Excited to have my poem Exodus chosen tor The Crow. Thank you Brenda and Ginninderra Press .
The Crow is a Pocket Poets collection of poetry edited by Brenda Eldridge at Ginninderra Press. It might be small but it pulls a punch in a very reflective way.
A quarterly poetry journal published in March, June, September and December each year it has become a coveted journal to be chosen as an entry.
In the introduction From the Editor, Brenda Eldridge writes,
“The results of the recent referendum have been a sobering wake-up call for Australians. It prompts the question Who are Australians?”
And I like to think that our poetry might struggle with the way through all this into the answer and find a way into the future and maybe sometime one day we as a nation will find the oneness many of us wish for and we will find the air beneath our wings .
My poem exodus is set in with many well known poets and next to a well known Canberrian poet Hazel Hall.
So once again I say thankyou to Brenda and Ginninderra for giving us another place to publish our work. Thnks Brenda for your affirmation and support of poets.
The American poet Jane Hirchfield says the secret title of every poem is tenderness and a poem that hasn’t found it through the anger or despair or bewilderment is probably mot there yet . She said in an interview I heard, that one stitch in a fabric of rant such as the bowing to beauty, grief, compassion or kinship allows one to get up the next morning and open their eyes. And we must find a way to that.
When we become disillusioned with our world view, the framework we see through, that for so long has ‘supported,’ ‘comforted’ ‘controlled’ us with its surety be it an institution of religion, marriage, belief etc. it can be hard to change. We actually can become stuck and we can let ourselves die inside . There is a saying found on a tombstone
Here lies . . . .
died at 45
buried at 75.
Yet if we jump from the edge we can find we fly . The hard part is one cannot fly until they jump and one cannot jump till they are either pushed or better, feel trustful or supported by love to do it.
exodus
so she left her boats behind
took courage to leave familiar shores
broke the yoke of fear
untethered the bridle
and broke the bondage of institutional rule
that held her safe for decades
stepped into the ocean deep
and found herself battered bruised
buffeted till finally buoyed by joy
of trees and flowers light and moon and seas
like a fledgling bird leaving its nest
she found the air beneath her wings
