AustLit

'When I reflect on the last decade of my engagement with poetry, I hear a presence shadowing many of my encounters. ‘Hear’ is an apt verb, because this presence is aural. What has so insistently stalked my encounters with poetry is the medium of radio, which acted as a bridge to poetry, catalysing my absorption of the form at a formative time. Radio appeared when I was seeking other ways into an art that was energising, perplexing, and intimidating – the latter when it seemed too serious about its singularity. I remember listening, at this time, to a sprawling acoustic art program on ABC RN’s The Night Air, as I drove home from the industrial outskirts of the city; I remember my feeling of bliss, as my ears and mind were opened by the experience. I count myself fortunate to have caught the tail end of a period of sustained acoustic experimentation on RN, though I missed the aurally plentiful The Listening Room(1988-2003) and its precursor Surface Tension. This tail end has been long, and has included Poetica (1997-2014) and Soundproof – which ran admirably for two years from the end of 2014 to the start of 2017, during a period of relentless budget cuts and a shift towards more generalist and journalistic programming at the station. I’ve spent the time since that first enchanted experience hearing poetry nearly as often as reading it, and producing other poets’ work for radio and podcast (including the use of music and digital effects, in the tradition of the programs mentioned here) more than writing it. Some of this audio work is now lost, airing as it did in the years before regular institutional podcasting; most of it was given a home on RN’s Earshot and Poetica.' (Introduction)