When art forms intermingle…
Vivienne Blanksby
Melbourne poet, Anne M. Carson, is reflecting on her long-standing passion for working with artists
from other disciplines to create multi-genre events.
“So much of the activity of being an artist is done solo; the research, the writing and reworking,” she
says. “Yet this is a paradox because poetry is a communicative art. Collaborating with artists from
different fields is a search for ways of making wider connections, extending the communication.
How can you draw on all the senses to represent the richness of life? It’s about fluidity and
permeability.”
Anne’s recent collaboration with pianist, Julian Bailey, and harpist, Vanessa McKeand, has resulted in
the creation of Birds of a Feather, a soiree intermingling poetry and music, first performed in August
last year. A reprise of the event will take place on 17 May in the Junior Common Room at Queen’s
College, a historic setting ideally suited to this lovingly crafted program.
The concept underlying the program was proposed by Julian, a Chopin devotee, who saw the
potential for synergy between the romantic Nocturnes he had played for many years and Anne’s
lyric poetry. Anne notes that even before meeting Julian, she too had a special feeling for Chopin.
Her first poem for the evening, :meditations on melancholy, was written to comfort a despondent
friend and begins with the words:
‘You said melancholy, I said Chopin; a poultice you could put on pain…’
A further dimension in the form of Vanessa’s atmospheric harp music was added to the mix. The
name Birds of a Feather was adopted at Vanessa’s suggestion, reflecting the performers’ ideals of
harmony and the bird images that grace many of Anne’s poems.
I’m talking to Anne in the living room of her light and airy Kew home, where a strong interest in
varied forms of art is palpable. A number of indigenous artworks, a portrait of Anne herself painted
by Clayton Antonio as an entry for the 2012 Archibald prize, a draped Japanese kimono and a range
of exquisite botanical drawings are displayed to good effect on the walls surrounding us.
“Working with Julian and Vanessa was very natural,” says Anne. “We played around to match
different poems with music from their repertoires, asking ‘which elements chime?’ and we found
wonderful serendipities. For example, Nocturne 3 includes runs on the piano calling to mind birds in
flight. Julian plays it to the second pause, then breaks while I read my poem Corvid, portraying the
movement of a flock of birds in the sky. La Source is a harp classic by Hasselmans, which suggests
the sound of water lapping against a boat hull. We saw it as a great accompaniment for my Songs of
the mysterious river.”
While the Nocturnes are frequently thought of as gentle and contemplative, Anne points out that
the Chopin pieces have backbone and can evoke strong feelings. This allowed for the pairing of
Murder of Crows about a confronting, bloodthirsty dream, with the vigorous, passionate Nocturne 7.
One segment of the program brings together a series of harp variations composed by Howard Blake
with poems reflecting Anne’s passion for the natural world. Some of these are profoundly Australian
and celebrate experiences of the bush, often with a whisper of concern for its future. Another is a
more whimsical reflection on the charms of the Digitalis plant and evokes a picture of the poet with
each finger dressed in a foxglove cap, imagining an alternative self as a fox in the night.
The harp music in this segment was actually composed for a 1984 production of Henry V by the
Royal Shakespeare Company, in which Vanessa McKeand performed as soloist, wearing period
costume. The 2014 Birds of a Feather performance saw the Australian premier of this work.
I ask Anne to talk about her poetic style. She explains that her lyricism is intended to bring out the
subject matter on its own terms, but this focus is often embedded in a context that hints at
narrative. “My aim is to communicate, not just with poets, but with other members of the
community,” she says.
I reflect that in most of her poems, the narrative voice deftly establishes a situation from which
observations take place – on a houseboat exploring a river and its backwaters, with a beloved
partner in a moment in time, on a trek through the Australian landscape. As a reader I am quickly
engaged and find the images invite me to follow the path of Anne’s meditations.
“My themes are about what’s happening in my life and the world I care about,” says Anne. “I talk
about birds, flowers and trees - they’re under threat. I use a lyric sensibility to protest and affirm –
not in a didactic way. Through lyric poetry I’m doing my tiny bit to keep those values alive.”
Anne turned to poetry in 2003. After many years as a social worker in the area of domestic violence,
she retreated to rural St Andrews, living a simple life in a mud brick cottage, where she feels she
developed greater observational powers. After first pursuing photography and working artistically
with botanical specimens, she began writing prose and found her work overflowed with metaphors
and similes. “Is this poetry?” she asked herself. Eventually moving back to the city, she determined
to find out what she could about contemporary poetry and develop her craft.
Since these beginnings, Anne’s poetry has been published in literary journals in the USA, Ireland and
France and extensively in Australia. She has won and been commended for numerous poetry prizes
and was recently a finalist in the 2015 Ron Pretty Prize. In performing her work, Anne has been
drawn to collaboration. In 2013 she directed The Dresser Removes the Kimono of Mourning, which
combined poetry, keyboard and dance for presentation at the Daylesford Words in Winter Festival.
In Birds of a Feather, Anne will be reading new poems and others from her collection, Removing the
Kimono, published by Hybrid Publishers in 2013.
As our conversation comes to an end, Anne explains:
“I felt as if the way I experience life didn’t find validation until I found my poetic voice… and for me
this extends to exploring how words can be translated into other media, stimulating other senses.”
Vivienne Blanksby is a Melbourne writer
Birds of a Feather, an evening of Chopin Nocturnes, Harp and Poetry will be presented by Anne M.
Carson, poet, Julian Bailey, piano and Vanessa Mc Keand, harp, at 5.00 pm Sunday 17th May 2015 at
the Junior Common Room, Queens College, Parkville. Doors and cash bar open at 4.30 pm.
Tickets $40, Concessions $30. Reservations recommended. Phone: 0412 310 311 or email
singinglogic@optusnet.com.au