Bitter Mouthfuls Handout

“In the 70’s there was a trend among writers and journalists to declare their position prior to discussing any issue. To continue this tradition I include a poem I wrote last year which seemed to address this topic.”

THE SALTY SEA ©1994 Anna Couani

I remember the time we watched the day break over the beach
sitting crosslegged on the road around midnight
(this is late 70’s, I was very physically fit)
looking up along the studs running up the side seams of a man’s jeans
still believing in the public performance of poetry
and in the efficacy of the lifestyle which sustained it
being out of touch with a domestic life, out of touch with men
and therefore out of contact with the normal 70’s woman

There’s the flash of a car’s headlights sweeping across the grass in the park
there’s the shock of the sight in the rearview mirror, those eyes
what question are they asking?
well, everyone’s a foreigner to me
and the car, a longed-for oasis
thirsting for sleep, longing to be home at last
so far away now we might as well be in another country

Other countries seem so close
that now travelling and staying here are not dissimilar
I saw a real desert oasis tucked into its waddy
breath-taking, thirst-quenching, vegetation threatening to burst out into the
desert like the patterns of the mosaics and carpets in the Dome of the Rock
that fabulous building

I remember the way I felt about the boulders embedded in the dry creek bed
and the way the casuarinas all bent in one direction
as I sketched them
then understanding later that they’d been bent by floods
and the whole painting had a sense of aftermath
it was the biggest painting I ever did

And the woman who was there with me
must have been thinking very different thoughts
she and her husband setting up house together
in a different way from me
where their nesting instincts definitely centred on children
and in my memory the image of her stomach and her breasts
as we lay near our tents under the trees by the river bank
and the idea of embryos implanting themselves in the uterine wall
are connected
For me the painting, structurally a bit like blue poles
was more important
I could feel the sense of choking claustrophobia and boredom
in the other alternative
there wasn’t much variety of lifestyle in the 60’s

I remember looking at buildings out of interest in them
wanting to discuss ideas
being interested in male intellectuals for that reason
(being deluded about the nature of their interest in me
and not assessing them as husband material)
and being swept off my feet by their lack of interest in me
as a thinking person, their imperviousness
bearing down on you like a blistering wave of heat
over the point from the huge and inert silos of White Bay
inert by day and by night

I remember the inner city lifestyles of the 70’s
the kitchens, the tarot, the numerology
the herbal tea, things that are institutionalised now
my world straddling the women’s movement and the small press scene
when performance was the only way we could reach an audience
in times before the institutionalised creative writing courses
and the massive takeover by the multinational presses
marketeers reaching into our back rooms and kicking us out
whitewashing the whole thing, creating acceptable poets
acceptable feminists, acceptable ethnics

There used to be wild and interesting women around
articulate and heroic at meetings and in lectures
being politically correct, actually
not like now when people are too scared to say boo
as though the tidal wave myth actually came true
in a metaphoric sense, sweeping away everything in its path
and the survivors are the ones who retreated to the country
or just retreated into a defensive position

I remember a dream I had of a wide salty sea
the water shallow and whitish with salt
there was nothing but water, no land
and I swam up to a figure draped on a dead tree
an old female relative, so old that her body was like silky hemp
she had no clothes only long blond silky hair
she was more than helpless, she was no use
outside the water her body had the stiffness of hemp
but in the water she was amorphous like fine seaweed
it seemed like the previous generations weren’t going to be much help
and this proved to be true

In another dream we were forced to move way out past WoopWoop
to apartments on the tidal flats
and once the tide came in at night we were trapped there
a metaphor for an oppositional upbringing and its legacy perhaps
but not just where you choose to be, exile is not it

Trying to leap across fields across continents
to build up a sense of complexity and density
to simulate the experience of the metropolis we don’t have
to escape the parochial in a parochial environment
without denying the significant things
to locate significant work and become immersed in it
to make your life multidimensional
to leave the multitude of connections
to avoid tying up loose ends
to collage like a violent mosaic
where every piece is torn not neat
to expose the ruptures not smooth them over
to participate but refuse
like the old idea of seizing the available platform

The actions of the traditionbreakers persisting in our memories
alongside the fragments of the old traditions
and now difficult to disentangle

Anna Couani. —. “Women Writing and Literary Practice.” Women Writing: Views and Prospects 1975-1995. Canberra: National Library of Australia Online, 1995. 11 Sept. 2003. .

What a man, what a moon
What a man, what a moon, what a fish, what a chip, what a block, what
a mind, what a tool, what a drive, what a car, what a tent, what a
pitch, what a scream, what a joke, what a suit, what a flash, what a
view, what a jump, what a pain, what an arse, what a tree, what a
trunk, what a boat, what a sea, what a blue, what a song, what a root,
what a jerk, what a pump, what a drink, what a mouth, what a guy,
what a doll, what a smash, what a hit, what a fight, what a fuck, what a
rock, what a ring, what a stone, what a jar, what a whack, what a jaw,
what a sheet, what a mess, what a room, what a crutch,
what a limp, what a walk, what a day, what a beach, what a swim,
what a bath, what a dog, what a cow, what a pig, what a snort, what a
trip, what a shot, what a grape, what a wine, what a glass, what a cut,
what a lip, what a hand, what a foot, what a lawn, what a gnome, what
a pet, what a fit, what a bum, what a heel, what a nail, what a bash,
what a phone, what a dial, what a tooth, what a drill, what a screw,
what a ball, what a clinch, what a dick, what a bind, what a scene,
what a smoke, what a dive, what a splash, what a height, what a cliff.

Couani, Anna. Hampton, Susan and Kate Llewellyn, eds. The Penguin Book of Australian Women Poets. Ringwood, Vic.: Penguin, 1986. 196.