Beatriz Copello

Launch of No Salami Fairy Bread by Beatriz Copello in Rockford Street Review by CK

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HOLD ON TO RESILIENCE: COLLEEN KEATING LAUNCHES ‘NO SALAMI FAIRY BREAD’ BY BEATRIZ COPELLO

as published in the Rochford Street Review thanks  to editors: Mark Roberts and Linda dair Octobrr 28th 2023

 

The Launch of  No Salami Fairy Bread by Beatriz Copello :  launched on the 6th October 2023 by Colleen Keating at Gleebooks, Sydney.

Thank you Angela . I too,  gratefully acknowledge and pay respects to our First Peoples. We are reminded of the deep history of the lands, on which we meet and I too support a yes to the  constitutional voice from the Uluru Statement from the Heart.

 Friends, It’s a privilege to be asked by Beatriz to launch her new collection of poetry, No Salami Fairy Bread and I hope you all get a chance to buy a copy and enjoy reading this 

poetic journey.  The cover is very smart and the feel of the book is gorgeous. You must be proud Beatriz and we are delighted for you  and we are here as your supporters. 

I would like too to acknowledge Ginninderra Press for their dedication to poetry and for publishing this powerful story.

Dr. Beatriz Copello is a published Australian writer,  poet,  playwright and psychologist with a rich and colourful Argentinian heritage.  Her fiction and poetry have been published nationally and internationally, in literary journals such as Southerly and Australian Women’s Book Review, and in anthologies and feminist publications.

There are many of you here who know Beatriz in different ways, family, friends, colleagues, and from her writing life. I know Beatriz in that capacity  a fellow poet. . . she is an awesome reviewer of books and  I have found her to be fair, affirming and astute especially as our touchstone  and  affirming bond has been in feminist writing

And this evening how special to gather to acclaim Beatriz ’s latest poetry collection No Salami Fairy Bread. This is not an ordinary collection of poetry . It is the story of a life in poetry,  a funny and poignant story written in poetic form. It follows the poets migratory life as a young woman, without English, who had to carry the early resistance of family shown in an  early poem Dolls:

‘Mum, I want to take to Australian 

my doll Pepita and the one that walks

also, the one that wees  . . . 

and you know

I cannot sleep with out my teddy’

‘Only one dolly you can take.

You must choose with care’

‘I hate Australia. I don’t want to go.

I want to keep all my dolls.

Why can’t we stay here.?’

She was mother, daughter, sister, wife and lover becoming a modern woman through adversity,  life’s struggles  hopes and  at times despair. It is about a dream of living a free life in a new country.  

As Beatriz will admit she was no saint facing the challenges of Sydney in the 70’s even with the challenge of fidelity as she struggled to be an independent modern woman embracing a new culture within the beautiful city of Sydney  It is a page turner  as we follow how the poet made her dream a reality.  The story of  braving the journey to a new world bringing her family with all the ups and downs that entails. 

And finally on a bigger scale it is about diversity and inclusivity. i will read  a little from the poem Defiance:  

Don’t tell your in-laws

that you work as a waitress

dressed up as an Indian. They’ll

think we have all gone mad

 . . .and your husband 

he’s so angry and annoyed. 

Give up that silly job!’

Recriminated my mother.   . . .

‘Your husband will leave you,

your children will hate you.

You’ll be left in your own.’

‘I know what i want.

I know where I’m going.

don’t worry about me. . . 

Some of the poems are very cutting and painful and I love the immediacy of poetry and how it makes you feel as you read. 

In one  poem she writes: 

 I lie in bed as if shrouded 

by the clean white sheets. 

i am dead to my past, 

alive in the present 

 breathing in new sensations, 

excitement, surprises 

the joy of the new. … and with fright I shiver 

What have I done?  

i have dragged my whole family

into a world so foreign 

so different, so unusual. . .

One of the great gifts of poetry is its ability to explore  and hold the paradox between anticipation, fear, betrayal, hope, joy, acceptance . 

I love the the new awareness in poems like It’s Time. 

The tea lady is wearing

 a badge on her coat.

it says IT”S TIME.

and later, 

we sit on the patio

of the pub next door

and we drink beer and smoke.

She tells me of Whitlam 

his vision and dreams   . . ‘

You should know about Al grassy

he is all for the ‘wogs .

 I will read  one last poem I Learnt :

 . . .And I went to that session

and more, many more.

I learnt about exploitation

about men’s intentions,

their power, their control

and the way in which women were oppressed . 

I marched in the streets 

carrying banners  tat said,

Not the church

not the state

let the women

choose their fate. The girls enjoyed the chanting

when I took them on our marches. I shocked my husband

mu mother, my family

with all my new beliefs.

As time passed, I realised 

that my life was only mine.

I packed a case for the girls and I 

and we left for a new life,

somewhere in Ryde, 

near Macquarie , my uni

where i had been accepted 

to study for a BA

majoring in Psychology 

We are privileged to be part of this unfolding  journey, the future becoming of a young naive woman  who looked into an unknown future, and stepped out, held on to a resilience to keep moving forward  like the the story of the cocoon to a beautiful butterfly with silver wings that become stronger and stronger .  

We know the end of this story as we have the resilient and lovingly beautiful Dr. Beatriz  Copello  here with us today .(Call Beatriz forward) 

However You will have to buy and read No Salami  Fairy Bread  to find out how this brave woman made it to be standing here next to me today. 

 Let’s  now celebrate the hard and lonely journey of writing.  Beatriz is a beacon of hope for us all on our journeys and for many of us as writers  –  a reminder that we are all travellers on this remarkable journey of life  seeking our own ‘fairy bread’ our own place of acceptance and our own home , Please join with me in congratulating Dr. Beatriz Copello as we together launch and welcome her new poetry book No Salami Fairy Bread.

Colleen Keating

 

Colleen Keating is a Sydney-based poet. Her writing explores the paradox and wonder of nature with harsh realities of life, justice , equality and the increasing threat to our natural environment. Colleen has published six collections of poetry, including two award-winning verse novels, Hildegard of Bingen: A poetic journey and Olive Muriel Pink: her radical & idealistic life. Her newly published book (2023) is The Dinner Party: A poetic reflection with Ginninderra Press. Colleen writes on Ku-Ring-Gai land in Sydney and Darkinjung on the Central Coast of NSW.

No Salami Fairy Bread by Beatriz Copello is available from Ginninderra Press

 

 

The Dinner Party by Colleen Keating is available now from Ginninderra Press

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ginninderrapress.com.au /books  and scroll down to The Dinner Party

  A POETIC CELEBRATION 

      OF WOMEN IN HISTORY

                        WHO DEFIED SILENCE

A poetic CELEBRATION of THE PASSION AND SPIRIT OF WOMEN 

    ON WHOSE SHOULDERS WE STAND

This  DINNER PARTY IS NOT JUST A GATHERING, A CELEBRATION

IT IS REWRITING HISORY. 

Recorded history abandoned women and they abandoned history leaving it motherless and unbothered

This is part of the long journey to reclaim the feminine in our worldly story. Then and only then might we turn this 21st  century around 

‘It was the prevailing attitude in the 1960s that women had no history. There were no women’s studies, nothing.’ – Judy Chicago, creator of the iconic art installation The Dinner Party, 2017
‘The Dinner Party by the talented poet Colleen Keating brings to light, through beautiful lyrical poetry, what for centuries has been ignored: the power and strength of women. Very little has been made known about the lives of influential women of the past, as women’s lived experience has been suppressed, even erased from history. In this collection, the poet resuscitates the experience of women from prehistory to women’s twentieth-century revolution. Her poetry traces the lives of women who demonstrated their influence, in every field including philosophy, medicine, writing, art, astronomy, suffragists and justice warriors who fought for recognition. Women who gave their lives, suffered, broke barriers, knocked down walls, smashed glass ceilings, pried open doors, who defied patriarchy in some way for all of us. Still today as women are written into history, the struggle for our reckoning towards equality and respect continues. A must-read book that honours women; women who would not be silent.’
– Dr Beatriz Copello
‘With impeccable research and deep empathy, Colleen Keating continues her powerful poetic contribution to feminist literature with the celebration of thirty-nine of the more than a thousand women forgotten, marginalised or written out of Western history. A remarkable and beautifully imagined work.’  – Pip Griffin
978 1 76109 530 6, 144pp

Versions

Paperback

9781761095306
$27.50

The Dinner Party A poetic response by Colleen Keating

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Exciting news . . I am thrilled and excited that my new book The Dinner Party  A poetic response is finally up on Ginninderra Press website and can be pre-ordered . . .to be released on May 1st . A long journey to birth this new book but finally I have the first copy in my hand. Grateful to so many people and thanks to Stephen Matthews OAM and Ginninderra Press and to Michael and many poet friends.

 

‘The Dinner Party by the talented poet Colleen Keating brings to light, through beautiful lyrical poetry, what for centuries has been ignored: the power and strength of women. Very little has been made known about the lives of influential women of the past, as women’s lived experience has been suppressed, even erased from history. In this collection, the poet resuscitates the experience of women from prehistory to women’s twentieth-century revolution. Her poetry traces the lives of women who demonstrated their influence, in every field including philosophy, medicine, writing, art, astronomy, suffragists and justice warriors who fought for recognition. Women who gave their lives, suffered, broke barriers, knocked down walls, smashed glass ceilings, pried open doors, who defied patriarchy in some way for all of us. Still today as women are written into history, the struggle for our reckoning towards equality and respect continues. A must-read book that honours women; women who would not be silent.’

– Dr Beatriz Copello

‘With impeccable research and deep empathy, Colleen Keating continues her powerful poetic contribution to feminist literature with the celebration of thirty-nine of the more than a thousand women forgotten, marginalised or written out of Western history. A remarkable and beautifully imagined work.’

– Pip Griffin

Witches, Women & Words by Beatriz Copello

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I am proud to have a part in the affirmation of this wonderful newly realeased book by  Dr. Beatriz  Copello and published by Ginninderra Press. It was successfully launched last Friday evening and let’s hope the word spreads this is a collection of poetry not to be missed. 

“Beatriz Copello’s words take us on a profound journey through the perilous life we all find ourselves leading, where hope is hidden and ancestral anguish drives us to seek meaning and hope”

Anne Summers, journalist

These extraordinary poems in Witches Women and Words have our hearts beating with rage. This powerfully evocative collection speaks frankly of the twists and turns, pains, despair and hopes of the woman, the human, the poet, the abused earth, her trees and seas and biodiversity. 

In a world where “soldiers march blindfolded and mute” and of “wounds that never heal” It takes us on a journey: a witch’s broom, protection of a coven, and a cauldron of life’s struggles, to become free to allow the poem of woman to be created: “the poem born the poet a god”

She will have a voice, choose her destiny. You will be spellbound as you navigate these sensuous and imaginative poems where, “the persistent Southerly is a foreigner on this piece of soil” and “senses are like a tree in winter.”

This is not meant to be a peaceful read. This powerful collection of poetry by Beatriz Copello disturbs like her muse Neruda, with “words of fire, steel and hope. ” even as she writes “hope is hidden like a miser hides his riches.”

Colleen Keating, poet

Can we conjure a better world with the magic of words?  Can women, in particular, escape the cruel prison of history?  Beatriz Copello believes so.  Though she is “scared she learns to walk again” and “lets her blood run wild” in her new book, Witches Women and Words.  Even as the horrors of history reassert themselves, even when she is blindsided by the familiarity of death and haunted by lingering wounds in an atmosphere heavy with unspoken guilt, she “chooses life”.  With wit, passion and grace, and above all infinite empathy for the pains we all share, she chooses it for all of us.

Richard James Allen, poet.

Compulsive Reader: Review of Olive Muriel Pink

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Review of Olive Muriel Pink:

Her radical & idealistic life

A poetic journy

Colleen Keating

Ginninderra Press 

3rd September 2021 ISBN: 9781761091599, 320 pages, paperback, $40

by Beatriz Copello

I do not think there is a better way to honour a woman of the calibre of Olive Muriel Pink than to write a book of poetry about her life.  Colleen Keating has done just that, she has written a poetic journey about this unsung Australian heroine. 

With a sharp eye and lyric touch, the world of Olive Pink becomes alive, it is a passionate story told with knowledge. It is evident that the poet has invested years researching the life of Olive Pink. The poet says: “I have been researching, writing and thinking about Olive Pink for over a decade now.  The discoveries that come along the way – the portraits unveiled – are very stirring.”  

This collection covers many years in the life of Pink, it starts in 1884 and finishes in 1975. The book also has a foreword, a prologue and a chronology as well as notes and bibliography. The labour of love that went into writing this book would grant the author a doctorate.

The author in Notes explains that she aimed to write a book that fell between an accurate scholarly presentation of Olive Pink’s life and her own personal interpretation of it.

Olive Pink was a fighter for justice who advocated for the rights of First Nations People, she was also an anthropologist, artist and gardener. Keating from the first poem in the book alerts the readers about what they will encounter throughout the pages, in this excerpt from “Olive the pioneer” she writes:

Who is Olive?
She defied the silence
caused discomfort
annoyed the authorities.
Her letters shouted from the edge.
She heard budgerigar dreaming
and drummed to a different tune.
She pushed against the colonial tide.
If the answer is ‘eccentric’
in her death she will be twice dismissed. 

Who is Olive? History asks.
She broke the silence
her voice for the voiceless 
remembered the forgetting.
She visioned justice in the courts.
Her feet knew country.
She carried red dust
under the fingernails of her heart.
She listened to elders, learnt language
wrote down stories, sketched arid plants
medicinal, nutritional, ritual.
If the answer is ‘anthropologist’
in her death she will be twice honoured. 

If Keating wrote music, I would say she does not miss a beat, when she raises issues about Olive’s past, she does it with conviction and poignant comments, like in the following excerpt from “A new lodestone”:

The grim spectre of injustice
towards Aboriginal tribe
taunts Olive out of her grief
jolts her from self pity.
Like a silk petticoat pulled over her hair
the air is static in its darkness.
It bleeds through a colander of whitewash words

  • progress jobs, growth.

Its handprint blood-red.

The poet also utilizes very vivid imagery, the readers become Olive, we can see, smell, hear what she experiences.  Keating appeals to the senses, the following poem “Restless” illustrates this: 

In her dingy office Olive yearns
for the vast open country, large skies,
hazy horizons, a slung kettle hissing
and spitting its leak over the fire.
Burnt flesh and sizzle
of goanna still fill her nostrils.
Olive walks country in her sleep –
the pungent smell of camels
sweaty bodies, blazoned glare, flies
dust-blown storms.
That red dust under
the colour of her heart
and patter of Pitjantjatjara children
still running giggling beside her
lingers like the balm of an Indian summer.  

The poet has the skill to write about Olive’s powerful emotions without sentimentality or corniness, through these strong emotions readers can form a picture in their mind of Olive’s personality. The following excerpt from the poem titled “Heady days” is a good example of the Keating’s ability:

Olive is energised by academia.
The scissor-cut horizon
of her desert experience
challenges like a mirage.
She seizes every chance to argue,
‘The root cause is not malnutrition or disease –
They camouflage facts, treat the wrong symptoms.’
Heated discussion rises.
Angrily she fights for breath.
‘Even the most ignorant know the problems –
White man’s aggression, sexual abuse
fear, venereal disease, land dispossession.
We like to deride these facts.’
She flushes, her neck prickles as she continuous,
‘Full-bloods need their own protected country
not mission reserves.’
Her tone is strident.
‘Daily handouts from stations
Keep them tied to white man power.’

Olive Pink struggled all her life to be able to do what men were able to do, in the following poem “High Hopes” Keating captures this desire but also very cleverly imagines her mood in such a difficult situation.

Over dinner her enthusiasm bubbles.
‘After my thesis I plan
a full year of research among the Arrernte’
she confidently tells the Professor
and others grouped around the table.
‘I would like to be included
in your next museum expedition.
It will reduce my research expenses 
and my anthropology will enhance the group.’
Silence.
Unease around the room
as lightening awaits a clap of thunder.
Awkward shifts and exchanged glances
the embarrassed clearing of throats.
From her left in a deep tone,
‘That would not be possible …
‘But you took Ted Strehlow on your trip last year!’
‘… for a woman,’ mumbles the professor.
Exposed, Olive’s heart races.
She hopes they don’t notice the burn
of her cheeks.
She avoids eye contact
gazes out as one with miles to go
restless to be on her way.
She needs desert air.
‘Why does gender cause such heart break?’
she broods into the night.
‘Why wasn’t I born a man.”

I would like to congratulate Colleen Keating not only for writing this incredible book but also for honouring a woman from the past which like many other Australian heroines are often forgotten or not given credit for their achievements. Reading about Olive Muriel Pink will inspire you and give you strength to struggle to achieve your aims.

About the Reviewer: Dr Beatriz Copello is a former member of NSW Writers Centre Management Committee, she writes poetry, reviews, fiction and plays. The author’s poetry books are: Women Souls and Shadows, Meditations At the Edge of a Dream, Flowering Roots, Under the Gums Long Shade, and Lo Irrevocable del Halcon (In Spanish).  Beatriz’s poetry has been published in literary journals such as Southerly and Australian Women’s Book Review and in many feminist publications.  She has read her poetry at events organised by the Sydney Writers Festival, the NSW Writers Centre, the Multicultural Arts Alliance, Refugee Week Committee, Humboldt University (USA), Ubud (Bali) Writers Festival.

 

 

Book Review: Hildegard of Bingen: A poetic journey by Colleen Keating

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Hildegard of Bingen by Colleen Keating is, as the author subtitled A Poetic Journey based on the life of the saint Hildegard von Bingen (1098 – 1179).

 

BOOK REVIEW      Women’s Ink Magazine  www.womenwritersnsw.org

Hildegard of Bingen – A Poetic Journey

COLLEEN KEATING

Ginninderra Press

ISBN 978 1 76041 766 6

Reviewed by BEATRIZ COPELLO

For those who do not know about this saint’s life, let me tell you she was an incredible and fascinating woman who lived in the Middle Ages in Germany. She lived an intense life dedicated not only to religion but also to science, art, music, politics and philosophy. Hildegard founded two monasteries and maintained active correspondence with kings, emperors and popes. During all her life this mystic had visions which she attributed to divine inspiration. 

In the forward of Hildegard of Bingen, Keating says she fell in love with Hildegard when she read a book lent to her by a friend. That love is evident in each page, in each poem, in each line. Through Keating’s poetry we get to know Hildegard, her life unrolls like a magic carpet. Poem by poem the reader finds out about her dreams, hopes, aspirations as well as her frustrations. 

Keatings’s poems come alive with sensory experience, her words are confident in range and depth and they are utterly clear and articulate. The poet could have been a witness in Hildegard’s life, she knows her, she breathes her, she has a familial intimacy with the philosopher. The author undertook a journey into the mediaeval world, the poems are factual and the events meticulously researched. They contain very vivid descriptions, we can see in our mind’s eye what Hildegard saw, like in

 

‘Arrival’

Disibodenberg, high in the forest
sprawls in the clouds.
The last mile steeply uphill
Secluded. 

A white butterfly dips and lifts.
Hildegard’s gaze follows it up
catches the glint of the sun
on the first stone wall.

Stoic buildings unfold
cloistered around a cobbled garth.
Their Benedictine monastery.

A monk in cinctured black robe
walks from signposted infirmary.
From beneath his blinkered cowl
he extends a welcome.
They dismount
Jutta falls on her knees in gratitude.

In Hildegard’s life the days pass coloured by monotony and sainthood and as the days pass so is her strong and determined personality developed. Poem by  poem the reader becomes wrapped in a mantle of words, words that tell us of revelations, mysticism, determination and sainthood. Keating puts herself in Hildegard’s shoes and cleverly she is able to recreate the angst, the bravery and the defiance of this incredible woman. We enter her abode, her orchard, we get to know the sisters and her godly visions. We hear two strong voices Hildegard’s and Keating’s the poet. Writing is a labour of love, the writer not only poured her love for Hildegard in the poems but also her skills and knowledge.

Intuition, growth, earthiness, inner strength, passion, justice, wisdom, art are all words that describe what emerges from Keating’s poetry. What a great way to learn through reading poetry! The poet has not spared any detail about the life of Hildegard neither has she left out information about her sources. This fascinating book contains an Epilogue, a Chronology, a Glossary, Notes and a Bibliography. In the final notes Keating says: ‘A Poetic Journey seeks a middle ground between an accurate scholarly presentation of Hildegard and a personal interpretation of her story.’

I believe the writer has achieved her purpose offering us  the opportunity to get to know a mediaeval feminist of extraordinary creativity. Colleen Keating has created a masterpiece. 

Women’s Ink! Magazine   www.womenwritersnsw.org    March 2020 p19