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AUSTRALIAN ARTISTS & WRITERS FOR PEACE
CALLOUS GRACE, THE POET SHE IS by Meredith Wattison

[Above] Photo of Meredith Wattison by Kylie Lyons, 2001.

Meredith Wattison


CALLOUS GRACE, THE POET SHE IS

He said to me,
"She's half the poet you are."
All 5 foot eight of me.
She met me pregnant,
she met me all full, possible.
She liked me better pregnant,
later with children my distractions,
her distraction. She sent me letters
full of Russian soul, good will, poetry, guts, life,
affection, admiration, American wry,
American literati's verve, her travels,
her mother's death.
(I wore a loose, lime green shirt,
a long strand of lime coloured, polished seeds,
black and white, home-made, checked leggings,
white sand shoes. Why do I recall such detail?
I recall her small hands
and her Brooklyn laugh,
increate, loud, full,
like I like.)
I write to her
late September 2001,
not to her address in Manhattan
but to her publisher to find her
once mail is sane.
I wonder if she will get my card.
I wonder if she will write.
I wonder if she will write poems
about September eleventh;
would critics judge her talent
for digestive living?
Would they remember her according to size?
I will remember the grace with which the planes
turned and dissolved. My reason
crushed, slain, by distancing, reflexive critique.
My empty heart with her. Plausible. Dumb.

About the Poet Meredith Wattison

Meredith Wattison was born in 1963. Her first book of poetry, Psyche's Circus, was published by Poetry Australia in 1989. Its title poem shared the 1989 Rothman's Poetry Prize. Her second book, Judith's Do, was published by Penguin in 1996 as part of its 3 poet volume, Conversations of Love. She recorded some of its poems for ABC Radio National's The Science Show with Robyn Williams. Her third book, Fishwife, was published by Five Islands Press in 2001. Her new work, The Nihilist Line (The Fishwife's Other Tail), is in the pipeline. Meredith Wattison lives on the pastoral outskirts of Sydney, not too far from the sea.
   [Above] Photo of Meredith Wattison by Kylie Lyons, 2001.

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