From you I learnt diplomacy. Came to understand you even more when my daughter named for you was birthed. The smell of the sea may be on me, Awahar, but the scent of drenched earth reminds me of you. I love you from the day you die, as I step out strong from your gracious shade and I step into my own bold sunshine.

Speaker 2
On Vision Australia Radio, you're listening to our conversation program Emerging Writers. Our guest today is Jennifer Liston, recorded live at the September No Wave poetry readings held at the Wheat Sheaf Hotel.

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Jennifer, would you tell us the story of how you came to write and present your show about Grey's St. Malley?

Speaker 3
Okay, well, Grace O'Malley, or as she's known in Irish, Grónia, Grónia Whale, was a big figure in my childhood in the stories that I was told growing up, and a big figure in all the stories that everybody growing up in Ireland heard about, because of, I guess, the novelty of it. A woman who was a chieftain back in the 1500s, and who commanded ships at sea, and commanded hundreds of men. And so she was a fascinating figure, and there was also this thing in our family that we had somehow descended from her.

But I qualified that by saying every family had that story, that they were somehow descended from her. So there was kind of a pride associated with her, but my great-grandfather did marry Enno O'Malley, so I kind of think maybe we were. But, so I guess she's just been a figure that's been in the many stories in my childhood. And fast forward to the last ten years, and I found myself doing a master's and a PhD in creative writing in Adelaide, Umea, University of Adelaide. And in the master's I was working on developing this experimental form of poetry. And then for the PhD I actually wrote a collection of poems, half of which were in her voice, imagining her reactions and responses in some of the situations that we knew happened, because there were lots of legends and yarns and stories about her.

And the other half of the collection was in my experimental form, it's called Rescued Poetry. And so I ended up with a collection of poems, all associated with Grace O'Malley, Grown Your Whale. And then fast forward another couple of years, and I ended up doing a solo show at the Adelaide Fringe 2020, in which I performed some of those poems, and I also wrote some songs and performed those as well, to tell her story. But I guess she's been very good, I suppose, fodder for my writing, if you like. But she was such an incredible woman that she's quite extraordinary, and the stories around her just show her to have been, as we say in Ireland, some woman for one woman.
So that's a very long answer to your question, guys.

Speaker 2
That's fine, thank you, that's fantastic. You're an engineer by trade. And early this year I interviewed a science fiction writer, Faye Patterson, who's also an engineer. There's a pattern emerging here. What drew you to creative writing and how does your formation as an engineer influence your approach to writing?

Speaker 3
Well, that's a big question, and how long do you have? I suppose, yes, I am a qualified electronics engineer, but I have been playing with words since I was a little girl, and my memory of my father reciting poetry at the fireside, and my mother was a great writer, and so there were always words in our life, and I wrote terribly bad poetry, as everybody does, you know, through the teenage years and whatever, but I never saw it as work you did, or as a job, or anything like that, and so I ended up in engineering, really enjoyed it, I have quite a logical brain.

I used to be editor of a technology magazine, so when I was logged into that, that's where I started writing, really, but it was as a journalist, a tech journalist, and yeah, you kind of get to record things, and transcribe, and then create a story around it. But when I went through university to do the masters in particular, I was exposed to a lot of different writers, and different ways of writing, and consciously writing, not just writing organically or whatever comes into your head, because it's an emotional response, and one of these books was by a woman called Hazel Smith, and I think the name escapes me now, I'll have to find it for you, but it talked about creating poetry, or writing consciously, and creating constraints around writing.

Now, it's not the only book there, there is so much out there about constrained writing, and writing to form, and writing to particular rules, but for me, that was my first exposure, and it got me looking at all these possibilities of putting a whole lot of rules in place, and then writing within those rules, and that really appealed to me, because I love logic, and I love things to be ordered, in spite of a... well, not in spite of, I think it's all intertwined, but the constraints, having a set of constraints, suddenly I found released the ways I could do things, it's like if somebody says, you know, write me a poem, and you think, well, about what?

Because there is so much, you get overwhelmed with the possibilities, but as soon as somebody says, you know, make sure and have the word blue in there, and make sure and have the word ant in there, and suddenly your brain has something to focus on, and the idea of constraints really, really caught my fancy, and I guess I think I could say that since that, my approach to poetry has been in an engineering way, it's been in a way, give me a constraint, create a set of rules, and let me write within that, and see what happens, and extraordinary things happen for me, when I do that, and that led me to develop rescued poetry, because there are a whole lot of rules associated with that.

21:33

Speaker 2
This is a question I've asked a number of guests on the program. Jennifer, how do you approach your poetry writing? Do you have a particular place or places where you like to write or do you make notes and write whenever an idea comes to you? I think a certain number of people are interested in writing.

Speaker 3
We talked about before the idea of constraints and how that approach to writing I really enjoy. Before all of that I would come up with an idea organically, it would be something that I wanted to talk about or you know I wanted to express myself in some emotive way but I actually don't think the words served me really well and I find that within the constraints and setting rules I was able to express myself in a you know a much more enjoyable way for me.

So I don't have a place I particularly write, I have a notebook though, I have a particular way of writing, I have a notebook, there are never any lines in the notebook, it's always a blank page, I always write with a pencil so my first words down are always scribbled, always at an angle, always practically illegible and that's my, they're my first jottings, it doesn't matter where I am but my my better versions of writing come from having been assigned a task or having been given as we said before just a little constraint or a little bit of guidance because my brain is so busy it needs something to anchor to and then after I scribble on my pages I then type on the computer and that's when I do my editing and I keep all my versions and go from one to the other so that's my process.

Speaker 2
Can we ask what you're working on at the moment?

Speaker 3
I’m not working on any particular project at the moment. I and four other fabulous, not other, they are all fabulous writers and then there's me. And we go on a writing retreat for a couple of times a year, almost to the same place. We've been doing this for the last six or seven years. And that's when I write. And for the first few years, I was writing poems and feeling I should write poems. But laterally, I've been writing songs when I go there.

So I guess my focus at the moment is more on songwriting and because I'm doing a lot of gigging, but not original gigs. I'm doing and performing around the place in a cover's tribute band. So, yes, I suppose I don't have one major project on at the moment. But, you know, I think that might change and it might be in the singing realm rather than the poetry realm. But that remains to be seen. Things change very quickly. Thank you so much.

Speaker 2
Our guest on Emerging Writers today was the poet Jennifer Liston, live at the No Wave series at the Wheat Chief Hotel, and we'll be bringing you more poets and conversations from the No Wave poetry readings next week. This programme can be heard at the same time each week on Vision Australia Radio, Va Radio Digital, online at varadio .org and also on Vision Australia Radio podcasts where you can catch up on earlier episodes.

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Speaker 3
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