Wonder a Day 23: Snake Handlers

Les Harris - The Snake Man

Today’s wonder has to be snake handlers.

I have to thank Les Harris from Cardwell for coming and removing a 1.7 Brown Tree  Snake from one of our bird cages (after it had a breakfast of our dearly beloved quails.)

This snake is according to Wildlife Answers

Commonness: Common

Danger: Non-venomous However bites can cause serious  reactions especially in young children.
Common in and around Brisbane. Adults feed mainly on birds, including birds in cages. Active at night.

Diet: small birds and eggs, occasionally small mammals

Les took the opportunity to do a short talk and first aid basics for the kids at the primary school just next door and gave his card to the Principal if any more snakes be found.

I think the kids at the school will all be wearing their shoes and keeping a look out for any thing slippering and slinky today.

Les’s advice if I see any more, leave them alone they usually just go away, or maybe squirt with a hose, or gently shoo of with a broom handle, don’t get to close….

Will leave the rest of this story  for a post I think I’ll write for ABC open about our morning with a brown tree snake.  Will let you know if it gets posted.

It might be timely with so many of them hanging around.  I think this post like the snakes will need a bit of care – and I need time to tell the story really well – but honestly if you don’t like snakes and the thought of removing them – snake handlers are a WONDER not to mention a good precaution if you are not sure how to tell if its venomous.

Do you have a story about snakes?  The kids at the primary school certainly did!

(c) June Perkins, all rights reserved.

Wonder a Day 22: Aboriginal Women’s Writing – Fighting for Literacy and Literary Freedom

Aboriginal Women's Writing - June Perkins

Extract — AWW’s first guest blog: “Aboriginal Women Writers – The fight for Literacy and Literary Freedom and a true name calling” by Dr June Perkins

My search to understand and identify Aboriginal women’s literature began naively and in earnest with a letter to Oodgeroo (Noonuccal).* I was probably twenty and had heard a lot about her work in Aboriginal people gaining citizenship rights and was keen to interview her for an article I was writing. Instead she said I should contact younger people like Lydia Miller(Kuku Yalanji) as she was more contemporary than Oodgeroo.

I was interested in Aboriginal women’s literature because as a girl (Bush Mekeo/Írish/French Australian background) I wanted to find out about the stories of the original people of the land I lived in and see if they had anything in common with my own experience.

I had forward-thinking teachers who had shared the sorry history of the treatment of Aboriginal people in Tasmania and so-called Aboriginal issues were not invisible to me. From a young age I was mistaken as Aboriginal and subsequently subjected to a lot of racist comments at school.

This made me both upset to be name-called and curious – and I was lucky to have people around me, including an Aboriginal girl from Mornington Island who was boarding and went to my school, and another classroom friend, to see that Aboriginal people were in many ways just like everyone else and I wondered why they were so put down.

They were not token friends, but very caring girls, and the girl from Mornington told the best ghost stories! Actually, come to think of it, my friends were all a mini united nations and we didn’t fit any moulds of what you might call “mainstream”.

Many of the early writers like Oodgeroo and, with respect, the recently passed away Ruby Langford Ginibi (Bundjalung), began with a sense of connection to place, people and history. They wore the mantle of spokesperson for the cause of Aboriginal rights to be respected, acknowledged and treated the same as any other human being because they had realised the pen is a mighty tool in the fight for justice. There are so many writers that should be mentioned, like Jackie Huggins (Bidjara), a fearless academic and wonderful writer who wrote an innovative biography with her mother, Aunty Rita, who is still an active intellectual teaching in the university system.

For Langford-Ginibi, incarceration, justice and identity formed the themes of her life writing whilst for Oodgeroo, a poetry exploring people, place and environment was a major concern. Oodgeroo was also noted for her friendship with Judith Wright.

This fight for justice was often a heavy burden to bear, and it could have led to the pigeonholing of Aboriginal women’s writing, to be eternally from the fringes and fixated upon the human rights agenda, but instead they became the footsteps to follow in and add to. Aboriginal English made its way into Aboriginal literature so that writers were not forced to simply fit the canon of other Australian literature, but this in itself was a battle.

Now many years later, and having been mentored at a playwrights conference by Lydia, a wonderful actress, I am happy to say that I always look out for up-and-coming Aboriginal women writers. For me they can write about any topic from Murri lives in the Bush, like Vivienne Cleven‘s, Bitin’Back, to an Aboriginal woman bureaucrat in Paris like Anita Heiss (Wiradjuri). The beauty of Aboriginal women’s writing is its current diversity and moving away from set definitions.

There are many Aboriginal women writers in Australia who created the opportunities for the writers of today – not only Anita Heiss, but also Kerry Reed-Gilbert (Wiradjuri), Alexis Wright (Waanyi Nation), and Jennifer Martiniello (Arrente/Chinese/Anglo-celtic). I was happy to interview several of them when I was a uni student and to learn not only about their writing but their philosophies on life. They are different and yet many maintain close friendships with each other – Anita and Kerry are in constant touch, and another friend of theirs working in radio put me onto interviewing them. They encourage each other and the new generation of up and coming Aboriginal writers, both men and women.

Today’s writers, whilst they will often tackle identity and the continuing need for the recognition of Aboriginal people in the constitution, have created a literary freedom for a future generation of writers. They have been able to strive for a unity in their diversity of genres and voices – and have asked to be recognised as a non-homogenous group.

They are happy to share their perspective as specific to a language group, urban or rural environment – and have pulled apart what it means to be black, Aboriginal, Indigenous and an Aboriginal woman. Aileen Moreton Robinson (Geonpul) and Leah Purcell (Goa Gungurri Wakka Wakka) both have works that tackle that diversity and need not to be subsumed into other’s agendas. Purcell’s Black Chick’s Talking is a remarkable set of interviews with a diverse group of creative Aboriginal women – which has an accompanying film, paintings and explores Aboriginal women’s creativity.

For the Rest of this post please go to  the Australian Women’s Writers site

(c) June Perkins

Wonder a Day 21: Country Spirit

'Light at the end of the cane', Glimmers of Light Series - by June Perkins

There is a mythical place created in Australian TV drama where country people band together in a flood or storm, or meet at the pub or local country show.  City people blow in and upset the equilibrium or finally gain acceptance when they too have been through some drama in the town.

In this mythical place there’s heroic farmers, and firefighters, balanced down to earth country kids who think on their feet, a country vet – and out there conservationists who depending on the era of television are either supported or another ripple to that small country town – all to be neatly dealt with in an episode or two.  Rangers are more often kindly seen as they caretake rather than tie themselves to trees – or so the episodes show.

Sometimes small country towns are coastal, with fishing folk and surfers – and caravan parks other times they are farming, with pigs and cows and dramas at the local hospital and police station.  Other times the outback is the back drop and doctors fly all over the place to take us to meet many varied country people and give us a slice of their life.  You can buy the series neatly packaged – someone somewhere thinks there’s a market for the stories of country life on dvd.

Sometimes sisters on farms – show that strong women are the backbone of the country when the men depart they go on and they can tackle anything.  Yet even in this space Angels can come visiting, and transform the space.  Surreal in the real.

Sometimes the towns are narrow minded, unwelcoming and suffer trauma to get a deeper understanding of themselves.

We all watch these mythical places, but how true to our lives are these soap operas and Aussie dramas, and how melodramatic can country life really be.

Stereotypes are based on something basic in the need of human beings to make sense of the world – stock characters make life easier for the storyteller.  Yet somewhere out there is the wonder of the country spirit and stereotypes change, reform and retypings happen to fit the day and age.

It does exist, and it can be found and reinvented – in the country people who make the new welcome – who give opportunities to participate and contribute – and who are like the ‘salt of the earth’ and have a loyalty ‘true blue’ when you take the time to get to know who they  are.

And so now the tapestry of country spirit begins to acknowledge more and more of the richness in Oz – and tv shows begin to find themselves in the Torres Straits – delving deeper and deeper into the interiors of a complex Australian identity made up of so many spaces most will only ever now through storytellers.

Storytellers can never avoid the power of the myth of the country spirit, and yet they can understand, imagine, repackage and reinvent it.  Yet beyond the storyteller is the lived life, the reality of country spirit – and when you’ve seen it in action, you’ll never forget it.

 

Just for fun – how many Australian Dramas about Country living can you name ?

I’ll post a list tomorrow!

(c) June Perkins

Wonder a day 20: Prose is Walking, Poetry is Dancing

Word Wall - From Poetry project in School June did 2007

Continuation of interview with Hazel Menehira

Today’s wonder is words – I love them for what they convey, and authors like to play with them, and poets like to rhyme and make music with them.  So the conversation with Hazel continues and touches upon readers and writers – there are many links to follow as she has such a varied interest in reading.

 

JUNE: Who have you enjoyed reading at different times in your life?  Why?

HAZEL : I have been an avid reader all my life.

Definitely a lover of the classics in all genres. Why? Because they’re great!!!!

For my LTCL and FTCL I covered the development of English poetry and the novel and also history of theatre.

If I had to pick personal favourites – I guess for poetry: Dylan Thomas, Poe, Yeats, Hopkins, Wordsworth, Edna St Vincent Millay,oh so many… NZ poet James K. Baxter was a friend and  great influence on me….novels again classics, Tolstoy, Brontes, indulgences:, New Zealand’s  Janet Frame, British Catherine Cookson and historian Edward Rutherfurd…playwrights Shakespeare and his contemporaries, and  Pinter .

I did my fellowship thesis on Tennessee Williams.

Seriously a lot of my reading has been spiritual or aspirational work ..Gibran, Krishnamurti, Rohit Mehta, Vivekenanda… much theosophically based writing. Blavatsky and Besant.  I read lots of non-fiction and text books and nowadays international books for reviewing.

JUNE: Finally what advice would you give to aspiring writers?

If you want to write…WRITE… keep writing…no matter where you are or what moves you to put pen or pencil to paper.

Never discard a note or a line of your scribble…when you feel the urge make your first rough draft. Put it away for a time.

Remember good writers are re-writers.  No matter how many drafts it takes keep going until you make a tight professional presentable manuscript that satisfies you.

If you want to write-read …read as many different types of prose as you can to become discerning about different disciplines and genres. Find out what works for you and for your readers.

Above all aim for tight prose….if poetry is your passion read poetry continually.  Study prosody and the use of poetic devices to enhance your own poems. And ensure that compression is paramount to reduce over-wording.

Prose is walking…poetry is dancing. Writing is never a chore…but self editing can be.

Above all else maintain a healthy balance between the different worlds you move in and try to develop a balanced writing practice so that health is not endangered  nor important relationships damaged.

Accept feedback willingly but pigeon hole only sound advice that works for you. Know that knockbacks and rejection slips are all part of the process

Write because you enjoy it….If you don’t enjoy it  then play golf, garden or go fishing.

(c) June Perkins

Tully's Poet-Tree - 2007 Ripple Project - June Perkins

 

 

Wonder a Day 19: Prose is Walking – Poetry is Dancing PART 1

Hazel chairing a Book Creator's Circle Meeting

 Writers who persevere are a wonder! 

For the next few days you are going to read a conversation between Hazel Menehira and myself.   At the end of these few days I will publish the interview in a full post at Creative Souls Converse. I am glad to add to that blog – a showcase inspiring creative projects and people.

Prose is Walking, Poetry is Dancing – with Hazel Menehira

JUNE: Tell me a bit about yourself Hazel, and why you write? 

I know a bit from your profile on BCC and meeting you at Tropical Writers – you have a very warm and engaging personality and a passion for words, but if I met you for the first time how would you introduce yourself?

HAZEL:  I’d say Hi…it’s great meeting you…tell me about yourself first…Me? At 78 with 12 books under my belt I have been earning a livelihood from writing and teaching voice and drama all my life.

At 12 years I decided I would be an actress and my wise headmaster at a Hertfordshire Grammar School stated how precarious that profession was and maybe I should pursue journalism. I did both professionally as well as raising a dysfunctional loving family.

JUNE: How has your speech and drama background assisted your composition of poems, you often talk about ‘musicality of flow’, can you explain that?

HAZEL:  Poetry has always been meant to be spoken aloud. Studying through years of theoretical and practical diploma examinations and listening to countless performers as a teacher and an examiner for the New Zealand Speech Board I have become aware that a skilful poet (prose writer too) achieves impact not  simply through the meaning of words but through the sounds.

By sound I mean not simply using sound techniques like alliteration and onomatopoeia but allowing word sound combination themselves achieve specific effects that enhance and enrich the total meaning.

The study of voice and speech grounded me in the structure and qualities of sounds and its association with music. For example it has helped me appreciate the beauty and flow of long vowel sounds and the verve and crispness of certain consonant sounds.

Great poets like Dylan Thomas bring the magic of music to life in poems so listeners are enthralled.

 JUNE: What did you enjoy most about being a journalist – at the Wanganui Chronicle?  What were your biggest challenges with some of the stories you might be asked to write?

HAZEL:  I enjoyed writing and communicating with so many diverse people I may never have met otherwise.

I was in journalism when it was one of the few professions that women could succeed in.

I learnt from the ground up in day to day hard work slog in practice. ..(not theory) with sub editors and management who knew their stuff, encouraged and mentored my work.

I began with Wanganui Chronicle in the advertising dept…and begged to be a reporter…

I began as a cadet and each year moved up a grade until I was eventually a sub editor, then woman’s editor, then arts editor and finally sometimes set out front pages.

I was also one of three staff on the papers midweek tabloid who wrote the features, took photographs editing it in total.

Biggest challenges: front page fatal smashes and royal visits.. court reports in limited time…starting (then maintaining) several new feature series that I began enthusiastically like ‘They work at Night’ or ‘Bouquet of the Week.”

The hardest part was working nights for morning press and early starts at 6.30 to deal with cable, read, collate and sort priorities.

….To be continued.