VV -Wk 2 Sacred Australia

Here is the Sacred Australia -Class of 06- and welcome the new member: Rosemary!

What a fabulous afternoon we all had in our intensive discussions of the way that poetic language can “restore” something in us all. We looked at David Malouf’s wonderful way of expressing how it is the ordinary events of daily life that can be made to “Glow” with meaning… if we find the right words to express it. We talked about the way that ordinary events conceal extraordinary dimensions… and that what is needed is our attention, our willingness to look, feel, imagine… and then we uncover the luminous quality of the moment we are attending to. We saw this happening in Judith Wright’s amazing poem about the Wattle Tree. Here are some of those “words of Gold” that she was alluding to:

And we spent some really intensive time discussing the ways in which Wallace Stevens, William Carlos Williams, Wordsworth and Blake helped to provide a wider, more global definition of what the sacred is in poetry, and in artistic creation generally… it was so good to see that the class had so much to share about these issues… and when they got down to their creative work towards the end of the session there was a real focussed attention… you could have heard a pin drop. Here are Jeanne, Shayne, Ian, Thomas and Cindy:


And here are Tania, Michael, Jason, George and Johannes (John)
Before the class we spent some time setting class members up on the computers (3 of them) that have been provided in the VV learning space… they are a bit slow but they did the job. We now have a WebCT site for ENGL213 Sacred Australia!… and in here there are three portals: one for LiveJournal (yay!) one for Conversations (coffee shop) and discussions and one for content… those doing the course spend some time exploring this content window… I will be putting more and more “stuff” into here… and please let me know if there is anything more you might need… and remember next week to come early again to spend some time on the computers…. Here is some of the concentrated excitement in this computer set-up period:

and thank you Luke for getting Tom (the Tank Engine) so well organized for the start of the course! And here is Tania (who has already learnt the ropes from the course we did last term) helping Michael. In the background with wrapped attention: Ian and George…. both now up and running… and fully connected… Well done!

See you all next week
MG