PADDLING IN POETRY

By Gwenda Steff

Poetry is life burning on the page.
—Leonard Cohen

This eclectic collection by Australian poet, Gwenda Steff, evokes emotional and sensory imagery through a diverse range of poetic forms.

It is a window into the heart and soul of experiences, of beauty, of wildlife, of memory—and of a daily working life.

It explores experiences of love, joy, humour, work, family—and of loss and protracted grief.

It also confronts some of the issues of ecological and climatic destruction.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Apr 18, 2024
• ISBN: 9798369496046

Book preview

Copyright © 2024 by Gwenda Steff.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Cover design. Gwenda Steff, Paddling, 2019.

Rev. date: 05/02/2024

Xlibris

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This collection of poetry

is dedicated

to all my wonderful students who have felt motivated

to explore their lives through the poetic experiences that we have shared.

And—as always—to the memory of Colin, the love of my life.

CONTENTS

New Year’s Eve Pyrotechnics

The Psychopath

My Daily Guest

Magpie

Serenity

Loneliness Is …

Desecrating Forty Thousand Years

Doggerel

Trochaic Tetrameter

Blue

What Poetry Isn’t

Love Is …

Monarch Butterfly

Writer’s Block

Writing Space

Naming

Neither Wither Nor Condemn

Opening Night

Kitchen Clean-Up

Great Wings Beating Still

Writing Group Exercise

Past Familiar

Summer Evening

Teacup

Non-Indigenous Day

After the Summer Showers

Which Way Up?

Out of the Ether

Spying on Adam and Eve

Come Keep It Clean

No Sugar

Playtime at the Kindergarten

Behind the Mask

Out of Body

Memory Suspended

Dactylic

Rough and Smooth

If …

Trisha’s Place

Red Rag to a Bull

Black Summer

Teacher’s Desk

Wobble Seat

Golden Whistler

Between Sleeping and Waking

With Me

My Prayer

Dream

Bed Mate

The Bridge

Mother Magpie

Koopmans

Last Drinks

No Language, No Movement

For Yvonne

Silence

First Win

Power Walking

Always to Remember

Gariwerd Speaks

Prose Poem: Decision Time

Ticking the Box for Ageing

Sunflower Vincent

Wood Ducks

Remembering …

The Slow Process of Widowing

The Hall Mirror

The Singer

Marching On

Sensing Shakespeare

Euphemism

Watching

The Personalities of Water

Marlboro Man

Spider

The Poetry of Lists

Capturing Australia

Anxiety

Planted Candle

Barrister

Such Stuff

No Parking

With Me

Cancer Council Carpark

Gearing Up to Write

A Grandmother’s Eye View

Realisation

April Fool

The Crimson Rosella Concert

Inside Out

Refugee

Moths

Coping

Departure

Kata Tjuta, the Sleeping Giants

Waiting for a Poem to Arrive

Mushrooms

Washing Day

Geranium Bush

Falling

The Gariwerd Range from Konongwootong

Lumpectomy

Autumn Calling

Hair Brush

The Boys

Cardboard Legs

Watching Over the Shepherd

The Stockman

Rodeo Rider

What Do I Know About the Great War?

Dawn Service—Anzac Day

Richard’s War

Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, DC

The Mayor

Maybe

A Day in My Puppy Life

Ellipse

The Scar

The Piece They Took Away

Silence

Love Song to the Landscape

Composing the Poet

Shooting Children

And Today, the Hair

Questions from a Jilted Wife

June Dreaming

Shame

As I Walked Out This Morning

A John Cage Moment

Thank You, John Cage

Puppy

Mabel: AProsePoem

Skirting Memory

Wind Farms

Waiting

Depression

Trochaic Tetrameter

Chute Girl

Slalom

Camellia

Coffee Break

Wicker Chairs

Paradigm Shift

Domestic Use Only

Bone Ache

Winter Solstice

Madigan Tryptic

Perth Sonnet

My Mother’s Kitchen

Bureaucratic SmokeTank A Prose Poem

Hair Brush

The Stylist

Protecting the Protector

Cinquain—a Vision

Wool

Little Lamb

Remembering Konongwootong North Primary School (# 4362)

RememberingFayZwicky At the Perth Writers’ Festival

Mirror Mirror

2 AM

Shark

American Sentences

After Sappho

Atlanta Running Slowly

A Moment in Time

For Lorraine

Vanquished

Old Pub

Fly by Night

Time

The Minister

And Then the Rain …

Breaking the Ice

Acrostic

Public Urinal South of the Groin

Bow Bender

Leaving an Abusive Workplace

Slumping Around

Cinquain—Vision

The Last Time (1)

Daffodil Day

The Dancer (1)

Slumpy Wendy

Homecoming

Plovers

Knitting the Stones

New York Too

Storm Over the City

The Boxer

Paparazzo to His Princess

Piano Lesson

Italian Quatrain

Poppy Girl

Playing Marbles at Thor’s House

Capturing Australia

Head Care

Seventh of September

Joining the Dots

Villanelle: Come Tuesday

The Clergyman

Anxiety

Take Off

Hamad International Airport

Perfect Companion

Apricots

Cointreau for Don Juan

Biting the Sun

Annual Disappointment

One Step Away

Psychiatric Nurse

Smoke

The Dancer (2)

16 October 1950

Hairdresser

The Trials of Teaching English to Adolescent Students

Come Spend Your Money

Cocoon

At Home

Lifebuoy

Invisible Woman

Still Grief

Anniversary

Elegy: Last Time

Sonnet

22 November 1963

Alone

The Shearers

Untitled

Age Enough and Time

December

Monivae Crows in Eleven Syllables

Last Day 1

Last Day 2

Morning Walk

Jerusalem

Cards Dealt

Hot Summer’s Day in the Botanical Gardens

Fifty Words for Boxing Day

Frida and Vincent

Newborn

One Syllable

What Poetry Is

Poetic Devices

Poetic Forms

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

With gratitude and thanks for the support, direction, and encouragement from all the team at Xlibris.

Thank you to the Hamilton FineLiners Writing Group for their support, and with a special thanks to Charlotte Stanhope for her valuable assistance.

I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the Gunditjmara and Djab Wurrung lands and pay my respects to their Elders past, present and emerging.

With thanks to Tinika Clifford, Travelling Spirit, for her valuable assistance.

INTRODUCTION

This eclectic collection of poetry is an exploration of poetic forms and styles recorded over the course of many years. There were times when I attempted to emulate traditional poetic structures. At other times, I veered sideways and adopted my own style that is more aligned with prose poetry than with traditional formal structures. It explores themes of life, living, memory, celebration, love, and loss. It responds to artworks and to events and occasions that have occurred at specific times that have fascinated and/or disturbed me.

I hope this collection will be an educational experience for young poets to learn about the art and craft of poetry and the diversity of poetic expression.

NEW YEAR’S EVE PYROTECHNICS

As the old year closes its eyes,

its sleep is disturbed by the new—

explosions and shouts at midnight

that shatter the darkness on cue.

We’ve all been asked to reduce

the emissions polluting our air.

But spend millions igniting the night.

The homeless feel that is unfair.

Sydney spends five million dollars.

Australia spends ten times that much.

It seems that the victims of floods

can fend for themselves with no crutch.

As the New Year opens its eyes

its heart is disturbed by the sight:

the rubbish, pollution, the mess;

the homeless resume their known plight.

When will the signals be valued?

When will politicians take heed?

When will our councils consider

priorities based on our need?

THE PSYCHOPATH

‘A beautiful day,’ the despot brayed

as his troops laid mines in the city.

Now most of his acolytes have paid

with their lives, but he knows no pity.

‘He’s a wonderful man,’ say his cast

as children lose their limbs in the blast.

He directs that his war tanks roll in.

MY DAILY GUEST

My sadness, though he’s here with me

through summer days and lonely nights,

is bright as only he can see.

He loves the blooms, the honeybee.

He walks with me to see the sights.

His pleasure whispers in my head.

He laughs and I can only smile.

We feed the possums with some bread.

‘They wait for us to come,’ he said.

In my mind’s eye, we stay a while.

The saturated, sodden ground,

the boggy track, the heavy sky—

he sees the beauty all around.

He urges me to hear the sound

of nature and to question why.

It’s years now since we fell in love.

It’s years now since he passed away.

His love still fits me like a glove.

He talks to me from way above

and I feel better for his sway.

MAGPIE

In the driveway puddles,

in the silence of evening,

a mother magpie

pecks at her baby’s wings.

She cleans up its feathers,

prepares it for dinner.

Her baby protests

with wobbles and squawks.

When the ordeal is over

they both flutter north

to a eucalypt branch

and down flutters down

like snow in the winter.

SERENITY

The silence of Adams Street

is only fractured

by the breezes

through my eucalyptus trees,

by the distant air-brakes

of B-double trucks

on the distant highway,

by the squawks of cockatoos

in the cypress hedge.

Sometimes, an old-man emu

walks his family

through the knee-high grass

on the track out front.

They point their toes

like ballet dancers

and rock their bodies forward

like drummers

in slow motion.

Sometimes, a little black wallaby

wanders up my driveway

and samples the grass

on the lawn.

How’s the serenity?

LONELINESS IS …

A dog on a country road

without a collar.

A shivering lamb

in an empty paddock.

A tulip

struggling in a wheat crop.

A man asleep in a doorway,

his possessions, his pillow.

A child in a corner,

her head on her knees.

A university student

with no bus fare home.

The last living family member

at the funeral of their sibling.

A Ukrainian student’s first day

in an English-speaking classroom.

And a widow

waiting for her escapee, Kitty,

missing since Christmas Eve,