Editors Moya Pacey and Sandra Renew
Guest editor Lisa Brockwell
Production manager Tikka Wilson

Contents

Outside and inside, utterly individuated Lisa Brockwell
an introduction to a poet who isn’t me Claire Albrecht
Exposure Cassandra Atherton
Muscles Magdalena Ball
Lameroo J V Birch
Intermittent Fasting with Herbs Jane Murray Bird
The Touch of Promise Denise Burton
inside Nana’s Robyn Cairns
last hibiscus Robyn Cairns
When it was circular Justine Chan
Cheongsam Eileen Chong
Days Drawing In Jennifer Compton
She’s Got Fantastic Hair Abigail Kirby Conklin
The Body Lies in Meridian Jessica Conley
Getting in the Way and Science MTC Cronin
Interior with wardrobe mirror Jan Dean
Scar massage Tricia Dearborn
Eight parts love Anna Forsyth
Naming Anna Forsyth
From the Attic Jane Frank
Pointillism workshop at Gootchie, 1976 Jane Frank
Bottomless Kelli Frawley
The Rink on 5th Kelli Frawley
Beef Tea Heirloom Kathryn Fry
Apartment Complex Breia Gore
Venice Breia Gore
golden Maria Griffin
The Waiting Day Hazel Hall
Rhythm on the Inside Joy Howard
Spot the Difference Had Gadya Anna Jacobson
Just Violets Kathy Kituai
Flora Cloth Kimberly Lambright
My Nanna and Vincent van Gogh Cassie Lewis
Crossing Rosanna Licari
Buenos Días Niña Kelsey Samantha Milian Lopez
Milliner’s Late Night LindaAnn LoSchiavo
Absolute Zero on the 6 o’clock News Julie Maclean
Winged and killing after Catullus Julie Maclean
Early Jacqui Malins
The Proposal Jessica Mehta
The Salt Lick Jessica Mehta
In the Dutch tradition Kate Miller
Woman of Letters Kate Miller
What Now Rosalind Moran
Why I keep a digging stick under my pillow K A Nelson
Young women here K A Nelson
Surprised By Shadow Rosa O’Kane
Cooking with Monet Christine Paice
colours of her country Anita Patel
Navigating Gija Country Anita Patel
Family Tree Sue Peachey
Patterns Not Yet Possible Meredith Pitt
Death Trap: A Sestina Bella Pori
Desert Varnish Bella Pori
Remembering Lisa Janette Schaefer
Wax/Wane Michele Seminara
Our moment, Mary Beth Ali JaneSmith
Brisbane Water Estuary Gillian Telford
Drinking Rain Alison Thompson
Troche or Dare Helen Thurloe
They said Catherine Trundle
Two girls in a boat Catherine Trundle
Wardrobe Doors Anne Walsh
Alice Jen Webb
Blue colour Sarah St Vincent Welch
On Farnborough Sands Jena Woodhouse
Women’s Work Jena Woodhouse
Narcissus or the pond? Nicole Zdeb

Or view all poems in Issue 3 on one long scrolling page.

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Provocation for Issue 3

For Issue 3, guest editor Lisa Brockwell selected the following image and text.

Artist Grace Cossington Smith

Grace Cossington Smith Interior with wardrobe mirror 1955. Oil on canvas on paperboard 91.4 x 73.7 cm board; 103 x 85 x 5.6 cm frame. Art Gallery of New South Wales. Purchased 1967 © Estate of Grace Cossington Smith. Photo: AGNSW.

…

My chief interest, I think, has always been colour, but not flat crude colour, it must be colour within colour, it has to shine; light must be in it, it is no good having heavy, dead colour … the whole room seemed to be full of light, which is what I want to do more than the actual sunlight. I feel that even the shadows are subdued light and they must have light in them …

Grace Cossington Smith, 1965

Poet Fay Zwicky

Poetry has always seemed to me a source of hope, a means of speaking against any orthodoxy, be it religious, political, or social.  It has offered a place for the dissenting imagination that hankers to encompass not only the truth of what is, what has been, but what might be or what might have been.

Fragmented memories and isolated images randomly recalled are of no significance in themselves ­– only the poet’s search for meaning within a recognisable context can be of interest.  And for this, the poet needs muscles, emotional, spiritual and psychic muscles that transcend the limits of the self.  And muscles take time to develop, longer for some than for others.

Fay Zwicky, ‘Border Crossings’, 2000.
Taken from her Collected Poems, UWAP, 2017.

In selecting ‘stimulus’ for this third issue of Not Very Quiet (which I am delighted to be joining as guest-editor), I am mindful of the fact that the first two issues of the magazine have attracted submissions from all over the world.

Despite, or perhaps because of this fact, I would like this stimulus to reflect an Australian sensibility, and a very particular one too.  I want to highlight the work of two Australian artists of the twentieth century (predominantly): the poet Fay Zwicky and the painter Grace Cossington Smith. Two artists engaged in the investigation of questions of individuation and belonging, spirit and intellect, light and dark, ideas of being ‘outside’ or ‘inside’ and all these terms might imply; the weight of tradition and the liberating possibilities of the imagination – explored from the very particular vantage point of urban and suburban Australia in the long shadow cast by the second world war.

So I will be looking for poems that are surprising, singular and honour the ‘dissenting imagination’ that Fay Zwicky valued so highly.  One of the great gifts a poem can bring, (and I would argue that women may be more familiar with this, perhaps a strategy forged by circumstance), is the gift of being able to ‘tell all the truth but tell it slant’. Holding up a specific and subjective mirror reflecting and refracting both the interior and exterior of the world – our inner lives as well as the physical and social world we navigate.

I offer this inspiration from Australian women artists – their art will mean whatever it means to you, wherever you are around the world. I seek both Australian and international voices and perspectives.