Conversations I've Never Had - Softcover

Caitlin Maling

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1925162028 ISBN 13: 9781925162028

Publisher: Fremantle Press, 2015

Synopsis

In her debut collection, award-winning talent Caitlin Maling explores coming of age in contemporary Australia. Writing from Perth, Houston and Cambridge, Malings early years to adulthood are told through the lens of the Australian landscape. For young settler Australians this is a place that both defines and undermines identity. A place that claims but cant be claimed in return. Restlessly questioning and slipping between promise and possibility, Malings Australia is richly evoked in narratives of raw power and feeling.

About this title

About the Author

Caitlin Maling is a Western Australian writer. She has published five books of poetry, been shortlisted in the Western Australian Premier's Book Awards, received the Marten Bequest in Poetry and been awarded the Val Vallis Award, the Harri Jones Memorial Prize and the John Marsden Poetry Prize. Her poetry has been published and anthologised widely across Australia and the US. She currently teaches creative writing at Curtin University and lives in Fremantle with her young family.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Conversations I've Never Had

By Caitlin Maling

Fremantle Press

Copyright © 2015 Caitlin Maling
All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-925162-02-8

Contents

I, 
The path to the dam, 
To Robert Thompson, 
Sundays, 
Donnelly River, 13, 
fourteen, 
Asphodel, 
sixteen, 
Shark days, 
Bloodlust, 
eighteen, 
Concessional: Cassandra to Helen, 
Pine, 
After a girl goes missing, 
Lust, 
Things we learn from our Father, 
II, 
Things I missed about Cervantes while in Cambridge, 
Holiday, 
Back in Perth, 
Medea to Jason, 
For my Lady M, 
Lament for Cervantes, 
The fish, 
Marriage, 
Eurydice speaks, 
Aftershock, 
III, 
generation why, 
Leonora 2010, 
Gendericide, 
Easter up the Gascoyne, 
TV pastoral, 
At the Ballarat Art Gallery, 
The break, 
Hector, 
Living waters, 
A380 letter, 
IV, 
Writing to Perth from Houston, 
North of the river, 
Shark nights, 
Hurricane season, 
Town, 
Tacit knowledge, 
Homesick song, 
Family rule, 
Terroir, 
You will wear white, 
How I spent my 18th year, 
Directions, 

CHAPTER 1

    The path to the dam

    Our dads laid the lime-
    stones. We couldn't lift
    or nudge them with our toes
    because of what we might catch
    under. Like you can't put your feet
    down the bottom, we were
    too soft for yabbies and you
    never dive from the bank
    because the logs move
    overnight. We kept to the surface,
    struck with water-boatmen –
    sun-skitterish pinpricks of life –
    scattering away from the ripples
    our fingers made. The year
    they laid the path, my father
    lived elsewhere and I
    put my head under
    for the first time,
    past the warm spot,
    swam deep,
    it was so dark
    and so cold,
    there was no
    way up.


    To Robert Thompson

    When you and I were ten you killed the baby.
    I learnt about it on the radio
    on the way to a Power Rangers birthday party.
    That night, I drank Coke with the sugar left in
    and we girls ran little pink circles
    around each other for hours, only coming together
    to cut to pieces someone's older brother.

    Walking my little sister to school
    the day after seeing you on the television,
    I practised hardening my hands, tried picturing
    her fingers as prison bars I had to break. For years
    we would walk past a half-demolished home
    the yard littered with stones like frags.
    And for many days trying to feel the weight
    of that brick in my hand

Edition details

• Publisher: Fremantle Press
• Publication date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1925162028
• ISBN 13: 9781925162028
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 84