Here I come

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

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

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

Ken Bolton on the escarpment above Coalcliff

Sal Brereton & Ken Bolton at Stanwell Tops

interview with Ken Bolton

Ken Bolton interview