Poetry by Jill Jones: Photographs byAnnette Willis
1.
what’s in voices
streets, air’s breadth, green on buildings
small glimmering gaps
between messages, scratches, if I had risen
once, ongoing after
the quiet, a fine strap of
sweat sighs and
unnerves the jokes, the flocking hours
each morning’s expenses
slowly, exactly, moved far from lucent
cut to noon
awe is an engine, the particular
‘a glitch system’
I am written in sky fresh
tunnels direct me
into the cool vibration of air
rain down does
as edges disappear, each stone on
the road, on
grey bright tears, distance in world
mortal affectionate hour
2.
windows silhouette scaffolds halfway up, into
gods among clouds
how the lights shine less lonely
while producing doubt
these shards are my parts of
form, empty again
becoming a reflection, birds hide in
the glass shadows
this brilliance shivers on us over
sound and smell
my lines and scales of skin
moving dimness there
to these hours, waste of revealing
savour in our
so common life, turbulent and fragmented
beginning of traffic
strives, fastens, inside skies, bright season
from what we
believe, they arrest you in passages
resist the wall
opened on me this small lustrum
3.
surrender moves me into long voice
hours blur lines
against open gates, threaded, poured, ached
gone and open
flocks seek me like air, from
my rare edges
after the weight of eleven dreams
the dog shadow
yes, white flowers live inside themselves
still as water
blue memory, prospect, and how to
complete change, rows
of voices, widths of water gleam
notches between messages
empty becomes still, petals hide shades
out of glass
draw long the shifted gates, look
the body which
mysteries penetrate! phase inside and always
the upheaval, edged
interlocks the black, night in markings
4.
if I had
the lifting! of wild flow rings
ruins to seek
an entrance which breathes the language
of mornings, ‘it
seeks with me even then’, working
remains, significances, each
step on the rise you resist
the way my
objections have glossed the going (old
arcades embrace, they
are glassy under clouds), experience is
a metaphor, if
it is the shape isolated from
qualm, parts of
a balustrade, ‘sing to granulation, camber
hold it’, piece
within the plot as draughts penetrate
the mobile darkness
doubt is an engine, the particular
wings its constructs
5.
rains not small
but blurred layers, season aspires to
favour so ordinary
life, words in writing me arrange
the sky, coolness
of any god, where it’s possible
tactics resist ways
of language, burdens thirst, the pathway’s
tongue , ‘even sing
then I would’, penetrate direction, the
pitch of ruptures
inside a quality of shade, centre
in a cloud
polisher of lights, rained one wing
climbs the chill
layer of fog startled that this
is peace and
skin with sun, morning’s black beams
flower of falls
rain down does as hills disappear
hunger takes breath
6.
each day walks on terrain, crust
tasted in rock
curled, being born, turning with delicacy
once ongoing, after
the luminous grey distance, imaging shadow
hums of ashes
under vapour light still empties birds
breath spirit interlocks
the black way in the world
of the lip
in a sleep of clouds, blue
increase, asking — can
wild ruins go to their flowering
to refresh within
marks of rain, to fly night’s
body of secrets
balance of apprehensions sketch long movement
(if you call
who answers) as resistance, your way
objection, however, leaves
edges and weft, risings, fields. observe
List of photographs
Title photo — Dingle Harbour, 2004 Annette Willis
1. in the Malá Strana, Prague, 2004 Annette Willis
2. Tate Modern, London, 2004 Annette Willis
3. The Rocks, Sydney, 2005 Annette Willis
4. Cimetière Montmartre, Paris, 2004 Annette Willis
5. Canberra, 2003 Annette Willis
6. Konopiste chateau, Central Bohemia, 2004 Annette Willis
End photo — Dingle peninsula, 2004 Annette Willis
Annette Willis is an Australian
photographer who has had eight solo exhibitions since 2002. Her areas of
specialisation include industrial archeology, landscape, urban decay,
street art, text and texture. Her first major black and white exhibition, Remnants, examined transience in four Sydney urban landmarks, large and small, which were once part of the fabric of Australia’s oldest city and which are fast disappearing or have disappeared altogether. Sites such as Cockatoo Island, North Head Quarantine Station, St Peters Brickworks and the Edwardian Men’s Lavatory in Macquarie Place were part of the early social history of a still young city.
The 2005 exhibition, Romance of Death, featured a series of photographs taken in many burial grounds throughout Paris. These works are lyric abstractions rather than a documentary representation of tombstones. They investigate at close range both a tangible and poetic presence through rhythm and shape within the compositional space.
Another 2005 exhibition, Wallworx, featured large colour digital prints of stencil street art that was appearing on walls, signs, billboards and dilapidated buildings in many Australian cities. The aim was to examine in context a range of imagery by a number of young artists that was often elaborate and beautiful, political and passionate, but also ephemeral and transient.
Collaborations with writers and other visual artists has been an important part of Annette’s artistic expression. Joint projects with the Australian poet, Jill Jones, include Hidden Shrines, Sea Shadow Landlight and Breath, The Hours.
Formerly a teacher, researcher and academic, Annette holds a range of qualifications including a PhD in learning theory and has lived and worked in Spain, Indonesia and Thailand.
Annette’s work is held in the State Library of NSW as well as in private collections throughout Australia, New Zealand, the UK, Germany, Singapore and Hong Kong.
More information about Annette Willis is available at www.annettewillis.com
Jill Jones is a poet and writer who lives in
Sydney, Australia. Her work has been widely published in most of the
leading literary periodicals in Australia as well as in a number of
print magazines in New Zealand, Canada, the USA, Britain and India. She
is also widely published online. Her latest books are her fifth full
length work, Broken/Open (Salt, 2005), which was short-listed for
The Age Book of the Year 2005 and the 2006 Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize,
and three chapbooks, Fold Unfold (Vagabond, 2005) poems written
in response to paintings; Where the Sea Burns (Picaro, 2004); and
Struggle and Radiance: Ten Commentaries (Wild Honey Press, 2004).
In 1993 she won the Mary Gilmore Award for her first book of poetry, The Mask and the Jagged Star (Hazard Press). Her third book, The Book of Possibilities (Hale & Iremonger), was shortlisted for the 1997 National Book Council ‘Banjo’ Awards and the 1998 Adelaide Festival Awards. Screens, Jets, Heaven: New and Selected Poems won the 2003 Kenneth Slessor Poetry Prize (NSW Premier’s Literary Awards).
She has collaborated with photographer Annette Willis on a number of projects, including c-side, and also Sea Shadow Land Light, a multimedia presentation first delivered at the On the Beach conference held by Edith Cowan University at Fremantle in February 2004.
She was a co-founder, with Laurin McKinnon, of BlackWattle Press, and in 1995 she co-edited (with Judith Beveridge and Louise Wakeling) A Parachute of Blue, an anthology of contemporary Australian poetry. With Michael Farrell, she co-edited a selection of Australian erotic poetry for a 2003 edition of Slope online magazine. She has been a film reviewer, journalist, book editor and arts administrator.
She maintains a weblog Ruby Street, as well as two websites, her home page and poems extracted from her weblog off the street
To order books by Jill Jones
From Salt Publishing:
Broken/ Open
Screens Jets Heaven
From Vagabond Press:
Fold/Unfold
From Wild Honey Press:
Struggle and Radiance
Reviews of Broken/Open:
By Peter Boyle in The Famous Reporter
By Angela Gardner in foam:e
Reviews of Struggle & Radiance:
By Peter Minter in Jacket
By Maria Christoforatos in Cordite
Other on-line references to Jill Jones’s poetry:
Poetry International Web
Australian Literary Resources
Interview with Jill Jones
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Traverse:
songs
A sonnet sequence by Jill Jones
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Photo of Jill Jones
by Annette Willis 2005
Photo of Annette Willis
by Jill Jones 2003
Photos in Breath, the hours
by Annette Willis, all rights
reserved 2006.
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