Melbourne shows it's not afraid of romance
The Sunday Age
Sunday February 13, 2011
Readers responded to our love poetry competition with big hearts and hard heads, writes John Elder. TOUGH love rules among our younger readers and the poetry they make with their flinty hearts is gorgeous.Consider the confessions of Carla Montanaro, 16, from Lower Plenty.I found you a fishBut it died in front of youI bought you chocolateWhen you asked for vanillaI broke your PlayStation 3You don't know it yetI took that change yesterdayThat you're searching for.These are not great acts of love . . .In the lead-up to Valentine's Day, The Sunday Age invited readers to write an 11-line love poem following a form adapted from Japanese syllabic poetry.Each line had to follow a specific syllable count. Rhyme was discouraged, along with soppy greeting card sentiments.Most of the 80 entries complied with the rules and 16 of these came from teenagers including year 9 and 10 students from Castlemaine Secondary College, whose Steiner English teacher, Jane Sanderson, set them the task in the classroom.The competition was "an excellent start to the new year" and the strict format made it easier for the students."It's brilliant because it took away the fear factor and made it more democratic," she says."Young people are afraid of being judged and this made it more like a game. And the fact that it was a competition worked for a lot of the students to motivate them."She says most of them wrote their poems in less than half an hour, which was part of the challenge."We talked about love and what that meant . . . opening up the idea of what do you love," she says.One boy writes of his love of football, another of food.Matria Moore, 9S, wrote an ode to her typewriter:The sound and whispersOf my fingers on beauty.While her classmate Sophie Flavell rejoices:You taste like the HotSalty Snap of Sun. You soundLike the Stillness ofMidnight.Bolder, and even more playful in tone is Emma Eeilarz, also from 9S, who declares:dear nerd, I love you.The Castlemaine students' poems were among the finest submitted.There were a number of entries from Anonymous, one of them an apparently older woman in secret love with another woman.In the cool shallows we splash,Swinging our linked hands like kids."Two old girls strolling,"Think the young jocks and beach belles.Ah, but if they knew . . .While tales of wild and improbable passion are always welcome, readers were invited to pay homage to the quieter wonders of the settled life. Many were happy to oblige.As Gillian Lodge, Melbourne, wrote:You wear my favourite tie,Green, to match your tiger eyes.Love is that mundane.While Avril Bradley writes with affection of her long married life:Fifty years on andstill going strong, we dailygrind our love habits . . .Even our conversationspeaks from deja vu.And Alison Jones, Oakleigh South, confronts a familiar theme, the unromantic bloke:Still hard to say I love youForty years on. You would hateThis soppy po-em.There were great moments of affection. Isabella Hastings, from Berwick, in pondering why it is she loves her man, looks at the weather, at clothes drying on the line, and concludes:Me, I love the sound of fliesand bees in summer heavywith life just like youSarah Vincent, of Newport, seeks to comfort her man who spends a sad winter on the couch, cheering on the Bulldogs:Barry and the boysBroke your heart last winter's end.Our winning poem came from Rachel Flynn, of Fitzroy North, who wins the hardcover copy of 100 Australian Poems of Love and Loss.She writes:Is that you, still herein the house and the gardenbusy with living?Come inside and have some tea.The kettle's nearly boiled.With your hands on me,I feel like the girl I waswhen you touched my hairthat Sunday in September,when we first met at the gate.Touch me again now.Responding to the news by email, Ms Flynn wrote:"That's great . . . How many entries did you get? Three?"Ms Flynn, you can count them for yourself.You can find all of them online.
© 2011 The Sunday Age