New poets find their way

Thursday, October 30, 2014

Students published with professionals in anthology

Brenton Stacey
Public relations officer
Avondale College of Higher Education
Cooranbong, New South Wales, Australia

Poems by Avondale creative writing students appear alongside those by professionals in a published anthology co-edited by one of Australia’s leading contemporary poets.

Students and professor with anthology

Will Christie with creative writing students at the launch of A Way of Happening. Credit: Jared Poland.

A Way of Happening features the work of 15 students and 31 poets. Among the latter: Member of the Order of Australia recipient Ron Pretty and professor of English literature at The University of Sydney Will Christie, to whom the anthology is dedicated.

The title is inspired from a statement by poet W H Auden. It is another way of describing “the organic connection between first feeling and then recording [that] often drives the fundamental impulse to write poetry,” says co-editor Dr Carolyn Rickett, a senior lecturer in communication at Avondale College of Higher Education.

The concept of finding words is a legacy of the late Nobel Laureate Seamus Heaney, who said that “if you have the words, there’s always a chance that you’ll find the way.”

Publishing pieces from new poets with those from established poets helps the students find their way. It motivates them to develop better techniques or search for greater insights, says the anthology’s other co-editor Judith Beveridge, a colleague of Professor Christie’s and poetry editor of Australia’s second oldest literary journal, Meanjin. “There’s a freshness about the poetry—the subject matter’s strong and engaging. Students always have good ideas. Their challenge is finding the kind of language to express those ideas.”

Bianka Dyson, who read one of her poems during the launch on October 22, learned during her classes with Judith and Carolyn about the importance of the drafting process. “You have to severe that emotional attachment to refine your work.”

Puncher & Wattmann published A Way of Happening and its predecessors Here Not There and Wording the World—and, as part of a pedagogical partnership, design studio student Jorden Tually designed the cover. Founder and publisher Dr David Musgrave enjoys working with the students “knowing they’ll see their poetry in print alongside poets who they might like and respect. Yes, they’ll learn from it, but they’ll also be proud of it, too.”

Carolyn received an Australian Learning and Teaching Council Citation in 2011 for “inspiring and innovative teaching methods that enable communication students to develop confidence and participate in authentic learning experiences.” A Way of Happening is yet another example of this.