Poetry extras and highlights

Vision Australia ID 0:02

This is a Vision Australia Radio podcast. (MUSIC, UNDER...)

Kate Cooper 0:18

On Vision Australia Radio, welcome to our conversations with emerging and experienced creative voices in our community, on air now and also available on vision. Australia radio podcasts. I'm Kate Cooper, and this week, we're bringing you some extras and highlights from our podcasts of some of the spoken word poets who performed for us in 2024 and early 2025 the artists performing for us today are Max Levy, Aaron Mitchell, Flaire Alfrey, Luke Baker, Drew Cuffley, Jazz Fechner-Lante, Sarah Jane justice and Paul R Cohen. We begin with Max Levy, a poet and producer of the spoken words events at the Grace Emily Hotel.

Max Levy 1:09

This poem is called Mary's Rock. It's about a mountain I climbed in Virginia... 

Even Thor, God of Thunder, in all his strength and might could not with such sacred, heavy hammer and the aid of those crafty iron dwarves have fashioned and carved stones such as these. In these vast Virginian valleys full of trees enter the American Summer. May Day, the night of the witches. Soft, cool, softening breeze whispers cold wind through the mountains of Shenandoah. Slim rivers pass through the trail and mud covers my boots like armor. Wild flowers grow in small colored patches, violets, my great grandmother's namesake and the Dutchman's breeches, slim and white petals hanging downwards, flickering like a match in the afternoon wind. 

My blue jeans scored yesterday at the hospice in front Royale Virginia are rolled up at the ankles. I came to the mountains unprepared. The city has become a natural habitat of this would be wanderer note to the past. Driving through Shenandoah on this overcast American Tuesday, wind rattling the half opened windows, rearing past the elk wallow campgrounds, looking around for deer and owls as Eagles hawks and buzzards glide with elegant effortlessness through the delicate, hazy air above us. 

I'm reminded of New Zealand's South, with its long and winding highways, climbing giant snow capped mountains, weaving dense green forests of pine, passing deep valleys down beneath and rivers that seem to stream forever, at least as far as the eye can see in New Zealand, just as I do now, I let my beard grow freely and untamed, chasing to an unsatisfactory end the wild, rugged face of weary travelers, returning to the musings of the present. In these weeks overseas, I have stood in the footprints and walked the concrete streets of Kennedy, Franklin, O'Hara, Jefferson, Hendrix, Cohen, Kerouac, burrows, Dillon, Washington, Ginsberg, Lincoln and Vonnegut. 

But none of these aforementioned footprints and the notions their symbols may surely impress upon anyone have produced in me the same elation like a tremendous wave of joy crashing down upon my golden shore as the footprints I myself have made on my journey up to Mary's rock atop fast, alluring Shenandoah, steep but for the rest upon the summit, Silent but for the singing of tiny birds and the sharp snapping of branches and dry but for the gentle, muddy streams passing swiftly through the winding path.

Kate Cooper 3:30

That was Max Levy. To listen to more of Max's poems and our full conversation, go to Vision Australia Radio podcasts, Emerging Writers, for the 8th of June, 2024. Our next poet is Aaron Mitchell - a spoken word poet and scientist. I first heard Aaron at Ellipsis at the Arthur Art Bar - second Thursday of every month. Here is Aaron Mitchell.

Aaron Mitchell 3:58

This is a poem about the weather, and this is the weather as reflected by people's emotional behaviours and how people... sometimes might blame others for their weather within, and that we all have responsibility to be respectful of other people's weather and be mindful of our own weather.

Kate Cooper 4:22

Sounds terrific. Thank you.

Aaron Mitchell 4:24

Okay, so this is called Venus Weather. It was inspired by the idea of men are from Mars, women are from Venus, but I don't know... The title... Venus, as a planet is very... it's got this acidic, really hot, 700 degree atmosphere... any spacecraft I've tried to put in, it doesn't last more than a couple of minutes. You only ever get a few photos back from any space probe that's been sent to Venus. So I think it probably went a bit too extreme as far as where I was going with this poem, but I... still retain the title. Okay, so Venus Weather...

The weather is what it is when I arrive. Each person an unexplored landscape, what you see is never what you get. For weather shows only the moment to truly know someone is to see all their seasons, to embrace the diversity of moods only through time, through long exposure, can you take its full measure. The summer of undying lands to bask in Fond, youthful memories, the golden hour's light, the Emerald by burst, or an eternal winter, a companion for grief, rendering you cold, preserved from feeling the hot days of autumn, the crisp, changeable light of spring. 

Sometimes I am clay, harsh, dashing rains scour paths through me, a deluge washing away all before it leaves behind the earthly scent of Petrichor in darkened bedrooms, do I summon the storm or conjure the clouds? Can I sway the forecast with a whisper a wish? Do not blame me for the bat of Amazonian butterfly wings. I did not cause your exaggerated tornado. Ever heard of climate control, that space between stimulus and response, your choice under your command, to survive and endure, we must carry our weather within. Be accountable for our storms. Do not mistake the unreactive gray rock for quiet acceptance of your precipitous precipitation. 

Skin hairs rise. My spidey sense tingles, the air crackles with energy. Prepare to duck and cover. It's going to blow with exquisite fury. We All Long For blue skies, for sunshine. What about rainbows and lollipops? Sweet confections? Lovely to see, delightful to taste, but rotting the teeth beneath, striving for calm, leave sailors stranded on high seas, their sails hanging limp as my mood, my mojo, boredom, complacency, art, prevailing conditions. Who did this? I did I tried too hard to control, to lock down, to provide certainty and safety. And succeeded, passion dies and the fixed, the predictable, a mismatch between what I want and what I need. 

Now I stand on a midnight cliff top at the precipice of dead joy, gazing at flat seas and clear skies alone forgotten. I wish for the Tempest, the tsunami, the Explosive drama, The searing heat, the sharp edge of danger, I promise to embrace the beauty in the material skies. I call to the elements rise, let the wind tear at my hair, let the waves smash against me once again, so I can feel my skin from the outside in to feel truly alive.

Kate Cooper 8:46

You heard then from Aaron Mitchell. To listen to more of Aaron's poems, and both parts of our extended conversation,go to Vision Australia Radio podcasts, Emerging Writers for the 1st and the 8th of February, 2025. Our next artist is Flaire Alfrey - a spoken word poet and student. I first heard Flaire at Poetry at the Port, then this year at the Fringe event titled Eclipse - an Ellipsis Special, also at the Arthur Art Bar. Flaire. Would you perform one of your poems for us now?

Flaire Alfrey 9:23

Of course, I would love to this one is inspired by a writer online. His name is Achilles, and he writes in a very similar sense of style... 

Wind swells around a black top pulling at a Specter's feet and streaming a celestial figure's ankle. Her light flickers like the neon sign at the corner store where I brought the poison to my guts now rushing down the drain. Smoke stings my eyes, and her voice is a fractured melody, haunting and raw. Oh, look what I found. Look what I've ruined. Look what I've become. Look what I've destroyed. When you speak, my lungs fill with ash. Please forgive the smoke. It's love. My jacket smells like a rogue villain. My voice is worn from battling descent. We often fight each other so long we forget why we started. But I never tasted redemption until I tasted you.

Kate Cooper 10:29

That was Flair Alfrey. To listen to our conversation with Flaire,go to Vision Australia Radio podcasts, Emerging Writers for the 29th of June, 2024. Our next poet is Luke Baker - a spoken word poet, freelance creative and convener of poetry and writing workshops, among other roles, who has been cited by several other guests on this program as a key support to them and to other emerging writers.

Luke Baker 11:00

So I wrote this when I went for a walk around my local park areas and just looking at the trees and... really looking at the trees, and... yeah. So it's called, O Great Tree Spirit... 

O Great Tree Spirit, do I envy your being, your age, your wisdom, your grounded contemplating? Or do I pity you in your ancient suffering, muffled by the world and all its muttering, both one and the same, I suppose. How deep must a root really go for a tree to know what it knows - seeping sap blood, pooled and hardened on your barkless body like a frozen flood, limbs looted by chainsaw. Men, smooth, flat rings, an abrupt end to undulations, twists and bends broken branches now perched by birds where you grew too far and by wind, you learned that even your sturdy limbs can lose their nerve, fallen foliage by a breeze that blew or galas that chew. 

How many leafy friends have you made each and every time you grew? How many did you say goodbye to? O Great Tree Spirit - do I envy your being, your age, your wisdom? Or do I pity you, in your ancient suffering? As both one and the same? I suppose, for there is no tree that knows something without having lost something.

Kate Cooper 13:05

You heard then from Luke Baker. To listen to Luke performing more poems and hear both parts of our extended conversation. Go to Vision Australia Radio podcasts, Emerging Writers, for the 6th and 13th of July 2024. Next up we have spoken word poet and short story and essay writer Drew Cuffley - who I first heard at a poetry slam, one of many that Drew has taken part in.

Speaker 1 13:34

This poem is a lot more narrative-focused. It's called Don't Fret... 

Cloth draped over your form. The colours of the sunrise, golden sunlight highlights cold, stiff you shiver in loose robes. The sun moves behind you. It's warm, soulful kind. Its light fills you wholly with a flood of warmth. The wind nagging your robes away from hugging your skin a seaside cliff to your back, it's dead silent other than gusts of ocean breeze, meditation takes your mind, breathing in and out, in and out. You think of times when you held your breath, when she was on top of you, moving up and down. You didn't know what you wanted, but it was anything other than what was happening. You bring your mind back to centre. 

You breathe in, you breathe out, feeling the sea breeze. Nibble at your exposed skin, feeling the cloth draped over you, flapping your belly, letting out pleasant noises of digestion. Your mind wanders. You bring it back. It wanders and splits off, wandering, herding thoughts like cats prone to pissing in the wind. You feel like you're falling your stomach occupies the space previously taken up by your windpipe. You open your eyes, your breathing quickens to a haste you've never felt, air rushing past, each molecule of air is akin to a mundane memory all flooding your mind like air rammed and compressed into a jet engine intake. Y

ou close your eyes and hold your breath and your face meets the rocks below, crunching, cracking, sounds unheard of until now, but they deeply felt. They resonate an echo within your now broken skull as your legs wrap round to meet the rest of you, as your body contorts and spills its innards into the rock pools, you feel less stretched, flexed, stressed and malformed beyond your breaking point, your brain matter now spread like nut butter along the toast-coloured sea rocks. You bring your mind back to centre - sweeping the little giblets into a dust pan and mopping up the rocks, ringing neurons out the mop into a bucket, along with the rest of you, repackaging what was disseminated among the pools into a self that can be made sense of. 

You breathe in, you breathe out - so lungs in the bucket inflate and deflate in time with your breathing. And you bring your mind back to centre, and you breathe, letting thoughts rush by like a warm breeze. The crabs in your mind pools gobble up the remnants. Don't fret. Nothing is wasted. They love the taste of your memories.

Kate Cooper 16:35

That was Drew Cuffley. To listen to more of Drew's poems and our conversation, go to Vision Australia Radio podcasts, Emerging Writers, for the 6th of April 2024.

(MUSIC) On Vision Australia radio, you're listening to our conversation program, Emerging Writers - today, featuring extras and highlights from our podcasts of some of the spoken word poets who performed for us in 2024 and early 2025. At the start of this year, we spoke with Jazz Fechner-Lante - one of the co-conveners of the Ellipsis poetry nights at the Arthur Art Bar. As well as being a spoken word poet and open mic co-host, jazz is a photographer and community volunteer. Here is Jazz Fechner-Lante.

Jazz Fechner-Lante 17:32

This one is about my fellow poets... 

I stand here tonight lost in the poetry of hearing something so important that so many people forgot to listen to but we're hearing it even when you're silent, even when you don't think you could push one more word out of your lips. We will hear you, your words shining bright on the stage, your face reflecting the bare truth right back at us. I lost my truth, so I'll borrow yours just for tonight, using the last of the spotlight to remember who I am and who I want to be when I grow up. As a poet, I want to be just like you - strong words and stronger truths and a delicate handle on everything, held so well in balance you wouldn't even realise you were still juggling.

Kate Cooper 18:24

That was Jazz Fechner-Lante. To listen to more of Jazz's poems and our conversation go to Vision Australia Radio podcasts, Emerging Writers, for the 11th of January, 2025. Next we'll hear from Sarah Jane Justice - spoken word artist, voice actor, musician and singer-songwriter, and member of the management team at Spoken Word SA, a fantastic organisation that supports and encourages emerging writers through poetry slams, events and residencies. Here is Sarah Jane Justice.

Sarah Jane Justice 19:01

So this poem is called Unwelcome Home. I should mention that it was published online in an edition of a online literary journal called South Broadway Ghost Society. So if anyone does want to find that online, the link is on my website. So yes, this is called Unwelcome Home... 

There is no safety in having left. You are dragged back by a cold graze. Memory cuts your clean-slate skin, scratching it until it splits, cracks cross lines on paper maps. You are here. You are spread. You are lost in naked familiarity. Your history is held captive, locked in city street corners. You bite their hard candy surface, you recoil from their snake bite sour. This place was rinsed, but never washed. The past is a lingering taste, tainting the space between memories. Smoke signals extend their reach, waving across a landscape of half-lived years. This city is not yours - but you are held within it. Its scraped out shell will find you. It will paint you. It will never let you forget that you can never again be new.

Kate Cooper 20:18

you heard then from Sarah Jane Justice. To listen to Sarah performing more poems, and to hear both parts of our extended conversation, go to Vision Australia Radio podcasts, Emerging Writers, for the 23rd and 30th of March, 2024. Earlier in 2025 we spoke with Paul R Kohn, ahead of his Adelaide Fringe performance. Paul is a creator of music, lyrics and poems, and our conversation included a reflection on what it means to be part of the Adelaide poetry community. Paul, we've talked about connections, and I've been asking poets on this program to share with us their reflections on being part of the community of spoken word poets in Adelaide. What does this community mean to you?

Paul R Kohn 21:10

Yeah, so the Adelaide poetry community is so great and so important to me and to so many others in the community as well. And that shines through even in in the poems that people write and share like I've heard some great poems about the poetry community. And I think an example of how I've shown that importance was at my own book launch for soul refraction, I actually asked some other poets to come along. And I guess, given how I have at the time, had been performing online a fair bit, had some interstate poets who and artists who came as well, but Tracy Callahan and Luke Baker came and shared some of their work at my book launch, as did Scarlet Jay Winter from Western Australia, and the artist who did my cover art, [?Nashka] Turner came across from Western Australia as well. 

So it really tried to show that poetry is more than just a person, it's community. So yeah, it is something that's really important to me. And I feel like in some ways, COVID made the world smaller, if that makes sense - I was performing in weird and wonderful places, meeting people that I would have never met at all hours of the day during COVID. And even that came to fruition in real life, I guess, when... I did my interstate book tour in October 2023 and another poet from Canada came across and did that tour with me as well. So that was Jeff Cottrell. So yeah, it's a big community, the Adelaide poetry community, but I guess to extend that, my poetry community is pretty massive now, so it's been good.

Kate Cooper 22:42

That's brilliant. And you mentioned Tracy and Luke before, and they've both been guests on this program. Paul, would you perform another poem for us?

Paul R Kohn 22:51

Sure. The last poem I'm going to do is called May Your Future - and I guess it's my parting message to all the listeners... 

May your future shine like the sun, giving warmth and light. May your dreams motivate you to fight for what's right. May your current state be full of strength and might, a you travel on your journey, fight your good fight. May the way that you've shattered be turned into good. May it help to guide others as you heal, burn dead wood... learning, self worth, self love, reclaiming livelihood, sharing that with others so they know that they too could. May your heart have the peace that its pieces desire, resonate brighter, leading light, full of heartwarming fire, a Hate Free Zone, full of love that no other soul can mire, impacting humanity positively, always seeking to inspire. 

No matter how far you go, may your heart find a home, may your tribe hold your hand, may they never let go, believing in you always, no matter how far you roam, as you share courage and love with others, together or alone.May your legacy leave the planet a lasting impression when your time comes to walk the stairway to heaven. May your words still ring true and help long after you've gone, when it's all said and done, may your history live long. But until then... May your future shine like the sun, giving warmth and light. May your dreams motivate you to fight for what's right. May your current state be full of strength and might, as you travel on your journey, fight your good fight.

Kate Cooper 24:25

That Poem of Hope was by Paul R Kohn, and our full conversation with Paul can be heard on Vision Australia Radio podcasts, Emerging Writers, for the 1st of March 2025. We heard earlier from Sarah Jane Justice - who, as we mentioned, is also a musician and singer-songwriter. To take us out this week. Here is Sarah with Suburban Tumbleweed.

Sarah Jane Justice 24:52

(SINGS WITH LIGHTS MUSICAL BACKING) A look is such, life is much more than you'll ever make it... Another opportunity, but you're not one to take it... If you could see what life could be, if you just lift your head... String along from day to day, just hanging by a thread... (RHYTHM INSTRUMENTS KICK IN) The last time when I saw you standing in the sun... Holding your wrist rattle like it was a loaded gun... It had a look of anger that was tangled up in fear.... It held the same expression for the most part of a year... Turn away and walk back down the path that falls behind you... Like no-one who caused you to do what you're not inclined to... 

(POWERFUL RHYTHM WITH CHORUS:) The road ahead is brighter, but it's blocked by bush and bracken... nothing changes while you live afraid of what might happen... (BRIEF INSTRUMENTAL BREAK) 

You know you're tired when branches look like fingers stripped of flesh... It's gone too late, it's been too long. It's time to take a rest... If only you put this much into doing what you should... Tell yourself that life is far too short for being good... 

(POWERFUL RHYTHM WITH CHORUS) Turn away and walk back down the park that falls behind you... Like no-one can cause you to do what you love, it blinds you... The road ahead is brighter, but it's blocked by bush and bracken... Nothing to require you live afraid of what might happen. (INSTRUMENTAL BREAK)

It's never going to happen, you can wait until you die... All you're doing is wasting time while good things pass you by... So sit behind your head-counting the tears that hit the ground... Or pick your sorry self up, startto turn your life around... 

(CHORUS) Down where you walk back down above the floor behind you... nothing's gonnacause you to do what you're not inclined to... Road ahead is brighter, but it's blocked by Bush and bracken... nothing changes while you live afraid of what might happen. 

(INSTRUMENTS SLOW, REDUCE UNDER...) Your look is such life is much more than you'll ever make it... Another opportunity, but you're not one to take it. (MUSIC ENDS)

Kate Cooper 28:07

And that was Suburban Tumbleweed by Sarah Jane Justice. On Emerging Writers, we've been listening to extras and highlights from our podcasts of some of the spoken word poets who performed for us in 2024 and early 2025. The artists performing for us today were Max Levy, Aaron Mitchell, Flaire Alfrey, Luke Baker, Drew Cuffley, Jazz Fechner-Lante, Sarah Jane Justice and Paul R Kohn. 

This program is produced in our Adelaide studios, and can be heard at the same time each week here on Vision Australia Radio, VA radio on digital, online at VA radio dot org, and also on Vision Australia Radio podcasts, where you can catch up on earlier episodes. (MUSIC ENDS)

Vision Australia ID 29:12

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