#AWW 2018: Anna Jackson

• Author: Anna Jackson
• Title: The Bed-Making Competition
• Published:  September 2018
• Trivia: Winner 2018 Viva La Novella Prize
• List of Challenges 2018
• Monthly plan
• #AWW2018     @AusWomenWriters

Conclusion:

1. The Bed-Making Competition  is an
2. ….imaginatively realized and moving story.
3. We follow the sisters  Hillary and Bridgid as they manage
4. abandonment, motherhood, illness and the
5. …connections that keep families together.
6. Each section will surprise you
7. …make you laugh…make you reflect.
8. Structure: five sections (1991-1994-1996-2000-2011)
9. Characters:  not great heights, no great depths
10. ….just ordinary people.
11. Voice:  reveals the writer’s personality
12. Anna Jackson is chatty, reflective, serious, funny
13. ….and so much subtle emotion.
14. This coming of age story of Hillary and Bridgid
15. …took my breath away.
16. I had a sister….and know the bonds that held us together
17. …and the things that kept us apart.
18. #MustRead….Bravo!
19. This is truly worthy of the  2018 Viva La Novella Prize!

Australian poet: A. Kissane Flannel Flowers

Cressida Campbell’s woodcut of Flannel Flowers

• Author: Andy Kissane
• Title: Flannel Flowers
• Published:  Island Magazine nr 152
• Genre: love poem
• Trivia: Poem analysis is not easy…
• I have much to learn.
• #NeverGiveUp
• Trivia: Poem is at the end of the review.
• The poem is NOT online so I took a photo of it from Island Magazine

Introduction:

1. I spent hours dissecting  Flannel Flowers by Andy Kissane.
2. I do it for the sheer joy of learning “what makes poetry tick?”
3. I have started to develop a list of steps to take while reading a poem.
4. The list needs improvement… I learn as I go along.
5. Still  logical language does not always express
6. …the core of the poem.
7. The poet uses images to arouse emotion in the reader.
8. I was absolutely stumped by  one image in this poem.
9. So what did I do?
10. I emailed the poet and asked him for help!
11. Nancy:
12. I have a question.
13. Line 22:  Could you please explain to me the image
14. “…green tips rising like madrigals”
15. I cannot figure this out!
16. Andy Kissane was so gracious to give me a
17. …the ‘key’ to his poem.!
18. Andy:
19. “If you have a look at the images online for Cressida Campbell’s woodcut of Flannel Flowers it might help. The end of the white petal is green tipped. It’s really just the idea that the flowers are so exuberant that it felt to me like they were breaking into song. Hence madrigal… a song sung in several voices.

Who is Andy Kissane?

1. Andy Kissane is a Melbourne-born, Sydney-based writer.
2. He has won several awards for his writing, including the
3. Sydney Writers’ Festival Poetry Olympics
4. Publisher’s Cup Cricket Poetry Award
5. Harri Jones Memorial Prize for Poetry
6. BTG-Blue Dog Poetry Reviewing prize.
7. In 2011, his book Out to Lunch was shortlisted for the Kenneth Slessor Prize
8. …one of the New South Wales Premier’s Literary Awards
9. You can read all about Andy’s writing on his website

Who is Cressida Campbell? (1960)

1. She is an Australian artist born in Sydney and
2. lives in her home studio in the Sydney suburb of Bronte.
3. Campbell developed an interest in woodblock printing
4. when she studied in 1980 at the Yoshida Hanga Academy in Tokyo.
5. She is one of Australia’s most successful artists.
6. Campbell begins by drawing a design on a piece of plywood,
7. carves the outlines with an etching tool, and
8. completes the image by applying successive layers of watercolour.
9. In the final stage she moistens the picture with a thin
10. spray of water and runs off a single impression.
11. The result is a work on paper and a
12. wooden block, mirror images of each other.
13. A piece can take weeks to complete.
14. If Campbell’s modest subjects are compelling to the eye,
15. ..this is largely due to her skill with composition,
16. but also because every still life, every interior is like a short story.

What is the title of the poem and what does it mean ?  — Flannel Flowers

1. Flannel flower is an Australian wildflower that grows in coastal heath.
2. It is a  delicate  flower is so named because of the soft woolly feel of the plant.
3. Flannel Flower almost begs to be touched and felt
4. …since the petals of this flower resemble
5. …the sensuous texture of flannel.
6. You can imagine why the poet has chosen this flower
7. …to express his longing…
8. “..I long to feel your fingers press into my back, the flannel flowers
9. …somersaulting in riotous joy…”

First line of the poem:

1. “So we haven’t had sex for three months —
2. Should I be worried?”
3. In just one sentence the poet reveals worrisome
4. …thoughts because of the lack of
5. emotional intimacy as well as physical contact.
6. The poet made me curious to know…
7. what happened in this man’s life?

Last line of the poem:  (this is the last 2 stanzas lines 31-36)

1. as I ease my way into this blok — slowly
2. slowly– each carved line a gesture I refuse
3. to explain, how I long to feel your fingers press
4. into my back, the flannel flowers somersaulting
5. in riotous joy, the blue sky lifting & lifting, our
6. breath escaping in gasps — wordless and resinous.
7. The poem is a bit cyclical, returning to the start at the end.
8. The poet gives us a moment of closure.
9. The narrator is reveling in his joyous thoughts of
10. …emotional intimacy  and we notice a change in his attitude.

Is the poem divided into parts?

1. Part 1:
2. While carving a woodblock the poet recalls his
3. …lack of intimacy with his partner.
4. He tells us  a story he heard about a friend’s husband.
5. Part 2:
6. While looking at Cressida Campbell’s woodcut
7. (see foto above) the poet comments on
8. the striking blue backround in the artwork.
9. The poet remarks that we all have different backgrounds.
10. I can only make this assumption after emailing  with
11. …the poet himself!
12. Part 3:
13. While carving the flannel flowers he describes the wildflower
14. …drooping, twisting, petals flare in the cool breeze.
15. Here I found the image of green-tipped petals rising up
16. …as if they want to burst into song filled with love (madirgal).
17. Part 4:
18. The poet gives us a snapshot of his parent’s marriage
19. Line 23-26:
20. “absence of a cross voice in the house” (father)
21. “weary resignation” (mother).
22. There is no perfect model  ‘for how a relationship endures…”
23. Part 5:
24. End of the poem:  personal pronoun  ” I  ” is repeated.
    
25. Speaking to his lover in this thoughts
26. while he is woodcarving  flannel flowers into the woodblock….
27. each carved line is a gesture.
28. each carved line is motion of hand.
29. Lines 29-33

• I have no room for improvement…
• I ease my way into this block…
• I refuse to explain how…
• I long  to feel your fingers….

Define words:

1. optimism: A tendency to expect the best possible outcome
2. madrigals: a lyric poem suitable for setting to music,
3. …usually with love as a theme.  accompaniment.
   
4. to cleave: to penetrate; pass through
5. Hangi To – carving tool used in Japanese woodcarving. his carving knife can be obtained in a range of blade sizes, the hangi-tō shown here being of the standard 6 mm variety.
   

1. gesture: A motion of the limbs or body made to express or help express thought
2. somersault: … in which the body rolls forward or backward in a complete revolution.
3. resinous: polymerized synthetic; relating to resin. In this poem Kissane uses resinous to pertain to the thin-walled product such as surgical gloves or condoms. This is just my guess.
   

1. No archaic words of latin root like:  ensconsed or antecedent.
2. 12 unrhymed triplets (3 lines); line lenght 10-12 syllables; 1 question (first line)
3. enjambment:  13 lines end in  punctuation – 36 lines end in enjambment– continuing a phrase from one line to another without intervening punctuation. There are 6 x dashes in the poem.  I consider this punctuation (a long comma). It is used to create a sense of natural motion. It helps readers to continue thinking about the idea, which is expressed in one line, and which continues through to the next.
4. Verb: First 3 triplets are in the past tense:
5. The narrator tells what happened his past (first line) and
6. …what has happened  to a friend’s husband.
7. The rest of the poem is in the present tense.
8. Juxtaposition works because by putting two contrasting ideas next to each other.
9. It helps to bring about the importance and specific qualities of each one.
10. line 15-16 – ‘as ordinary and as extraordinary‘
11. line 16 – ‘as birth and death‘
12. Alliteration: same first consonant sound close in a series
13. lines 17 and 34  – ‘flannel flowers’
14. Rhyme:  Kissane abandons rhyme in the stanzas recounting
15. …what he heard about a friend’s husband
16. …his woodcarving 
17. …memories of his parents and their marriage
18. …his comparison between woodcarving and being with his lover.
19. Adjectival/abverbial compounds ( i.e. cross-legged)  NONE
20. Images: packages sailing down to the floor like autumn leaves
21. Images:  green tips rising like madrigals

Flannel Flowers

Aurealis Award Best SF Novel 2017 short list

• Author: Sally Abbott
• Title: Closing Down
• Published: 2017
• List of Challenges 2018
• Monthly reading plan
• Trivia: Shortlisted for best SF novel in the 2017 Aurealis Awards

What is the “hook”  in the book?

Abbot uses a shocking childhood memory of Robby (ch 1) his father  riding  his pony Timmy. The animal is crushed under the weight and dies. This is a hook…but it was hard to read/listen to. But I realize Abbott needed something so horrific to shock the reader. She uses the image as a metaphor for what his happening in Australia.  The breaking of rural Australia…the whole country…is  (as in the story) a result of carelessness…an unforgivable cruelty.

Abbott describes a dystopian future…the death of rural Australia. The government has developed an elaborate hoax. It makes people think and look one way while they redesign the whole country.

Who are the main characters?

Robby:

1. He is aware of what is going on…
2. but as a journalist  he has given up (ch 7).
3. He just writes about currencies and energy.
4. Robby finally realized that no one cares.
5. There was no story  he could write
6. …that would make any difference that really matters.
7. Robby tries to face this grief.

Jonathan:

1. He is aware of what is going on…but as a politician
2. ..he has to follow party line.
3. Smile on on all the news, try to make it sound okay.
4. But at home he pours a straight whiskey…breaks down and cries.

Clare:

1. Clare is sent to  work in the closing down towns.
2. She felt a sense that a giant hand was redesigning the country.
3. It is sweeping away towns here and there.
4. Clare felt she was a gravedigger silently
5. helping the final inevitable, heartbreaking
6. final end of endings.
7. The title refers to her work:  Closing Down.

How does Robby change?

1. Robby feels a flash of irritation…nostalgia
2. He is determined to get the story about this ‘hoax’ to the people.
3. He would write about the inclusion and exclusion zones
4. the money, the takeovers and men in dark suits….lying.
   

What is the most important subpot?

1. Abbott uses  magic realism to tell a strange story of Clare
2. …man she meets during her walks after supper.
3. We read about the bones  falling from the sky. (magic realism)
   
4. We meet Granna Adams who ‘magically appears‘ with a warning:
5. “This place is very real said the old woman.
6. This is not a dream. We think you (Clare) like secrets.”
7. Clare kept secrets like she kept her notebooks.

Conclusion:

1. Abbott give us a bleak look into a dystopian future that
2. …may become a reality.
3. What will save  Australia…politics or technology? 
4. Towns are being gutted….people are being
5. rounded up and moved to cities
6. …that can’t cope with this human tidal wave.
7. The bones that are falling.
8. I had difficult figuring  what that meant!
9. People are walkers….
10. walking away from the overcrowded and dirty cities.
11. The suicide rate iskept strictly secret.
12. Real people being torn away from what they know,
13. …what they love.
14. Everybody is buying and selling
15. …but now they are buying and selling
16. countries, cities, water and people!
17. Weak point:  I wish the cover reflected more of a
18. …closed down city in rural Australia.
19. The clouds on the cover did not “wow’ this reader.

Last thoughts:

1. I cannot stop thinking….
2. Sally Abbott is doing exactly
3. …what the  journalist Robby is doing!
4. She’s trying to get the word out.
5. She has given the reader a look
6. …at what the future could look like!
7. I’m amazed ….how other countries (China) are
8. infiltrating other countries (…also in The Netherlands!)
9. …by their ‘buying and selling’.
10. It is scary.
11. #GreatSFRead

Winesburg, Ohio

Winesburg, Ohio

• Author: S. Anderson  (1876-1941)
  
• Title: Winesburg, Ohio
  
• Genre:  short story cycle
  
• Published: 1949
• Trivia: nr 24 on Modern Library 100 Best Novels
  
• List of Challenges 2018
• Monthly reading plan

Introduction:

1. The old writer lying in his bed, watches
2. “a long procession of figures” pass through his mind.
3. He decides to tell the stories of the people in Winesburg Ohio.
4. Sherwood Anderson gives the reader poignant character sketches
5. …through the narrative voice of
6. …George Willard, the town reporter of Winesburg, Ohio

Strong point:  characterization

1. All the characters held my attention!
2. I really wanted to know what they were like as people
3. ..and not just constructions created out of sentences.
4. Anderson told  me about the character’s  flawed lives.
5. Some people flee Winesburg (Elmer, Enoch, George W).
6. Some people stay to “face bravely the fact that many people
7. must live and die alone, even in Winesburg.” (Alice)
8. Some characters experience a spiritual
9. transformation…that feels almost as a mystical religion.
10. Be prepared to read these stories
11. …and remember this book was written in 1919.
12. In early 20th C  religious issues/values were
13. very important in small towns in America.

Conclusion:

1. Sometimes having lower back pain can be an good thing!
2. I have to keep moving to free me from this nagging  pain.
3. So I selected yet another audio “Classic” on my IPOD and
4. …headed outside for another 30 km bike ride!
5. I was impressed by all the stories…but especially about the women.
6. Anderson Sherwood writes of the suffering of women in Winesburg.
7. “…some young girls thought that marriage would change the face of life…”
8. The women are “invisible” because their real identities are
9. overshadowed by their social roles (mother, wife, daughter, teacher).
10. The women were searching for something …just out of reach.

Last Thoughts:

1. “Well, I’ll be washed and ironed and starched!”  (chapter,  Queer)
2. Finally a book on Modern Library List 100 Best Novels
3. …that I enjoyed!
4. #Classic – #MustRead

Short fictions: Karenlee Thompson (Tasmania)

• Author: Karenlee Thompson
• Title: Flame Tip
• Published: 2017
• Trivia:  Karenlee’s   website  and her blog.

• List of Challenges 2018
• Monthly reading plan
• #AWW2018  @AusWomenWriters
• #DealMeIn2018    Bibliophilopolis

Introduction:

• Karenlee Thompson informs the reader that  these
• works of fiction weave around
• ….the Tasmanian bush-fires of 1967.
• Black Tuesday left 62 people dead,
• …900 injured and 7000 homeless
• …in a single day.

Lost:   (flash fiction)

1. Approximately 150 words
2. This is a list of things  lost when the fire swept in
3. …and destroyed the narrator’s home, house pet, household items.
4. Basing one’s
5. “self-worth”  in a title,
6. “a position of some standing in the community“,
7.  “sense of security” in a beloved dog,  status
8. “assembled over three generations” or an object
9. “crafted by the owner’s deceased husband” will lead to a
10. feeling of devastation once that item, person, or thing has passed.
11. This is one person’s memorial to a life….lost.
12. strong point:  intensity of the story
    

Flame:   poetry

1. This entire piece of writing is a metaphor!
2. Thompson has  intentionally designed it to 
3. shape  the reader’s  understanding
4. of her actions, feelings and ideas.
5. It is intended to evoke an
6. …emotional response from the reader.

Cross Stitch:   flash fiction

1. Approximately 300 words
2. This is a dramatic incident that
3. provides insight into the thoughts of
4. a woman trying to suppress visions and
5. memories of  a thief (fire) who stole everything.
6. Motif: apron – symbolic significance for the story
7. Gift from granddaughter
8. …much beloved but it makes her shudder.

On Heming Way:   poetry

1. Tension is the key element
2. It propels the reader through the poem.
3. Structure:  1 stanza with  14 lines with end-stop punctuation.
4. Idea: the consequences of the fire.
5. Pacing:  is fast, simple sentences.
6. It feels like a hand pressed in the middle of my back
7. …pushing me along.
8. I want to read further to understand the poet’s message.
9. How does a poet create tension?
10. Thompson moves back and forth between
11. talking: “Clothes are dry, gum tree scented”
12. talking: “No school today,” ….”No candles on my birthday cake.”
13. crying out: “Enough fire.”…”I saw a spark and ran”
14. crying out: “Please don’t shake the match box”
15. “….Has anyone seen my dog Rudy?”
16. Alliteration: “fuel, fire found it.”  “hot and hellish”
17. Image: “Sucked into the fire, came out ashes”
18. …this  draws my attention and I see the flames before my eyes!
19. Onomatopoeia: the verb ‘sucked’  sounds like the fire destroying everything!
20. Juxtaposition:  line 5: dates of
21. Tasmania 1967 and Victoria 2009,….to jolt reader’s memory.
22. Strong point: Just 14 sentences and so much impact!

Love, What is Thy Name? :  epistolary

1. Epistolary form adds realism to a narrative.
2. It imitates real life workings.
3. Strong point: intimate view of characters’ feelings and thoughts
4. #BestLoveLetters  and  one #DearJohn….all in one story!
5. Brilliant!

Conclusion:

• If you want it or not,
• …life does leave its marks not only in your brain
• …but in your heart and in your soul.
• The understanding of the devastation of a brushfire deepens.
• It is not just an item on the news.
• This is a wonderful collection of short fiction!
• I have highlighted a few on the selections and
• …leave the rest for you to discover.
• Believe me…you won’t be disappointed!

RIP Ursula Le Guin

• Author: Ursula Le Guin
  
• Title:  The Left Hand of Darkness
  
• Published: 1969
• Genre:  SF novel
• Trivia: List of Challenges 2018

Place:  planet Gethen is also called ‘Winter” (experiencing an ice age.)…in country of Karhide.

Main Characters:  

1. Genly Ai:
2. Young man from Terra, or Earth who has been in Karhide for 2 years.
3. He is an envoy from the Ekumen organization of more than eighty worlds.
4. He must convince the Gethenias to join
5. …the alliance to improve trade and communication.
6. King Argavan XV: 
7. King in the country of  Karhide (planet Gethen) who is
8. reluctant to acknowledge Genly Ai.
9. Argavan does not want to discuss his diplomatic mission because
10. admitting the existence of beings who have mastered travel and communications
11. would diminish the king’s importance.
12. Estraven:
13. Ai is indebted to Estraven (PM in Karhide)  for having arranged an audience with the king.
14. Estraven as being cold and aloof, and Ai   feels that, as Prime Minister, he should
15. have done more to make the audience go more smoothly.

Important part of the narrative:

1. The citizens of Karhide are  androgynes.
2. People are neither “he” nor “she” until they enter kemmer, a state of fertility,
3. lasting a few days a month, analogous to a woman’s cycle.
4. Then, depending on the chemistry between partners….
5. one will develop as a male, the other as a female.
6. The same person can be a child-bearing mother to some children
7. …and a father to others.
8. No wonder Ai is confused…as I was.

Conclusion:

1. This book is considered a SF classic
2. Le Guin was one of the first female writers who
3. questioned gender roles in SF.
4. The book combines political complexity and
5. …groundbreaking approach to gender:
6. people in society had no gender
7. ….or  both genders!
8. The book was good.
9. …but I found  Le Guin’s The Lathe of Heaven and
10. her novella Vaster Than Empires and More Slow.…better.
11. It’s just my personal preference.
12. The Left had of Darkness  is well worth your reading time.
13. It was awarded the Nebula Award AND the Hugo Award in 1970

Les Misérables ch 8 – ch 9

Ch 8: 

1. This was the most difficult chapter to read…so far)
2. M. Myriel and the senator discuss their philosophy.

Expressions:

M. Myriel   ‘twists’ wise sayings to make his point! For example: “You’ ve made your bed now lie in it”. Now M. Myriel says to the senator:  You’ ve made your philosophy now lie in it”. Color: “Vous êtes sur le lit pourpre”  = symbol of riches and upper class

Play on words:

The senator boasts of having books by renowned thinkers in his library. Here Victor Hugo has some fun with a list of  philosophers that are so different.  What will the  senator’s philosophy look like if he combines these wise men?

1. Marquis d’Argens – famous for his pornographic novel Thérèse Philosophe!
2. Pyrrhon – founder of scepticism…true wisdom and happiness lie in suspension of judgment
3. Hobbes – political theorist the only way to secure civil society is through universal submission to the absolute authority of a sovereign.
4. M. Naigeon – French materialist philosopher and atheist.

1. Levé la jupe d’Isis [dress] – It took me a long time to find something I could understand about the myth of Isis. It seems the expression is ” levé la voile d’Isis” [veil]  and Hugo has used some editorial license and tweaked the words to accomdate his writing.
2. The metaphor of Isis’ veil continued to circulate through the 19th century. By lifting the veil (or dress) of Isis it would reveal spiritual truths about nature that science could not.

1. M. Myriel congratulates the senator because he has a philosophy that is truly his own!
2. M. Myriel is happy that the belief in God is the philosophy of the people.
3. pour les grands seigneurs:  oie aux marrons ( goose stuffed with chestnuts)
   
4. pour le peuple:    dinde aux truffes du pauvre  (turkey stuffed with the poor)

Update: 09.01.20218

Fitness training has been cancelled today….so I  have 3 extra hours to read! Cats are snoozing and coffee is brewing, outside is spectre grey….as I start another day.

ch 9

1. This chapter was easy reading in comparison to yesterday!
2. Hugo uses a letter written by M. Myriel’s sister to
3. help us understand how to view his character.
4. Mme Baptistine tells us her brother is good….but has his quirky habits.
5. Her greatest fear is still the unlocked doors...
6. “Il s’expose à tous les dangers.”
7. …but she is used to it [..le pil est pris]
8. Foreshadowing: Hugo give a clear indication  in his sister’s letter
9. …that something will happen soon:
10. “The devil would enter the house, as one would let him do it”
11. ‘Le diable enterait dans la maison, qu’on le laisserait faire’