Word Hurl Times Issue 4: WHT Rises by Word Hurl Anti-Slam

WHT Word Hurl Times Magazine: Poetry, Short Stories, Art and Articles

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LOTTIE CONSALVO

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NEWCASTLE WRITERS FESTIVAL

issue four: wht rises

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ELISE JARVIS

Edited by David Graham Subeditors: Carlin McLellan, Kim Bartels, Elise Jarvis, Gem Minter & Susannah Jack Graphic Designer: Holly Farrell Photography & Art Director: Genevieve Carr WHT acknowledge the Awabakal people, the traditional custodians of the land this publication was created on. We pay respect to elders past, present and future. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this magazine. This publication may be reproduced and distributed freely in its entirety. Individual pieces remain the copyright of their author.

CONTENTS 04

EDITORIAL: DAVID GRAHAM

POETRY: CARLIN MCLELLAN

ARTICLE: NEWCASTLE WRITERS FESTIVAL

POETRY: SPIGGSY

INTERVIEW: LOTTIE CONSALVO

POETRY: ELISE JARVIS

POETRY: JADE HONDA

FOUND POETRY: ALEX MORRIS

POETRY: ROBYN WERKHOVEN

POETRY: MICHAEL COLLINS

FOUND POETRY

SUBMISSIONS

editorial David Graham

Here we go again, rising out of the ashes like the tired metaphor of a phoenix (or have I made that a simile now?). Nonetheless welcome to the revived Word Hurl Times. We missed you as much as you missed it, I’m sure. As I write this, I look over a storm-swept city picking itself up from one of the heaviest deluges in years. The air is alive with the sound of treescaping. Something like a new beginning, getting back on the horse - to continue with very tired and cringe worthy metaphors. I thought that with this recommencement it might be a good idea to state some kind of mission statement for the publication you are about to flick through: What you are looking at is the Word Hurl Times, an effort to capture some of the energy and content of the Word Hurl Anti-Slams which occur on the first Wednesday of the month at Vinyl Café, 4 Perkins St. Newcastle. Although part of what makes poetry performance so special is the temporal nature of the piece, why should we be content with letting all that creativity float out into the great ether? And also, why limit it just to poetry and things performed on the nights? Why not take advantage of the written medium to embrace other formats like short stories, articles, interviews, visual art and push boundaries with found poetry and well, whatever else someone can manage to stick into an email

and send to us? Why not, indeed. The focus of this magazine then, is to support people who are just doing things, it doesn’t matter what. There is no theme, no real goal or creative agenda. We want this magazine to be a step up and a pat on the back while you yell your soul into the great abyss of the endless dataverse that is our digital age. To revel in blatant self-promotion. To express with no real sense of consequence. To… actually if I keep going it’s going to start sounding like an agenda. Of course, much like the anti-slams, this old – I mean new – rag wouldn’t exist if not for the people submitting pieces and I’d like to thank all of the people who sent us their works. And boy, what works! We have poems, we have articles, we have internet chat conversations from across the globe. We have artworks too! I hope you enjoy and after you finish enjoying, I hope you get your finger and remove it from where it is and use it to send us some sweet creativity. Of course, much like any publication The World Hurl Times wouldn’t exist without the work of the ‘Word Hurl Times Team.’ The editors and designers graciously volunteer their time to the project, for which I can’t thank them enough. And to the rest of you, send us your writing and art, you slags!

editorial: David Graham

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everything as much Carlin McLellan

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Poetry: carlin mclellan

Newcastle Writers Festival Inspiration for the written and printed word Article by K.A. Bartels

The Stockton ferry pushed across the river, steadfast against the choppy water and a brawny wind, before delivering the Saturday mob and at least one festival ticket holder and their bike to the Newcastle wharf. The wind was blustery: hatstealing, and the outlook bleak, but it was inside weather, weather that could trigger contentment and maybe word to the page—weather that writers often like. Despite the outdoor conditions, and the writer’s need to foil distraction, embrace discipline, and write, write, write; the bustling hum of the festival crowd, eager, gathering and spilling down the stairs of City Hall, suggested another plan for the day. Newcastle Herald Journalist Rosemarie Milsom founded the Newcastle Writers Festival in 2012, and many are grateful. Three years on, an extensive line-up of authors and experts will share their knowledge and inspire enthusiastic audiences. A packed and varied schedule included ticketed events at reasonable cost, and boasted a lineup of authors including Helen Garner, Bob Brown and Michael Robotham. A generous number of free sessions gave the festival extra accessibility. The CNN Effect, with a panel including Eric Jenson, Christina Koutsoukos, and Chris Uhlmann discussed the future of news and feature writing in a rapidly changing digital environment. A few certainties were clear: journalists are working at a frenetic pace to meet the demands of rapid news cycles; they must be adept at a mind-boggling array of tasks; and routinely need to tailor stories for several media platforms. It’s a big call.

Perhaps the most positive and unexpected revelation came from Eric Jenson, author, and editor of The Saturday Paper. Jenson believes well-written long feature articles have a place in traditional print, and believes people recognise good journalism and are willing to pay. The success of The Saturday Paper supports this ideal. The same session brought more sobering news, when Festival Director Rosemarie Milsom joined the queue at question time, then promulgated the pending job cuts at The Newcastle Herald. Milsom spoke fervently, as she informed the audience that her husband was likely to lose his job. Milsom also drew attention to funding decisions which meant she needed to pay for her own flights to cover a story in Broome. The tone was lighter as a crowded room welcomed a panel of Romance writers including Fiona McArthur, Kelly Hunter and Annie Grace, for ‘Romance is Not a Dirty Word’. Each generously shared their enthusiasm and knowledge of this top-selling and previously under-valued genre. Forthright and animated panel host and writer Kaz Delaney directed a lively discussion on a range of topics including the necessary elements of a good romance novel. I also enjoyed discussion between bestselling crime writers P.M. Newton and Wendy James when I attended ‘Beyond the Crime Scene’ hosted by Megan Buxton. The authors reflected on the topic of crime-writing which emerges from real-life cases where victims and families are left traumatised. Generally the authors were not comfortable if plots recognisably resembled real cases, because even decades after, trauma and emotion may still run deep for those directly affected by crime.

article: newcastle writers festival

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Helen Garner and Caroline Baum by Chris Patterson, Intervision Photography

Geraldine Doogue by Chris Patterson, Intervision Photography

Political Novel Panel by Chris Patterson, Intervision Photography

I attended ‘The Big Read’ to hear works by respected Australian poets including Julie Chevalier, Jennifer Compton, Judy Johnson, Jean Kent, Anthony Lawrence, David Musgrave, Melinda Smith and John Stokes. Host Linsay Knight of Pitt Street Poetry gave generous mention of Word Hurl Anti-Slam and the growing profile of poetry in Newcastle. Hunter Producer, Anthony Scully of ABC Open 500 Words project, hosted a selection of entertaining and poignant readings by contributors. The project provides a writing challenge each month, WHT

and a platform for story sharing across the ABC community. Through the project, it’s also possible to arrange free writing workshops for groups of six or more people in the community. Coinciding with the Writers’ Festival was an Idea Bomb event held at ‘The Press Book House’, a book shop café in Hunter Street. The cafe atmosphere was intimate, with its book-lined walls and the smell of good coffee. The bunchedup enthusiasts conversed energetically before the speakers took to an impromptu corner stage. Passionate founding editorial teams including ‘white’ publishers Luke and Carla Burrell, Newcastle Mirage’s Kian West and Ryan Williams, and The Follower’s Zachari Watt and Zana Kobayashi, discussed their publications. I was moved by these speakers. Their words communicated dedication and passion, but were humble in the light of achievement despite considerable financial challenges and the swing towards consumption of digital media content. A positive overriding message persisted: there exists a certain backlash against the dominance of digital media, its transient nature and lack of physical presence, and its tendency to isolate despite its ability to connect. I am inspired by the sentiments of this generation who recognise the short-comings of a community where print publications are marginalised. For me, the festival also included dropping into the Agosti Expresso on Darby Street. The café hosted ‘The Big Launch’ with poets including John Stokes, Jean Kent, Jennifer Compton, Jan Dean and Beth Spencer reading from their books. The café was inviting, with comfortable armchairs nested around the podium. A complimentary glass of wine generously offered by the establishment made things pretty much perfect. Then to top things off, a certain lucky reveller named David Graham, won the lucky door prize! After an enjoyable weekend and having filled my cup with inspiration, I wearily cycled back to the ferry. The weather had lifted and the sun reflected an afternoon blue. I pondered upon the weekend and the new books thoughtfully purchased and tucked in my bag, then boarded the ferry before it lazily pulled away from the wharf.

article: newcastle writers festival

Anything Spiggsy

Anything at all? I consult my stash of memories To see what they can offer And am for a moment at a loss. Could be about this pleasant weather We’re experiencing today The sunlight shining through the trees Warm heaviness of the air. Perhaps that pretty lady Who I saw last week in town A gal I’ve known a year or two Whose legs caught my eyes Maybe something pertinent Like crisis home and abroad Exploitation of infrastructure Or growing menace overseas. Wait- there goes the cat Dashing cross my keys! Oh, he’ll never do just as he’s told Being a cheeky Siamese. Hey- there it rears its head again! This urge deep down within To make words rhyme, to sound the same Appearing to neatly sing. Yet that need not be the case always As I saw the other day When a lady mused- sans rhyme!- about tattoos One etched across her grand-daughter’s ribs. The sentiment was lovely And I could see why the judges chose The poem above all others For it served to stop the heart. So there you have my answer To the theme presented this issue: Anything that’s possible? There’s plenty from which to choose Yet this thing moved me most.

Poetry: spiggsy

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lottie consalvo Inter viewed by Genevieve Carr

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interview: lottie consalvo

Lottie Consalvo is a multidisciplinary artist working across performance, video, photography, painting and sculpture. Consalvo’s mining of private experience, memory, emotion and psychology produces an intensity in its outcome. She draws from personal experience and often incorporates family members into her works. In Consalvo’s most recent live performances at ALASKA Projects, Tiny Stadiums Live Art Festival, The Lock-Up Cultural Centre, Newcastle and Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery we have seen her positioned in seemingly comfortable domestic environments almost still or moving occasionally, however often slumped and in discomfort. In these performances tragedy, love, desire and longing are all present. Her most recent physical works for her solo exhibition Everything Reminds me of you, 2014 at Damien Minton Gallery, Consalvo incorporated fabric and found objects into her paintings to build up banner like shrines with portraits surrounded by personal belongings. Her interests in the history that lies in objects and the rituals and ceremony surrounding loss both public and private are here in this body of work. Consalvo also makes what she calls ‘life performances’. Her most recent being Compartmentalise 2013-2014, a year-long performance where the artist lived with minimal possessions in an attempt to gain psychological control after a significant life shift. The contract for this performance was included in the exhibition Mono No Aware curated by SuperKaleidoscope at Linden Gallery, Melbourne in 2013 whilst the artist was still undertaking the performance. Consalvo has been selected to undertake the residency program with the New York based Serbian performance artist Marina Abramovic as part of Marina Abramovic: in residence show in Sydney with Kaldor Public Art projects running June 24th to July 5th.

Image page 10 I mouthed I love you, 2014, live performance at Lake Macquarie City Art Gallery Image page 12 THE DRINKWATERS, Wolverine, 2013, part of family portrait series Image page 13 I don’t dream, The Dreamer, 2014, mixed media, 2600x1800mm Part of the exhibition ‘Everything reminds me of you’, Damien Minton Gallery, Sydney

Genevieve: Your work makes links between grief, death and the everyday. Death and grief are often kept at a distance or as something that can’t be connected with our own reality. How do audiences respond to this subject within your work? Lottie: This is a good question and something I continue to struggle with. Many artists have a great tragedy that is ever present in their work. There are elements of longing, desire and regret in my work. Sometimes it makes people emotional but this is not my intention, I can never

interview: lottie consalvo

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know how the audience will respond. I just hope that the work is beautiful and that the audience can connect and relate.

consistent throughout the mediums I traverse, I think that makes it easier but that isn’t the case for all artists.

G: Do you face any difficulties being a multidisciplinary artist? For example, people attempting to pigeon hole you into a category?

G: What are you working on at present?

L: A few years ago a good friend, artist and curator Sarah Mosca – look her up, she is incredible! – asked me whether I identified as a performance artist or a painter and she said I needed to choose one. I said performance artist, but in truth I think they feed each other. I couldn’t say everything I wanted to say with painting so I made performances. It’s really a simple as that. Although multidisciplinary artists have existed more predominantly since the 60s and 70s, this big resurgence of performance art and diversified practices has really come back into focus in the past several years and so it was a big discussion in the arts at the time, but in a few short years it has changed and now many artists are multidisciplinary. My language stays

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L: After a busy end to last year with public performances I’m being quite insular. So at the moment I’m making photos, videos and paintings in the privacy of my home and studio. I’m working on a video installation for a show in Hamburg in July at Millerntor Gallery#5. I’m also anticipating my residency with Marina Abramovic during her show for Project 30, Kaldor Public Art Projects. This is such a monumental opportunity that I’m truly grateful for and I really want to give it the time that it needs to work on some ideas leading up to the residency. G: What future aspirations do you have for your work? L: Make better work, always make better work.

interview: lottie consalvo

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Bitcoin elise jarvis

street sweepers come by, late afternoon, around nihilists with spades tattooed and all manner of other gypsies sprawling in the sunshine with coffees from the Caffe, our view down on campus, where the cops harden brows and are belligerent, bulldogs baulking at tiny tiptoed terriers and the cellists, flute players: we, costumed and curious, make manifestations, acid apparitions, navigate staircases and paperbacks and wind wire round speckled crystals, discuss the differing cultural capital of online mining, masks of feathers and flags, hand-stitched Dead bears and eucalypts on the hills, hills of fog rolling out for the fireworks and San Pablo in another era, trolleys far away and to homicidal boardwalks, where the seagulls sell their waresâ&#x20AC;&#x201D; there is a special something and we all found it here, solo, talking to ourselves and sucking plum juice down chins, kissing peach cheeks and admitting to each other our darling, furtive crushes: summer spells of lambâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s bread and halo smoke rings beached out on the concrete, clouds collecting and hare krishna chants that remind us, light small sticks of incense, and, in the morning, travel softly.

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poetry: elise jarvis

On the Avenue elise jarvis

welcome back, HBO, to Telegraph Avenue, the wingnut hour always, into the cooling nights and six-up piggies in the pizzeria, skulling coffees from competing corner stores, who place NO TRESPASSING signs, blazoned atop the doorways, and there are rules to the oxymoron of a local chain, and there are certain attitudes that make smooth transactions actual, and there are pigeons and squirrels and rats to be belly-full. when the sun is out and there is incense flowing, we speak wholly to each other, holding back nothing holy, allowing time to mull in palms and flip spliffs, trichomes ablaze, knees akimbo, and something shared, something paid forward, something in the way she moves, and those of us who have dosed ourselves on acid drops, and gone through the tribulations, will understand that itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s all in the eyes, each of us unready to breathe life into the sexual, denying ourselves, desiring to desire always and to cup the breasts of nubile walkabouts, bathing in the shining light of the avenueâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s afternoon, aware.

poetry: elise jarvis

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Tyrrell Street for Sally jade honda

Every morning on my way to work I walk down the uneven streets by your house and expect to see you. Maybe on the stoop in mismatched clothes, half in the shadows of the terrace houses, half browned from half summer. Every morning I never see you. Sometimes as I round the corner you could be colourful on the pavement outside your bedroom window, feeling the warm world weave the footpath. Every morning I feel stupid and sad. There’s graffiti on your side wall of Easter Island monoliths, extant and two dimensional. There’s chips in their eyes where the render has fallen away, and I hope that it doesn’t happen to you, knowing that it won’t. The door by the heads reads: ‘those who enter may never escape’, and every morning I want to write a poem about you, but it take me months because no descriptor is honest, nor fingers strong enough, to do it justice. This morning they were gutting your house and I wondered if the workers had found a piece of you behind the wallpaper. Maybe a treasure map in the gyprock, or a letter in the crawl space that told your life story, so that others wouldn’t have to. On my way home it was dark and the workers had finished. I hadn’t heard of any discoveries, so I guess you took your secrets with you, but every morning I’ll be looking.

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poetry: jade honda

found poem: alex morris

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found poem: alex morris

Bloody Battle robyn werkhoven

Bloody battle is waged Senseless soldiers fight till death Torn bodies and minds Wounded warriors Can you smell the blood? Can you hear the screams? The warmongers thrive Led by money and great greed Lethal Gods will win Since dawn, man has fought Ignorant and foolish hearts Rare is peace and love.

poetry: ROBYN WERKHOVEN

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It is True The Poor Get Poorer Michael collins

Part 1 It is true the poor get poorer And will always be with us: Just as the rich get richer And cry out ‘Give us… give us! ‘More! (Money that is…) ‘For we know how to spend it. ‘For the good of all we will mend it‘The economy that is: you may rest assured ‘You can hold us to our word. ‘Everyone must participate: ‘Share the burden… Ameliorate ‘By self sacrifice the stress upon ‘The budget or it will all be gone! ‘… The money that is… For schools and roads… and big jet planes. ‘And hospitals… And…um… other things… Like… er… I dunno… Sewers and drains? ‘Forget about all that anyway- you can trust us implicitly: ‘There will be no falsehoods spoken here… no behind-closed-door duplicity. ‘Yes! We firmly believe in the “good of all”… The more reciprocity ‘The better! Furthermore… all will be achieved with the greatest felicity!’

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poetry: michael collins

Part 2 It is true the rich get richer And will always be with us: Just as the poor get poorer And cry out ‘Give us… Give us! ‘More! (Consideration that is…) ‘Redistribute the wealth: ‘How much is enough to ensure financial health? ‘Your Audit Report from the top one percent‘Self-serving in the extreme fomenting dissent. ‘Any “good” there in is overwhelmed by the “bad” ‘And we are left with the feeling that the rest of us have all been had. ‘Still you do not have to be poor to feel outraged‘There are many of us out there screaming “truth” has been upstaged! ‘And a society that abandons values once fairly set in stone ‘Will find itself a pariah in this world all alone. ‘Rest assured: there will be a call to arms- marching in the street ‘Every minor victory you enjoy serves to bring closer your defeat. ‘So with baited breath in expectation we await your next throw of the dice ‘As you gamble with our future… cut for yourself a bigger slice… ‘Of the ever diminishing cake.’

poetry: michael collins

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Untitled author unknown

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found poetry

contact us We want to hear from you! Shamelessly self-promote your event, shamefully expose your creative endeavours, tell us what you think we can do better and shock us with your dreams and desires. Email us at: wordhurl.antislam@hotmail.com You can find more information about the Word Hurl Times and Word Hurl Anti-Slam at www.wordhurlantislam.com or on our facebook page: www.facebook.com/pages/Word-Hurl-Anti-Slam/156773802050018. We also have a Facebook group you can join: www.facebook.comgroups/633235563371635/

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