shuttle back to kelvin grove. it’s a festitive time here this week/end, with the brisbane writers festival and the valley fiesta happening in and around central brisbane.

when i was a child, my mum always thought that i’d be a poet. i really don’t see it happening now, sadly. i’m a professional student. however, aesthetics is one of my fundamental values in life - and art is very important to me in various ways. it’s probably because art, as Huizinga says, is deeply rooted in the primaeval soil of play; “play” is my motto.

i played at the brisbane writers festival for the first time last year. i learned a lot, and learning is what i (must) do as a professional student ;) anyway, i’m going to stop here with a little piece by li-young lee, a great poet in my eyes and heart. my friend asako introduced me to the world of li-young lee. at first i thought he was korean because of his name, but later found out more about his family/cultural history, which was quite interesting. i found “rose,” his first book of poems hidden in archives. i bought it for someone but read it first. i loved it. anyway, here’s the second poem in the book, also one of my favourites:

The Gift

To pull the metal splinter from my palm
my father recited a story in a low voice.
I watched his lovely face and not the blade.
Before the story ended, he’d removed
the iron sliver I thought I’d die from.

I can’t remember the tale,
but hear his voice still, a well
of dark water, a prayer.
And I recall his hands,
two measures of tenderness
he laid against my face,
the flames of discipline
he raised above my head.

Had you entered that afternoon
you would have thought you saw a man
planting something in a boy’s palm,
a silver tear, a tiny flame.
Had you followed that boy
you would have arrived here,
where I bend over my wife’s right hand.

Look how I shave her thumbnail down
so carefully she feels no pain.
Watch as I lift the splinter out.
I was seven when my father
took my hand like this,
and I did not hold that shard
between my fingers and think,
Metal that will bury me,
christen it Little Assassin,
Ore Going Deep for My Heart.
And I did not lift up my wound and cry,
Death visited here!
I did what a child does
when he’s given something to keep.
I kissed my father.

oh, and i’m trying to get hold of bronwyn lea’s “flight animals.” i got to read a few poems over lunch with oksana, and was very much impressed. there was a particular one that i really liked, but unfortunately i can’t remember the title. i’d like to read it again and the whole book but i’m not sure where i can buy it. if anyone knows how to get hold of this book, please let me know. (edited: got a copy now. thanks to lovely siall)