POETRY SPOTLIGHT: 'That Stuff's Past' by Erica Jolly

Our poetry spotlight shines on Erica Jolly today, with the poem of the week taken from her collection Making a Stand.

Post written by Poppy Nwosu

I picked up a copy of Erica Jolly's poetry collection Making a Stand recently, with a view to find a piece to include in this Poem of the Week series.
It turns out this book has more on offer than just words, featuring some fantastic illustrations (by Maureen Prichard) alongside the text! I couldn't help but share a few of these beautiful artworks as well.

This book really made me think again about how similar art and poetry really are, and the connections to be found between them.
Both are designed to make you feel something, and both often operate in a more abstract way than other mediums, leaving a lot up to the interpretation of the viewer or reader. Both are also often used to make very powerful statements about politics, social issues and injustices.
Erica Jolly's Making a Stand is no exception.
To set the scene, here is an excerpt taken from the book's preface by Jennifer Strauss:

‘Poets’, says Erica Jolly, ‘find their themes in what matters to them’, and a reader will discover  quickly enough the things that matter – deeply and passionately – to this outspoken poet: rejection of the abuse of power; justice for the dispossessed, the brutalised, the impoverished; respect for the true matching of word to deed; an education that is
holistic (no time for Gradgrindery here); a sense of wonder at her inhabited world in all its grandeur and its ordinariness.'

 

An interesting feature of this collection is that many of the poems are written in direct response to a news article, a politician's statement, an existing story by a different author. These are poems, and a poet, with something to say.

 
 
 
 
 
 

'The poems in Making a Stand demand our attention. As contemporary as the daily news cycle, they treasure the past, predict a future of consequence. Responding to government ministers, media commentators, scientists, artists, and more, Erica Jolly's language rings with both emotion and sharply honed critique. It refuses to be silent in the face of injustice and inequity. This powerful voice for inclusion lures us in, encourages us to consider our position, urges us to make a stand for a fairer, more civil society.'

 
– Ian Gibbins, Emeritus Professor of Anatomy, Flinders University
 

'That Stuff's Past' by Erica Jolly, from Making a Stand

Find out more about  Making a Stand on our website.

About the authors:

After graduating from the University of Adelaide with an Honours degree in history, Erica Jolly taught in secondary schools for forty years, mainly in South Australian technical high schools until 1974. In 1978 she completed a Masters degree in English literature at Flinders University. Erica realised early that categorisation and predetermined path-ways for students limited their scope and discouraged interdisciplinary approaches. In 1992 she gave up her position as Deputy Principal (Curriculum) at Marion High School. Elected to the Flinders University Council in 1990, she supported interdisciplinary developments. Her publications include social histories We Came to Marion (1995) and A Broader Vision (2001), a collection of poetry, Pomegranates (2003), and a book linking science and poetry, Challenging the Divide (2010).
Maureen Prichard is an artist, illustrator, lettering artist, writer and sometime art educator. Her practice is heavily informed by her research interests in mediaeval manuscripts and the design and illustration of private press books from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As a result her oeuvre centres on book illustration and decoration, and investigations into the image-text relationship in which hand lettering plays an important role. She has illustrated and designed over fifty books and book jackets for numerous Australian publishers. www.maureenprichard.com

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