Jeanine LeaneRezensionen

This is the 2nd annual anthology of Australian poetry from its national poetry organization. One hundred poems were chosen by the editors out of the 4,000 poems submitted. The organization hoped the selections here would “reflect the year that has been in a cartography of poetry that speaks to some of the hopes concerns, fears, critiques and aspirations across the many different diasporas of peoples…”

This is an excellent anthology with poetry around all manner of topics. The poetry has a certain amount of seriousness as one would expect from a national organization. Speaking as an outsider only, I think they succeed in their objective. Out of the one hundred poems chosen and published, about two-thirds of the works were two or more pages*. Some of the poetry was creatively formatted for a visual effect. There were many wonderful poems, and at least a few I thought a bit obtuse (another day, another reading and it might be different).

(*Here I admit that generally, these days, I enjoy shorter poetry)

last swim before space flight / Rory Green

you'll just swap one form of floating for another
they said, you're still weightless. do they know
how heavy the ocean feels? how the harvest
moon can sow a net of light, billowing, aureate,
ensnare a season before it can even arrive...
how space smells rotten and sulfuric
nothing like the briny sweetness of a coastal swell,
the way it wraps around and dizzies you,
pulls you magnetic to its rumbling source. do
they not know the moon's shimmer of spume over water
is a mere echo a soft tug on something more unknowable
and forgiving than the limping void of space?
how can they ignore the protozoic shell whispers
of ancestors who found this rock and chose to stay,
what it means to be joined to this vital. amniotic thing, to
wallow as every perfect earthly being has before you.
you know what they don't---that the weight of it
is the point, how it feels like launching
without ever leaving the ground.

Boring cover which is a real pity as parts of this book are great. Tells of the Sixties childhood of Star and Sunshine, the daughters of Petal an indigenous girl and Dinny the son of a cattle station owner. For most of their lives, the two girls live in Gundagi with their Nan and two Aunties Boo and Bubby on a small run down farm surrounded by sheep farms, and rarely see their mother. Then one day both Petal and Dinny turn up and take the girls away to Dinny's family in far north Queensland. There, the girls are in a foreign world - far away from their caring aunties and under the nose of strict Sister Bernadette and their white Grandmother.
There is a lot of description of the land which can get a little boring at times but the characters are lovely and Leane's descriptions of events such as the Murrumbidgee River flooding are quite captivating. The story where the local hunter's wife comes to their farm covered in blood in the middle of the night is riveting.
Very interesting as looks at indigenous people without talking about the old ways...these three older half-caste women are all fairly European in their upbringing and outlook with the 2 Aunties able to read, write and talk ( trick) themselves out of any sticky situation involving men.
Not sure I can sell this one to the students though..

Set of connected short stories about a female-dominated family in rural New South Wales, by an indigenous Australian writer. It has humour and bite, and is well worth reading. For my full review, see Whispering Gums: http://whisperinggums.wordpress.com/2012/07/05/jeanine-leane-purple-threads-revi...