Saturday the 21st of July I headed off to the inaugural Southern Highlands Writers' Festival. It was a great day, with the highlight being Paula McLean's conversation with Mark Tredinnick titled 'Poetry in Motion'.

Paula began the chat describing poetry as like a window to the world, which Mark responded, "well a window is the obvious place for one to observe the world from". Tredinnick then read out his poem 'Catching Fire; or, The Art of Sitting', which is coming out in Meanjin in December. Mark pointed out the squarish, window-like shape of the poem. Mark told us that there is a stillness to 'Catching Fire...', not just in what the speaker says:

And I watch her steal her own silent show, doing
Nothing, immaculately, among the silver leaves.

 but also in the language. You will have to keep an eye out for his poem to find out what was meant by that....read more...