Jenny Blackford
Reserves of Coping -
Under the metal muscle scaffolding of callipers
my old friend's left leg is limp.
Polio, almost the last year of the last great plague
here in Australia. She was a toddler.
The virus left no muscles to support that hip or leg
or foot, and calliper technology
hasn't moved far in sixty years.
It's a dying business.
Only the nerves for pain remain unharmed
in what she calls her little leg.
Trapped between shame at my own family failings
and awe at her tensile strength, I asked
how she coped as full-time carer
for her beloved, fragile father in his nineties
when she, so stoical
could have used support herself.
Her laugh was over fifty percent groan.
You find reserves of coping
that you didn't know you had, she said.
I was unconvinced. My own tank
rang hollow-empty
at nowhere near her mileage.
Every day she rose to make the dawn breakfast
when she might have dreamed
filling up on patience for the day ahead.
His structure rusted through with age
and clogged with melanoma
he needed oats, or beans on toast
but couldn't work the gas hotplate
wouldn't read instructions
taped to the new-fangled microwave.
Then all day maintenance: my friend constructed
morning tea, a wholesome lunch,
hot dinner with three veg, cocoa before bed.
Old fathers must be fed, especially a dear one
who'd make grasshopper-shrunk Tithonus
look like Hulk Hogan.
Add the constant droning misery of TV news
or – even worse – football's loud tedium.
She bought a TV for her father's room, but no.
It was no fun if she didn't watch too.
How did she motor on,
her care campaign longer
than his World War Two in PNG?
Why not give in, surrender him
to experts – the sterile dressings
on any prick in his threadbare skin,
the food, the pans and bottles,
endless medications?
She said,
But he and Mum looked after me.
Award-winning poet and author Jenny Blackford lives in Newcastle with her philosopher husband and her feline mews. She’s still astonished that she won the Long Poem category in the Science Fiction and Fantasy Association Rhysling Awards 2021. Her poems and stories have appeared in Going Down Swinging, Cosmos, Westerly and many more Australian and international literary journals and anthologies. Her third collection from Pitt Street Poetry, The Alpaca Cantos, was published just in time for lockdown. Her spidery, ghostly middle-grade adventure The Girl in the Mirror won the Davitt Award for Best Children's Crime Novel.
Questions for Jenny Blackford
How did you start writing poetry?
I wrote poetry as a child without even thinking about why. It just seemed the natural thing to do — and still does.
What is your practical approach to writing?
The only approach that works for me is writing down ideas and phrases that strike me as necessary to turn into something.
Later, sometimes much later, when the guilt of ignoring it is overwhelming, I edit and polish.
The ending is always the hardest bit.
Are you inspired by any other works or poems?
There are heaps of fabulous poems that run through my mind frequently, such as Herrick’s wonderful ‘Upon Julia’s Clothes’, https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/47339/upon-julias-clothes.
Given the theme of this edition of A-OK is “care” in the sense of carrying a hidden burden of grief- Could you comment upon the relationship of coping and caring as you see it in this poem?
In an ideal world, and family, everyone cares and is cared for, in the ordinary sense, not necessarily at the same time.
But it would be better if we were all free of pains, sorrows and cares, though how mortals could manage that is hard to imagine.
Why do you employ classical references in your work?
As far back as I can remember I was telling people I wanted to learn ancient Greek and Latin, which was pretty odd for a boiler-maker’s daughter, so including classical references seems natural to me.
And anyone who reads poetry should enjoy the sad, absurd story of Tithonus’s plight, and the regret that Eos, the dawn goddess, felt at asking Zeus for immortality for him, but not eternal youth. Such a fairytale kind of logical bind!
Most classical references are weirdly rewarding if they’re followed. But don’t expect them to make sense!
Do you have any advice to writers or creative producers?
All I can advise people is to write what their brains compel them to write.
And to write down phrases and ideas when they come to you, because it doesn’t matter how sure you are that you will remember, you won’t, and it will be lost forever.
What is the publication of your writing that you are most proud of?
I am exceedingly proud of my three collections from Pitt Street Poetry.
“The Duties of a Cat” includes beautiful cat illustrations (not by me, fortunately), “The Loyalty of Chickens” is the longest and most ambitious, and “The Alpaca Cantos” deserves extra love after coming out just in time for lockdown.
They are all available directly from Pitt Street Poetry, https://pittstreetpoetry.com/poet/jenny-blackford/ , and from the best bookshops.
