Coalcliff Days

2011-05-15T17:52:00.001-07:00

There are a few images of the replicated Coalcliff house living room and some drawings and film stills from the exhibition on my blog
the deletions. All the best from Pam

Kurt

2011-04-30T03:51:00.001-07:00

Kurt at home, day of the launch

the opening night

2011-04-28T03:45:00.000-07:00

Here are some of my shots from Friday night’s reading to add to Denis’s Saturday images and Pam’s link.

Nicholas Pounder, who opened the show

Tom Thompson, with Pam Brown and Sal Brereton in background

Alan Jefferies

Denis Gallagher (and Denis Gallagher)

Barbara Brooks

Pam Brown

Rae Desmond Jones

Ken Bolton

Coalcliff Days Launch, Wollongong Regional Gallery

2011-04-23T05:43:00.000-07:00

David Musgrave

Barbara Brooks

Adam Aitken, Tom Thompson, Pam Brown, Micky Allan,
Kurt Brereton, [front] Ken Bolton, Laurie Duggan

Sally Evans

Cath Kenneally

Alan Jefferies

Adam Aitken

Arcadia Lyons

Ken Bolton

Oscar Schwartz, Ella O'Keefe, Ann Vickery, Michael Farrell

Laurie Duggan, Denis Gallagher [on screen above],
John Jenkins [on screen below]

Tom Thompson

Sal Brereton

Rae Desmond Jones, Ken Bolton

Arnie Goldman, Nick Pounder, Cath Kenneally, Laurie Duggan

All images © Denis Gallagher 2011

2011-04-22T23:51:00.000-07:00

I only took a few quietish photos at last Saturday's Coalcliff Days reading. Click here to see them. Very best from Pam Brown

e-book editions now available

2011-04-18T20:54:00.000-07:00

We have now published e-book versions of the three Coalcliff Days books (Jellied Tongue Press). Just go to www.lulu.com and type in authors in the search box to find the books. It is easy to download them as PDF files.

exhibition now running

2011-04-18T20:48:00.000-07:00

The exhibition opening was a great success. Lots of the old gang turned up over the weekend including Ken Bolton, Pam Brown, Micky Allan, Laurie Duggan, Barbara Brooks, Tom Tompson, Rae Desmond Jones, Alan Jefferies, Kate Richards, Denis Gallagher, Sal and Kurt Brereton. Unfortunately we missed Steve Kelen, Leigh Stokes and Erica Callan. Still, not a bad turnout all weird things considered.

Both poetry readings (Friday night/Saturday arvo) attracted a good crowd too. The three books were launched by Nick Pounder and the last few over run copies were sold on the night.

Media interviews for The Illawarra Mercury, ABC Radio and WINTV News were conducted with Ken Bolton and Kurt Brereton.

Video and audio recordings were made of the opening night and readings. Stay turned for a little feature story on ABC Radio National Poetica with a bit of luck and follow through.

The show runs until May 22. Copies of the 3 new books are included as part of the exhibition.

Kurt Brereton and Pam Brown will be doing an exhibition floor talk at the gallery on May 4 at 12 noon. FREE

Thanks everyone for supporting this rare historic meeting of the arts 'n minds.

Go to the Coalcliff Days website for photos of the exhibition at www.coalcliffdays.com

exhibition e-vite

2011-03-15T14:24:00.000-07:00

BOOKS NOW SOLD OUT

2011-03-13T12:32:00.000-07:00

We have now sold out of the Coalcliff Days Series through pre-sales. Thanks everyone for your active support. We printed 10 extra copies of the Coalcliff Days book for cash sale $100 on the night of the opening. These are not signed or numbered. Please email Kurt to reserve a copy.

Books pre-sales progress

2011-02-24T00:34:00.000-08:00

At this stage there are only 3 bundle sets left to sell (out of 50). I expect they too will go by next week. Thanks everyone for your active support of this project. The risk was worth it. The books are at the printers and looking good.

New Coalcliff Days website now launched

2011-01-28T21:20:00.000-08:00

Go to www.coalcliffdays.com to see details on the exhibition, poetry readings, books and sales information. This site will be a stand alone archival resource.

Pre-sale bundle price offer on following 3 books

2011-01-28T21:06:00.000-08:00

Get all 3 books for special bundle price
$160 (includes postage) save $30 + postage

Offer only lasts until offical launch date (April 15)

To place your order
Send cheque/money order to

Kurt Brereton, PO BOX 22, Bulli, NSW, Australia 2516.

enquiries to kurt@kurtbrereton.com

0414 568 221

We Are A Movie: Collected Artist Books
Kurt Brereton

8 artist books connected to the Coalcliff

250pp, colour, original art pages

collectors limited edition of 50 signed copies
$50 + $10 postage

Taking Stock by Sal Brereton

2011-01-28T21:04:00.001-08:00

Taking Stock
Sal Brereton

A memoir of living at Coalcliff
150pp, colour, original art pages
collectors limited edition of 50 signed copies

$50 + $10 postage

Coalcliff Days Book

2011-01-28T21:03:00.000-08:00

Coalcliff Days: Poetry & Art at Coalcliff 1979 - 1982 (and beyond)
(edited by Ken Bolton, Sal Brereton and Kurt Brereton)

325pp, colour, silkscreen cover, original art pages
collectors limited edition of 50 signed copies

$80 + $10 postage

Coalcliff house

2010-11-14T13:27:00.000-08:00

xmas 1980

2010-11-14T13:21:00.001-08:00

Poets reading in Sydney, 1979

2010-11-09T23:37:00.000-08:00

Julie Rose, Leonie Blair, Pam Brown, Erica Callan, Micky Allan, Loma Bridge, Anna Couani

The Coalcliff Gang

2010-11-09T23:27:00.000-08:00

At the moment the list of readers on the opening night poetry event at Wollongong City Gallery Friday April 15 titled The Coalcliff Gang Rides Again is, with any luck:
Ken Bolton, Sal Brereton, Alan Jefferies, Pam Brown, Denis Gallagher, Laurie Duggan, Barbara Atkinson, Anna Couani, Tom Thompson, Adam Aitken, Steve Kelen, Erica Callan. More to be added of course if hands go up.

The following afternoon Saturday April 16: Legends v Young Guns in association with The South Coast Writers Centre. Leading local Illawarra young poets will read.

A detailed program and poster will go up closer to the event.

and a few more

2010-09-28T10:42:00.000-07:00

What was I doing at the time? In 1978 I had entered into a screenwriting partnership with Terry Larsen (who had written the script for Michael Thornhill’s movie The FJ Holden). We worked all through this period until I started teaching in 1983. Screenwriting was a weird experience: working at subsistence level for producers who would jet off for the States or Europe at a moment’s notice. Over the period we made a living, more or less, through the odd film grant or production deal though in the end nothing we worked on together would ever become a movie. Still, it was a useful experience. Without it I might not have been able to structure a long work. In 1979 I started work at the WEA Library with Librarian Barbara Brooks and worked there part-time for eighteen months or so. In between gigs I was funded by the poor person’s Literature Board (a.k.a. Social Security). Then in late 1983 I worked for a semester at what was then the Canberra College of Advanced Education (subsequently the University of Canberra) as a lecturer in Media Studies (I had previously taught Media, in 1976, at Swinburne, home of Australia’s first media theory course). After that position I advanced in the world to be the cleaner at Gleebooks, a position I held until late 1985, broken by a few months when a Victorian government grant sent me off to Gippsland to research The Ash Range.

a few details

2010-09-12T05:48:00.000-07:00

Over the Coalcliff years I was mostly living in Sydney, though in late 1983 I spent most of my time in Canberra. In 1978-79 I lived by myself in a small house at 67 Newman Street, Newtown. From December 1979 to March 1981 I was in a share house at 240 Church Street Newtown with, among others, Hayden Keenan (film producer). Then from March to May I was briefly in a small room at 9 Fort Street Petersham - a house that Greg Maguire, Jann Chambers and Morgan Smith (Gleebooks) lived in at the time (John Forbes was an earlier tenant). I returned as a permanent resident after living by myself again in a house at 156 Wardell Road, Dulwich Hill for five or so months. By that time Morgan had moved out of Fort Street and artist Ken Searle was there. Ken and I both moved in to the house Greg and Jann bought around the corner at 83 Palace Street in September 1983. I lived there until October 1985 when I moved back to my home city, Melbourne.

mo-poke

2010-08-15T16:55:00.000-07:00

Opposite the house at Coalcliff, way up in the night escarpment, lived a couple of solitary owls.

I'd often hear them in the middle of the night, answering one another.

http://www.freesound.org/tagsViewSingle.php?id=11135

Thrice - Readings at the Scarborough Hotel

2010-08-15T16:35:00.000-07:00

Ken Bolton identifies the spot where the house once stood

2010-08-03T23:53:00.000-07:00

Ken Bolton at site of the Coalcliff House today

2010-08-03T23:49:00.000-07:00

working title logo

2010-07-28T03:03:00.001-07:00

An extract from a Coalcliff poem by Mark S Leabeater

2010-05-26T15:23:00.000-07:00

Wollongong Poets' Ball 1979

2010-05-24T03:01:00.000-07:00

Nigel Roberts

John Tranter

Sal Brereton

Kurt Brereton Denis Gallagher Claire O'Connor

Dorothy Porter

PiO

Ken Bolton

Photos by Rae Desmond Jones except top two by John Tranter

coalcliff poems

2010-05-20T16:50:00.000-07:00

The house stood

The house stood as though it had been washed there by an enormous tide.
Lodged above the tree line, between it and the escarpment

that rose directly behind it.

It stood weathered like a wooden raft. Still in one piece

but leaning gently in one corner.

The house had been weathered like the bare wood

growing out of the side of the cliff. Everything set at weird angles,

like the undersea frozen in a strong current.

Even the garden had something of a sunken quality to it.

as though, in order to find the existing form you might have to dig down
one foot- discover the original bones of plants

gleaned white by the moon.

+

Trains are shunting up and down the track. It’s early morning

and the hill cliffs beyond the road are hit by the first bits of sunlight.

A movement so slight, like the buzzing of a butterfly coming

closer to the ear.

+

Some construction sheds are erected across the road.

Little white ones that look like toys in comparison to the hill

that rises behind them.

I imagine what they must look like from the very top – more toy-like
probably. These sheds that have been constructed to house the thirty
or so men employed to build the new railway.

+

I spend too much time in front of the radio.

I hear the floorboards and I know you’re out there somewhere

drawing me into your place. Curling in the space between two large rocks
behind the sand dunes.

On the other side of the house, ocean-blue Pacific O.

Windows that open out suddenly to the extended relief of coastline.

There has been a significant change in the size and placement of the horizon.

The trees upon the hill are reflecting the sun as though they are made of
some resilient galvanized iron – they are reflecting the light everywhere in
strips of green.

Breeze

I stayed up reading late. My light was the last one to go out

on the whole block. I checked.

And every now and then I leave this book in which i have been looking
for the last few hours, at poems etc… mostly not reading them

and go outside and piss over the verandah into the front garden.

Feel the cold creepy feel of August wind creeping up my bare legs and
looking up to the sky, which is unarguably full of stars and bright almost
full waning moon giving everything that moves a definite shape

that sways in what now is an energetic breeze.

Among the Living
alone in Ken’s house
it can be funny sometimes
when it’s late and you’re up
reading one of his books
from his endless collection of books

and all around you
the walls lined with the shrouds
of writers
lying next to each other
or on top of each other
or standing back to back
spine to spine

and thinking,
how some poets must be dead already
and some must be dying
and some must be living

and it makes me feel good
in a funny sort of way
to be still such a young writer
with so much yet to write about
and with such a long way to go.

the2nd half

2010-05-19T16:30:00.000-07:00

Fantastic project. It really is worth exploring a place or a building that attracts energy/enthusiasms over a solid period of years.

I was a fairly regular visitor when Alan Jefferies was the bearer of the legacy (& yes, he deftly carried on the tradition that made the place so memorable). As before, the only constancy was words, music & friendship. Extraordinary.

The Coalcliff cottage was also a doorway for many of us to that mysteriously industrial city of Wollongong. Rae Jones was there, it had its own branch of the Poets Union -- oddly including pio who had split from the Melbourne branch. Five Islands Press & Scarp were yet to emerge.

The only time I visited when Ken & Sal were there was a time they weren't. Went down there with Donna Maegraith (sorry Laurie, she was a fine reader!) & Alan Jefferies. Pam Brown and Micky greeted us on arrival. A superbly relaxed night followed by a fragile morning. Donna and I went onto Burning Palms, another Illawarra place of resonance for a number of us.

A great mutual friend of Alan's and mine -- Mark Leabeater (artist muso and latterly poet) died some five years ago. His life has also been profoundly marked by the Coalcliff house. Some of his ashes were scattered on the rock platform down below & on the escarpment above.

More than once I've stopped at the site of the old cottage & had a couple of quiet for him & the succession of bright moments.

Here I come

2010-05-12T00:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Coalcliffers,

Kurt has been after me for months to contribute to this blog: but I’m too inept technically to do it.

Well, except that I’ve finally broken thru, here, now: like the kid with trainer wheels, pushed by admiring — or doubtful — parents, skooting a few yards, legs trailing either side. Pitiful, isn’t it?

I’ve written a long essay that will introduce the show & will send you each your bit of it (yes, there is a cameo spot for each of you, in which you appear as I remember you. My memory is inept, too. So you may want me to change things. And I’ll do it, too, to a degree.

Last night I turned my room over to find a photo Sal wants because it features in a watercolour one of us painted showing our 1981 interior. If I find it it will verify the watercolour as ‘accurate’ — or will at least look amusing & ’curious’ if placed beside the watercolour. Which is what we intend to do.

Anyway, I still haven’t found the picture, but material we used as a table-cloth back then turned up. I had emailed Sal just the day before that, despite having kept it all this time, I thought I had thrown it out just recently. Possibly you will all be conducting similar searches soon.

“Hang on,” I hear you say, “I don’t recall them ever stretching to table-cloths!” It was just cheap material we bought as a bargain in Thirroul or somewhere. I don’t know why I kept it. Maybe it reminds me of Coalcliff.

Cheers,
Ken

invitation letter

2010-05-11T20:13:00.000-07:00

Dear all,

Ken Bolton will be sending out an invitation letter to you all next week asking for contributions to the book/catalog in more specific terms. We hope to have everything back to us by the end of October so we can start the production process. The show is coming along well. Ken and I had a good production meeting recently (ie when his book A Little Bit of Bop was launched in Sydney) and we are all excited to start compiling all the various contributions.

We have had no luck tracking down Erica Callan so if anyone knows where she is and a contact email etc please let us know. We want her involved if possible. thanks Kurt

3 Coalcliff Dazers 2 decadz on + 1

2010-04-21T02:12:00.000-07:00

Taken at the launch of Ken Bolton's latest collection of poetry, A Whistled Bit of Bop (Vagabond Press) at The Rose Hotel, Chippendale on April 18. Kurt Brereton (left) did the launch, a revenant Apollinaire replete with bandaged head cued by the dadaist/constructivist typography of Chris Edwards's smart cover for the book. Ken (second from right) read selections with a wry/dry appeal, and when he said he was glad to be back in Sydney again we loved him even more.

On the far right, Rae Desmond-Jones, avatar punk poet editor of the 1970's poetry magazine Your Friendly Fascist and organiser of the Wollongong Poets' Ball of 1979, possibly the only occasion of public copulation at a poetry event in Australia.

Laurie Duggan has referred to the event in an earlier post. Other poets I remember at the Ball are Dorothy Hewett, Dorothy Porter, Joanne Burns, Nigel Roberts, Philip Roberts and PiO. I'm sure there were others. And there were lots of non-poets (thank you). Maybe you remember more .

The +1 is Alan Wearne (second left), renowned deep poet of the shallows and outspoken protector of the poetic flame. As far as I know he had no direct association with the Coalcliff days, living in Melbourne at that time. Today, he teaches at Wollongong University, a good excuse to be aboard this virtual caravan of pilgrims.

Ken Bolton washes a silkscreen

2010-04-11T23:15:00.001-07:00

Ken Bolton on the escarpment above Coalcliff

2010-04-11T23:14:00.000-07:00

Sal Brereton & Ken Bolton at Stanwell Tops

2010-04-11T23:12:00.000-07:00

interview with Ken Bolton

2010-04-11T23:01:00.000-07:00

Ken Bolton interview

final journal entries

2010-03-22T04:07:00.000-07:00

9th August 1981 When I get to Coalcliff it's in time to help Ken re-affix the posts of the front verandah (which blew away a week ago). Ken says he & Sal have split up. We walk halfway up the mountain round the old track & then cutting up the side to a dip just before the final ascending stretch. Then walk down past the cows. I think of title for Canberra poetry book - Cows & Vikings - & Ken thinks of a good cover design. Back to the house at dusk & a hot meal & listen to records. Look at Steve K's ‘Swoon Harbour’ poem - great work. Both agree that we couldn't write like that & don't know how it's done - but I say I wd. like to have written it. I go to sleep in the living room. Strong winds sound like they'll blow the roof off.

16th October 1981 Ken rang last night - he's due to go to Adelaide for a few weeks on some kind of grant from an art institution & intends to produce pamphlets on the equipment down there. Asks for a 20 page booklet. I figure on maybe ‘Adventures in Paradise’ & ‘The Great Tradition’ (with notes) - Ken's idea, and, in addition, the fake anthology [‘The New Australian Poetry, Now’]. Looks like the A.I.P. book will have to appear in pieces [this book, the present Adventures in Paradise, appeared early 1982. Ken is still in Adelaide].

more journal entries

2010-03-07T02:36:00.000-08:00

25th December 1980 In the front bedroom, Coalcliff, considerably stoned. Exquisite corpses [later published as Xmas Corpses - my title but my only contribution to the book] continue in the living room after a long day of food & drink - picnic in the National Park with Sal, Ken, Pam, Micky, Erica [Callan], Kurt - swim & sit on beach in intense heat, shower w. backyard hose & more dope, booze, food.

8th January 1981 This morning Sal's at work in W'Gong & Ken has gone to Sydney to the arts workshop [tin sheds] to get photo done for poster. I'm listening to early Coltrane (with Miles) & then the Giant Steps album, trying to write a parody of Les Murray.

15th June 1981 Arr. Coalcliff yesterday 3 p.m. No-one about. I hide bag & walk down to beach via milkshake. Back up to house - enter spare room window & hang around for evening train. Find The Diamond Noodle with great picture on back - Whalen looking like a delicate version of Donald Sutherland. Ken & Sal arrive abt. 1/2 hour before the train. I stick around - produce bottle of Riesling & eat with K, S & NZ woman. Down to her place for more booze & dope & T.V. Get very stoned on one joint. Silly movies. Back up to the house to crash on living room bed. Up this morning to hang about kitchen table. Ken & Sal do Go-poet interviews [these were a series of interviews I conducted in the manner of 1960s pop magazines]. Ken gives me a prepublication copy of his new book, which I advise him to call Alcohol. He has a possible cover - imitation Persian painting with donkey like bicycle-pump inflatable.

journal entries

2010-02-27T10:47:00.000-08:00

I'm going to feed some journal entries into this conversation. I wish I had some visuals to add but the years 1979-1982 saw me without a camera. Here's a note from the Wollongong Poetry Festival of 1979:

2nd October 1979 Train down early Sunday morning to Coalcliff & a walk by myself down to the beach while Ken & Sal put together posters & magazines for the evening. I have a calm & generally gregarious weekend. By 2 p.m. a lot of people have arrived at Coalcliff - the Hammials, Denis Gallagher, ΠO, Nigel, Phil Roberts & others. We head in to the Gong but the Al Monte reception room isn't open. Check out the station & streets then back to Al Monte's to shift tables & chairs & wait over a beer or two.

Phil Roberts delivers a paper called ‘Death of the poet’ (rather melodramatically) then there's a break & the W'Gong writers read. Ken & Sal first, then some unbelievable local writers [probably including Leigh Stokes], then another break & the Sydney contingent read. Phil R. is interrupted by the response of some Pyrmont anarchist whose kid is playing with a soccer ball during the proceedings. There's a shouting match with quite a few having a say till Claire gets the reading going again. Others read - Denis, ΠO (Mayakovsky & Nelson Algren & the fuck poems shouted from a tabletop), Tranter finally (performing the ‘Foucault at the Forest Lodge’ series of pieces in a totally unsuitable dramatic manner). Then another break & a band play lounge lizard music (Girl from Ipanema) while everyone drinks on & eats lukewarm lasagne &c. Three carloads of us go to a coffee house & ruminate over the proceedings.

I sleep in the pantry & wake early, the sun up over the ocean. A morning long breakfast turns into a picnic lunch in the back yard, then in the afternoon with Kurt & Anna we go back into Wollongong to look at the Art Gallery (2 coloured photos of Micky's on display) & walk down to the beach - barbed wire & factories - tankers out on the Pacific - ought to be mines buried there. It's grey & there are only a handful of people down that end of town.

More snapshots from the Al Monte reading:
- best readings from Nigel, ΠO, Ken & Denis.
- Lyn Tranter (to the Pyrmont anarchists): ‘What are you doing with that child!?’
- Nick turning up & catching a late train home
- Les Wicks reading in the open section - very drunk (& very broke)
- a local W'Gong hippy woman reading with the ‘jazz’ band
- Donna Maegraith prefacing each poem with ‘O'-kay then . . .’

2010-02-26T16:41:00.000-08:00

            Some photos by Micky Allan

                    Barbara Brooks & Sal Brereton, Coalcliff, 1980

                        Laurie Duggan, Coalcliff, 1980

                        Sal Brereton & Ken Bolton, Coalcliff, 1980

                        Pam Brown & Sal Brereton, Coalcliff, 1980

Handy Hint to The Coalcliff Days visitors - if you click on the images they will
enlarge (this especially helps with reading scans of pages of text)

from Memorials (Adelaide, Little Esther,1996)

2010-02-25T04:04:00.000-08:00

xmas corpses

2010-02-24T04:57:00.000-08:00

The mere thought of a hot Christmas is enough for me now here in Kent, but that Xmas in the National Park . . . It should be noted that Kurt has the remains of the goose on his head in the photograph while I'm the closest I've ever been to a garden gnome. I wasn't, alas, around at the house a bit later when the corpses were made, but I did supply the title Xmas Corpses.

2010-02-14T21:14:00.000-08:00

Kurt, Ken, Pam, Erica, Laurie, Sal, Micky

2010-01-06T02:20:00.000-08:00

Tyre Pinch - The cyclist's nightmare resulted from a bike ride with Kurt Brereton from Sydney to Coalcliff in 1980 (exact date to be corroborated) which eventually ended at Ken Bolton's and Sal Brereton's house where Kurt (Bruno Donatello) took most of the book's photos. As I recall it was a long ride, it was awfully hot and I had a murderous hangover. My bike got a flat in the vicinity of Stanwell Tops and I accidentally pinched the inner-tube in an attempt to get the tyre off the wheel, a very bad thing. Kurt rode on to Ken and Sal's where he found Anna Couani who came to my rescue in her trusty VW Beetle (which must have had roofracks).

The booklet's 28 pages of photos and Kurt's pithy comments record the aftermath of my second-worst incident on a bike as well as being a pleasant reminder of happy times at Ken and Sal's now legendary house by the sea.

Denis Gallagher

2010-01-01T19:20:00.000-08:00

Panels from A. F. Drawings & Ken Bolton's silk screened comic book
Apostrophe or Poet Talking To Clouds

Magic Sam contents page

2009-12-31T21:16:00.001-08:00

Xmas 1980 -photo by Pam Brown

2009-12-29T03:55:00.001-08:00

ken Bolton & Sal Brereton with plate

2009-12-25T13:42:00.000-08:00

Magic Sam No5

2009-12-21T00:47:00.000-08:00

Force Zero

2009-12-20T16:16:00.000-08:00

This is a poem I published only recently but it was inspired in part by the beach and by the coastal Utopia I experienced at Coalcliff, when I would visit Alan. This poem marks an episode that post-dates Alan Jefferies' move out of Coalcliff in the early 1990s which was sad to say the least. His subsequent move to Bondi Beach was however, a continuation of a lifestyle, modified by the limits of the medium density beachside living. I'd been a Bondi person since 1989 so there was a certain symmetry in my "showing him about" Bondi, swimming the bay, writing poetry, and generally appreciating the hedonistic possibilities. Alan's arrival allowed him to share with me a certain continuity of vision and lifestyle from the Coalcliff days.

This poem is haunted by the threat of cancer and of forgetting: the dementia that overtakes the mind and the body over time, the dis-ease of decay. But sometimes poetry forestalls the inevitable, hopefully, in nostalgic celebration of youthfulness.

ADAM AITKEN

Force Zero
for Alan Jefferies

1
the waves flatten out to ripples on our breath
suntan lotion pearls the water

both surface and suntan
inflect prisms in the morning light

we blink as it stares us in the face

the heart beats out the days
blended through these fountain-pen desires
made foundation for our skins

so troublesome, this skin
so many bodies

the message of the surface
is joy squared, exponential!

all around there are the beautiful,
naked, tattooed, proud

do my looking for me
you say,

and I look for you
swimming into the West, celebrating

this remission from care
in our “days of azure”

2
on this blemished horizon
shambolic real estate no one owns
I think of cells gone wild
sucking up resources

I think of your
coded poems, your demi-monde

I think of you
mutating in the sun

I think of becoming
a small minor god

a miniature god of mutation
or a god of small things

as Arundati Roy puts it
in her mini-epic of small Indian things

the almost-whisper of a zero wind
promises good things

the way Christmas morning was
silence worth unwrapping

like Polynesians we sink down
into our earth our oceans

unlike Polynesians
we make metaphors of Polynesians

because the word is beautiful
and Polynesians are beautiful

a pearl diver's heart skips a beat
the ghost in the machine

a film of bubbles
rises up from the hidden reef

God? the pearl diver asked
but I never found Him
what pearl does not wrap itself in a shell?

there is nothing deeper

I thought of Lorca and
your duende
and the duende of Dulwich Hill
and knew it suited you

like a battered sports coat
that reeks of ganja
in that brasserie in Barcelona

- how Paradise threw out the poets
as dusk shut down like a shop

I remembered Machado's last stand
in a forties film noir

and we were purified
in Tzara's
“bath of circular landscapes”

Yes, it was so
but the doubt remains:

if you were dead
would I know you

would I know you perfectly?
In a mood

of revolutionary happiness
despite everything, the virus

wave never breaks
and the body wavering

is alive and remains just so

that zero
wind in my heart.

coalcliff days (photos by Brian Jefferies)

2009-12-20T02:14:00.000-08:00

Coalcliff House

(Circa 1984)

Alan Jefferies (circa 1982)

Zonda and Alan (Coalcliff kitchen)

family christmas (Coalcliff, 1983)

Outline of Project

2009-12-19T22:14:00.000-08:00

The aim of this exhibition is to showcase the significant contribution to both the Illawarra and Australian art scenes made by an artists and poets "colony" located at Coalcliff from 1979 - 1992. The Coalcliff was established by Ken Bolton and Sal Brereton and was based in a miner's cottage perched on the cliff overlooking the ocean. This local council sanctioned "squat" served as the site of a number of seminal “post-modern” poetry, film and art projects. Sal Brereton left in 1981 and Ken Bolton shortly afterwards. Alan Jefferies then ran the house until 1992 when the council reclaimed the land and bulldozed the house. Today there is no evidence of The Coalcliff having existed other than a vacant block of overgrown scrub.

Between 1979 - 1992 many artists, poets, musicians and film-makers were drawn to The Coalcliff house including:

Ken Bolton, Sal Brereton, Pam Brown, Micky Allan, Kurt Brereton, Rae Desmond Jones, Alan Jefferies, Denis Gallagher, Anna Couani, Adam Aitken, Erica Callan, John Forbes, Leigh Stokes, Robert Kenny, Tom Thomson, IIO, Steve Kelen, Phil Roberts, Les Wicks, Barbara Brooks, Kate Richards, John Tranter, John Jenkins and Laurie Duggan.

NOTE: this is not a complete list of people who were there – others will be included as we go along.

A wide range of projects and publications were produced at Coalcliff including the influential new poetry magazine Magic Sam; as well as anthologies (No Regrets) locally screen-printed and produced poetry books including Sal Brereton’s Ideal Conditions, Ken Bolton’s Blazing Shoes, Due Sestinae and Notes for Poems and Pam Brown’s Small Blue View. Artist books such as Kurt Brereton’s Hang-Gliding, The Birthday Book and Tyre-Pinch: A Cyclist's Nightmare; Ken Bolton’s An Italian Drink, and the collective Xmas Corpses. A number of poetry readings were held in Wollongong, and films including The Coalcliff by Kurt Brereton & Kate Richards (1981) and various super 8 home movies by Pam Brown and Kurt Brereton.

Ideas, purpose or concept

The exhibition would feature artworks, publications, films, posters and poetry readings, workshops and artist talks. New works (paintings, poems, posters, films) by key contributors would be commissioned for the exhibition that specifically spoke of The Coalcliff days.

The objective is to illustrate the historical events and productions of The Coalcliff from the perspective of those people directly involved and also placed in the context of the cultural history of the Illawarra. A second crucial objective is to continue the ethos of those artist-led initiatives by producing a book/catalog featuring artwork, poems, films, historical essays and biographical material on the protagonists and events that took place over more than a decade.

This exhibition and catalog/book publication will include both historical and new commissioned work making it a relevant contribution to both the local and wider Australian arts and literary communities.

Local Illawarra historian, Joseph Davis (author of D.H. Lawrence at Thirroul (Collins, Sydney 1989) and The Illawarra Society of Artists: 1951-2001 (Wollongong City Gallery 2001), will write an introductory essay on the Coalcliff “colony” and its historical and cultural context.

The show will bring together a significant number of well-known artists, historians and poets to the Illawarra to conduct readings, talks, workshops and interviews.

Shape of the Exhibition

The exhibition is conceived as a large installation including wall mounted paintings, posters, drawings, poems, sound installations and films.

A re-creation of the Coalcliff living room would be setup so that posters, magazines could be wall mounted and films/photographs rear-projected onto the large feature 'window' overlooking the sea. Viewers could sit in the room and read, talk and watch the films and slideshows. Music from Ken Bolton’s collection + from bands who played at the house parties could be heard on headphones and a through a low volume speaker.

Paintings, films and photographs by Micky Allan, Kurt Brereton, Pam Brown and Kate Richards amongst others.

Ideal Conditions by Sal Brereton

2009-12-18T13:11:00.000-08:00

A Poet Talking To Clouds by A. F. Drawing & Ken Bolton

2009-12-18T13:07:00.000-08:00

Ken Bolton washing silk screens

2009-12-18T13:06:00.000-08:00

Blazing Shoes by Ken Bolton

2009-12-18T13:03:00.000-08:00

Ken Bolton & Sal Brereton

2009-12-18T12:52:00.000-08:00

No Regrets (Anthology of Women Poets)

2009-12-18T12:48:00.000-08:00

No Regrets (Poster)

2009-12-18T12:47:00.000-08:00

Xmas Corpses

2009-12-18T12:45:00.000-08:00

Magic Sam No 6

2009-12-18T12:38:00.000-08:00