{"id":4161,"date":"2020-12-11T11:42:04","date_gmt":"2020-12-11T01:12:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=4161"},"modified":"2020-12-10T17:27:51","modified_gmt":"2020-12-10T06:57:51","slug":"poetry-spotlight-going-home-geoff-goodfellow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2020\/12\/poetry-spotlight-going-home-geoff-goodfellow\/","title":{"rendered":"POETRY SPOTLIGHT: ‘Going Home’ by Geoff Goodfellow"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Going<\/a><\/h1>\n

This week’s poetry spotlight shines once again on Australian literary icon Geoff Goodfellow, whose most recent release,\u00a0Out of Copley Street<\/em><\/a>, received glowing endorsements from Tim Winton and Helen Garner.<\/h1>\n

‘A rollicking slice of an unlikely life. Watch young Geoff find poetry\u00a0\u2013 and a few scraps of wisdom\u00a0\u2013 the hard way. Ears up, chest out, flat-chat, punching on and wising up.’\u00a0\u2013 Tim Winton<\/p>\n

‘A dry, sparkling clarity, a pure tone that hovers on the edge of laughter: these stories are a revelation.’\u00a0\u2013 Helen Garner<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Post written by Maddy Sexton<\/pre>\n
This week’s poetry spotlight is a special one: we are publishing a brand-new poem, written by Geoff while he was in hospital for a bad back earlier this week.<\/p>\n
Those who know Geoff, or have heard him speak, will hardly be surprised to hear that even when hospitalised, Geoff can still dash out some hard-hitting lines of poetry.<\/p>\n
I was only five years old and most days Lenny would have one or two older boys working the milk round with him. One morning when he was working alone, I asked if I could come along in the cart and give him a hand.<\/i><\/h1>\n
\u2018I don\u2019t know about that Bluey,\u2019 he said, \u2018how old are ya? I reckon you\u2019d only be about five, wouldn\u2019t ya?\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n
\u2018Yeah,\u2019 I said, \u2018but I\u2019m nearly five and a half.\u2019<\/i><\/p>\n
\"Geoff<\/a>\u2018We all like to reminisce as we get a little bit older,\u2019 says Geoff Goodfellow. \u2018I thought I\u2019d write about the fifties and sixties, in the working-class inner-northern suburb I grew up in \u2013 and give a voice to the people who lived that sort of life, at that time.\u2019 In Out of Copley Street<\/i>, his boyhood memoir, he traces his early influences and misadventures in beautifully evoked stories that reflect his fierce work ethic, his devotion to family \u2013 and perhaps most of all, his complex relationship with the father who taught him to be a storyteller.<\/p>\n
\n
Dad would always say, We\u2019re from a nation of storytellers. We\u2019re Irish Catholic. We don\u2019t have books \u2013 we talk. We\u2019d sit around the kitchen table and eat together every night, and everyone was expected to tell the story of the day.<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Geoff left school at fifteen (after \u2018punching on\u2019 with his English and Maths teacher). \u2018I was told I was an idiot at school,\u2019 he said. \u2018And I never believed it. Or, I half believed it.\u2019 After years of various jobs based on hard physical labour, Geoff hurt his back and went to university for the first time when he was thirty-two. He knew it wasn\u2019t for him after just six weeks, though he stayed for a year, to prove to his kids he wasn\u2019t a quitter. But what it gave him was confidence.<\/p>\n
That confidence carried Geoff to performance poetry, where he quickly became known for his electric performances, channelling the anger of the disenfranchised people his poetry gives voice to. In\u00a0Out of Copley Street<\/em> though, Geoff shows a softer side.<\/p>\n
\n
\u00a0A lot of people think I\u2019m the rough, tough people I write about. I can be part of that world, but I\u2019m quite a soft and gentle man, deep down.<\/h1>\n<\/blockquote>\n
Geoff’s softer side shines through in this week’s poem, ‘Going Home’.<\/p>\n
Going Home<\/h1>\n
\"Going<\/a><\/p>\n
\"Going<\/a><\/p>\n
\n
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\nVisit our\u00a0website<\/a>\u00a0or contact us on 08 8352 4455 for more information,
\nor to purchase a book (or three!).\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This week’s poetry spotlight shines once again on Australian literary icon Geoff Goodfellow, whose most recent release,\u00a0Out of Copley Street, received glowing endorsements from Tim Winton and Helen Garner. ‘A rollicking slice of an unlikely life. Watch young Geoff find … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[80],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-fun"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-157","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4161"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4161\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4166,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4161\/revisions\/4166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}