bentenlaughing

Cogito ergo sum: I think therefore I am I think about everything now The time is moist and ripe I cogitate, I speculate, My mind is in full flight. I wonder about systems, Thoughts of structures plague me too, I imagine that colour sequences Almost always start with blue. I visualise mathematics, Long sequences of noughts and zeros, I cannot for the life of me Work out why billionaires are heroes. My Latin’s coming back to me In fragments from the past Catullus, Horace, Virgil, I’m sure you must have asked About ‘cogito ergo sum’ Was it meaningful to me? I answer with the basics, Conjugating sets me free. I think about everything now I fail to understand Why meme-makers cannot spell, Why grammar’s out of hand. I think about everything now About trivial details Why adverbs have gone missing How compound nouns have failed. I think about everything now I love ancient books and men I re-read old lover’s poetry That’s hidden in my den. I think about everything now The best is most obscure L...

  Janice:  Kathryn, I've just completed reading your Metamorphosis Poems 1980 - 2020.  With poetry, I'll often skip one or two, and land where I  can give my whole, but I found with your poems that each spoke to me very directly. I wanted to spend time sinking into the varied worlds you were exploring. I chose to read a poem a day thus I have decided to choose just one poem to focus my questions on.   Your title 'In the heat' reached not only out but surrounded me.  'In the heat' appears to be born out of suburbia, as well as a more urban landscape, and the edges of elsewhere...can you expand on its themes for us... Kathryn: 'In the heat' was written in 1989 when I had moved to St Mary's in the outer western suburbs of Sydney. It was one in a series of poems I wrote at that time. St Marys was an alien landscape to me. I had previously lived close to the city of Sydney. The poem is the expression of the profound dislocation I felt at that time, as wel...

Janice: Kathryn, we seem to have known each other for ages; yet I (until recently) knew so little of your varied accomplishments in theatre and particularly about the New Theatre. Kathryn: Janice, it’s been a while since I was immersed in New Theatre. I spent over a decade there mostly in the 1980s during which time I designed sets, created scenic art and posters, wrote short skits, did stage management, and occasionally, acted.   More recently, I’ve been writing an essay about New Theatre for a non-fiction book I’m co-authoring with Liz Hall-Downs. The essay is called ‘Reds under the bed’ and it touches also on the history of the New, not just my time there. Of course, I have recently discovered your own family connections to New Theatre through your relative Norman Slater, who’d met the famous singer Paul Robeson, via his involvement with New Theatre, Sydney. For me, working at ‘the New’ in Newtown was a formative time of my creative life, and it certainly shaped the trajectory o...