Tuesday, September 7th

 At a recent meeting of our Poetry Group, I happened to mention a local poet whose work I had encountered.  The woman who runs the group became very excited, said that she knew him and offered to lend me a book he had written.  Not only that, he was appearing at the Library the following week and would I Iike to accompany her to the meeting? Be careful what you say, I thought. 

I’ve struggled with the book, in fact, but enjoyed his talk. He was not what I imagined a poet should be – foppish, languid, learned and other-wordly are words which spring to mind.  In fact, he was just another bloke like the ones who meet on Saturday afternoons to watch the footy.  You wouldn’t have looked twice if you passed him in the street.  It seems he was brought up on the north-west coast of Tasmania, and worked at the local sawmill and ‘on the peas’, which I assume means in the agricultural enterprise providing peas to the frozen food market. 

Clearly, I still think of poets as being in the same mould as Alfred, Lord Tennyson who only worked at being a Lord, or John Donne who was a country clergyman with lots of time on his hands.  Oh, yes, Robert Burns was a working-class poet but he was an anomaly. 

While I was waiting outside the library for Marilyn to pick me up, a four-wheel drive came barreling up the street with a young fellow driving. Another young bloke was hanging out the window, bouncing a yellow golf ball on the street and catching it. My immediate thought was not ‘how skilful is that?’ but ‘why aren’t they at work’ because, of course, work is the natural state of Man.  If we don’t work, we are nothing. 

As an aside, the ball-bouncer mis-timed a bounce, lost control of the ball and it rolled at my feet.  The fellow just waved cheerfully, and they continued on.  I picked up the ball and pocketed it, taking the situation as having some sort of significance even though I don’t know what it is.  The ball is sitting on my desk as a type this. 

One of our small pleasures now that we don’t work is watching Mastermind on SBS,  I’m always interested to hear the occupations of the contestants: lots of retired school teachers, of course, pretending they are intellectuals, consultants and IT specialists, but I look forward to encountering the occasional boilermaker with an interest in the Japanese mini-submarines which invaded Sydney Harbor during WWII.  Last night, there was a young woman who claimed to be a dilettante.  What a wonderful word!  I had to look it up to check the meaning.  I thought it meant someone who doesn't work but, in fact, it means someone who has a superficial interest in a particular area of study.  I think I’ll add that to my cv.