Amazing Weekend

Welcome back after Easter to the mid-point of Semester one. First years- we are now about to enter the world of poetry. This is my favourite section of the unit and I look forward to sharing with you some of the poetic delights of our anthology as well as encouraging you to turn your experiences into poetry. Indeed there is a $5000 prize for poetry being given by the NSW Writer’s Centre- and anyone is eligible to enter… and I sure hope that some of you (first, second and third years) will have the courage to enter. Here are the details: http://www.nswwriterscentre.org.au/html/s02_article/article_view.asp?id=538
You should also check out the Australian Poets Union who have a number of prizes and events, see:
http://www.poetsunion.com/news.htm
Second year- we have now launched into the Victorian Age (Charles Dickens etc etc….)… please check the resources for this in Blackboard… and if you happened to miss last week’s lecture you are in luck. I recorded this week’s lecture and have loaded it up as a podcast. I don’t always do this, but this week you are in luck!
Third years- we are launching into our essays on Hamlet and Faustus, as exemplars of the amazing turmoil that has been called the Renaissance…. we have been having excellent tutorials on this topic… please check Blackboard for one of the tutorials that has been podcast today… some great insights from Tutorial 2 on Hamlets speech on the nature of “man”……
Now let me share a few things that I did on the weekend:
on Saturday I took a small class of Aboriginal students to the NSW Writer’s Centre where there was a festival of Fiction. Check out the Centre at http://www.nswwriterscentre.org.au/html/s01_home/home.asp?dsb=22
These Aboriginal students are studying for a BA(Indigenous) with Literature as their major study. I am currently working on some indigenous literature with them (including Alexis Wright’s “Plains of Promise” and some poetry by indigenous writers. This was an awesome experience. I was especially impressed by a session called UTS Writers which show-cased several young highly successful writers who have completed the Masters in Creative Writing ( a path that I am sure will interest some of you students at ACU). You can find details at: http://datasearch.uts.edu.au/courses/courseDetail.cfm?spk_cd=C04109&spk_ver_no=5
On Sunday I went for my regulation early morning bush walk. This time I went down to Bujwa Bay (which is the on the west side of Cowan- opposite to Jerusalem Bay). Bujwa is an Aboriginal site with extensive middens (mounds of oyster shells). Dawn over Bujwa Bay is a site to behold… but you have to leave in the dark (around 5.45am!

Here is a view across the bay with the mist rising off the water as the dawn light hits it

It is amazing how the stillness of the dawn morning can in-still (no pun intended) an incredible sense of inner calm, almost as if the body seems to know how to absorb the qualities of the still earth and water as it is preparing to wake up. The only sound was the wing-beat of a white-breasted sea eagle winging its way up the side of the dark escarpment. On the return back we could actually see the bush in all its glory and I had to take this opportunity to make contact with my favourite tree- this massive Sydney Red-Gum (or Angophora)

And here is this amazing embodiment of a 400 year old life form towering above me

Near the top we noticed a mass of Lambertia Formosa flowers and this fabulous view down the valley which had been pitch black at the start of our walk