Featured Poet: Jan Owen

I am very happy to feature Jan Owen (pictured) this ice-challenged Friday at Eyewear. Owen is a South Australian poet whose sixth book Poems 1980 – 2008 was published by John Leonard Press in 2008 - a survey of an award-winning 28 years of poetry. She has worked as a librarian and teacher and has had residencies in Venice, Rome, Paris and Malaysia.

In 2009 she was a Fellow at Hawthornden Castle, and participated in the Festival International de la Poésie at Trois Rivières, Quebec. In October 2010 she was a guest at the Maastricht International Poetry Nights where a selection of her poems in Dutch was published by Azul Press. I was glad to meet her there in Holland and see her read. Owen strikes me as especially lively, clever, and musical in the way her mind makes poetry that's smart yet emotionally-engaging. She's one of Australia's best poets now writing.

Mirror Image

i.m. Balázs Bajka

‘Thirty years ago. And only yesterday,’

says Balázs, slapping at a fly.

We sit beside a bottle underneath his vines

and watch the football arc between his sons.

‘Check through the corner one,’ the sergeant says,

‘and make it short and sweet. Take a couple of men.’

(Seventeen-year-olds still nervous with a gun.)

It’s an office block like most

down the derelict street;

he keeps a good five metres ahead,

tries the rooms along each corridor

and beckons the two boys on.

They reach the third floor,

breathing easier now.

The Council Chamber’s here,

empty but for a tangle of chairs

at the northern window end

(unseemly three-day corpses,

wooden legs in the air);

dried into the floor – blood-stains;

and seeping through the shattered panes

the distant dialogue of cross-fire.

Directly opposite him – another door.

He notes the fact an instant before

it opens sharply and his counterpart –

the hated AVO uniform of green –

levels his gun and time is not.

They freeze. Somewhere beyond,

the seconds slide away;

between their eyes the slender lifeline holds

across the mirror of air.

‘Döntetlen barátom azt hiszem’:

Stalemate I think, my friend.

Each slightly lowers his gun

and slowly, eyes still locked, takes one step back.

The two doors close together, softly as hands on a prayer.

‘Senki sincs ott,’ each says to his men:

Nobody there.

‘In Hungary we used to say

Néha a második alkalom jön először –

sometimes the second chance comes first.’

He’s silent, years away.

The day is insubstantial, seems to float

in the dry gum-scented heat.

Only the football’s thud,

steady as the beat of some huge heart,

holds us in time and space.

He rouses himself to swear:

‘Az anyád, off the kohlrabi, rossz gyerekek,’

then pours us another beer.

The head on each glass whispers small talk;

we blow the froth into the air.

poem by Jan Owen; appears here with permission of the author.

IQ AND THE POETS - ARE YOU SMART?

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Poetry is, of course, a part of literature. But, increasingly, over the 20th century, it has become marginalised - and, famously, has less of an audience than "before". I think that, when one considers the sort of criticism levelled against Seamus Heaney and "mainstream poetry", by poet-critics like Jeffrey Side , one ought to see the wider context for poetry in the "Anglo-Saxon" world. This phrase was used by one of the UK's leading literary cultural figures, in a private conversation recently, when they spoke eloquently about the supremacy of "Anglo-Saxon novels" and their impressive command of narrative. My heart sank as I listened, for what became clear to me, in a flash, is that nothing has changed since Victorian England (for some in the literary establishment). Britain (now allied to America) and the English language with its marvellous fiction machine, still rule the waves. I personally find this an uncomfortable position - but when ...

"I have crossed oceans of time to find you..."

In terms of great films about, and of, love, we have Vertigo, In The Mood for Love , and Casablanca , Doctor Zhivago , An Officer and a Gentleman , at the apex; as well as odder, more troubling versions, such as Sophie's Choice and Silence of the Lambs . I think my favourite remains Bram Stoker's Dracula , with the great immortal line "I have crossed oceans of time to find you...".

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