Waiting on ideas

 As I sat in Adelaide airport waiting for a delayed plane last Tuesday I analysed what it is that I am looking for when I go away. 
When I plan a break away from home I think I am hoping to find a still place from which to observe the world with fresh eyes.  By leaving the familiar and the habits, routines and reflexes associated with home, I am forced to stop and notice what is around me. 
As long as I pull out my notebook, even an airport coffee lounge is fecund with ideas.  With a pen in hand nothing is lost. If I don't allow myself to settle down, if I bustle and hustle, then I miss the chance to notice and to rejuvenate my writing with fresh connections.
In some measure I found the stillness and sharpened perception that I was looking for in the lounge of a coffee shop serving more than passable coffee in Adelaide airport.

Skin Divers

I introduced my sister to the delights of Canberra's Canty's Bookshop this afternoon and was thrilled to find Anne Michaels' poetry collection Skin Divers squeezed between the great males.  Her poetic prose enthralled me late last year when I discovered The Winter Vault  and then devoured Fugitive Pieces on an international flight.  I read it at a more leisurely pace crammed in an apartment in Paris, revelling in her expert layering of meaning and image.
In one of the Canadian bookshops on the Left Bank I hunkered down under the table and savoured some of her verse, unable to afford the $A50 plus price tag on our limited travelling budget.
So ... I could hardly believe it today when my eyes fell on the pristine copy of Skin Divers at a price I could easily manage.
Good old Canty's has done it again! 

pigeons

Diamonds

Favourite Australian novels

To my shame I have only read five of the top ten favourite Australian novels as anounced by Australian Book Review (ABR) this month.  Of course I've heard of Voss and  The Fortunes of Richard Mahony,  and I've started and never finished Cloudstreet  and  The Man Who Loved Children, but I could hardly believe that I had only read half of the top ten.
ABR asked their readers to nominate their favourite Australian novel and 290 individual novels were nominated.  I scrambled to nominate Kate Grenville's  The Secret River and Tim Winton's  Dirt Music  as mine.  Although these were easy for me others came very close. 
I am a great fan of Australian writing.  After a childhood living in an imaginary country somewhere between England (think Beatrix Potter, Noddy, The Famous Five and What Katy Did books) or Canada (Anne of Green Gables) and Australia, it was a great joy to find people writing about the land I actually knew - dusty paddocks and endless summer heat rather than snow, rain and green fields.
So what were the top ten you ask?  Here they are and the link to ABR's complete list follow.  Jump onto
Australian online bookshop Fishpond  and buy some soon!  I'm off to catch up on a bit of reading.

1. Cloudstreet  Tim Winton
2.  The Fortunes of Richard Mahoney Henry Handel Richardson
3. Voss  Patrick White
4. Breath  Tim Winton
5. Oscar and Lucinda  Peter Carey
6. My Brother Jack  George Johnston
7. The Secret River  Kate Grenville
8. Eucalyptus  Murray Bail
9. The Man Who Loved Children Christina Stead
10. The Tree of Man  Patrick White

ABR Favourite Australian Novels

summer grasses

summer grasses
bent low by wind and rain
sleep-tousled hair

Kangaroo floats

kangaroo floats
over the fence -
balloon on a breeze