The book dealer is still there, Max, and a really good Australian
literature section as well as art etc.
Will think on what you say, Doug - and Max - maybe refashioning with more
questions.
Bill
On Thursday, 10 March 2016, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Well now, Bill.
>
> Your first visit to a group - by that lake
> I often lingered by - is the book dealer still there?
>
> Now I can sense the group listening to their newcomer,
> and that makes for possibilities,
> some of which you have realized.
>
> Imaginative shifts, in Doug’s phrase,
> can be anecdote true or invented…
> Tinker on till next Wednesday…
>
> Max
> On Mar 9, 2016, at 2:08, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
>
> > I felt what you say, when I pushed 'send' on this one, Max. Is this a
> poem,
> > other than in its orderedness? If not, what would make it so? I'm ready
> > also for Doug to do a number on me for being didactic again.
> >
> > The Daylesford line is deliberate in this second draft because I have
> found
> > a group of writers who meet in Daylesford on a fortnightly basis in a
> > two-storey house overlooking the lake. They apparently 'do' a theme each
> > time and next Wednesday, it is 'Visitors', one of whom will be me to that
> > group. I just thought too that I should extrapolate a little so that
> > visiting on a local level had some wider context in this mad 'stop the
> > boats' era. Homelessness, as you point out, could also be annxed in to
> this
> > poem if poem it is.
> >
> > Bill
> >
> > On Wednesday, 9 March 2016, Max Richards <[log in to unmask]
> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >
> >> Lively observation with compression into balanced sentences,
> >>
> >> and a certain forward movement,
> >>
> >> without quite turning from an essay or monologue into a poem - ?
> >>
> >> A slight sense that the shift at ‘Daylesford’ changes the topic into
> >> something much wider
> >> and less manageable.
> >>
> >> This at a time when ‘Australia’ is one of those countries under pressure
> >> from the homeless,
> >>
> >> a big theme left rather shadowy, perhaps.
> >>
> >> Max
> >>
> >> On Mar 8, 2016, at 13:40, Bill Wootton <[log in to unmask]
> <javascript:;>
> >> <javascript:;>> wrote:
> >>
> >>> At what point does a visitor lose
> >>> this status? When they leave, you
> >>> imagine, or when they overstay.
> >>>
> >>> To visit is to spend time
> >>> with payers of attention.
> >>> When that attention strays,
> >>>
> >>> good visitors leave;
> >>> other visitors move
> >>> to the unwelcome category.
> >>>
> >>> The trick as a visitor is to
> >>> leave the visitee wanting
> >>> you to stay slightly longer.
> >>>
> >>> The trick as a visitee or host,
> >>> to have visitors leave
> >>> before they tell all.
> >>>
> >>> When visiting, you're
> >>> on borrowed time. When
> >>> you leave, you're back to you.
> >>>
> >>> When you host visitors,
> >>> you're the you you hope
> >>> you always are, plus some.
> >>>
> >>> Of course known visitors
> >>> differ from unknown visitors.
> >>> Your knowns may take liberties
> >>>
> >>> and you expect this. Unknowns
> >>> can slip to knowns quite quickly
> >>> or hover on visitorly outskirts.
> >>>
> >>> Without visitors, what would
> >>> you have? A procession
> >>> of bidden and unbidden family.
> >>>
> >>> Visits make the world go round.
> >>> Places like Daylesford depend
> >>> on visitors, temporary stayers.
> >>>
> >>> Countries like Australia roll out
> >>> the welcome mat to certain
> >>> classes of visitor.
> >>>
> >>> When your features or language
> >>> identify you as different
> >>> from your host,
> >>>
> >>> sometimes hard yards
> >>> must be trodden. But the best
> >>> of us treat visitors as guests.
> >>>
> >>> And settled guests are bound
> >>> in their turn to accept their own
> >>> visitors. It's called civilisation.
> >>>
> >>> bw
> >>
>
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