30 YEARS, AND MORE TO COME
by Ted Reilly
I’m at my desk on a cold Friday morning, rummaging through my memory cells, trying to dredge out snippets of what led up to the formation of Geelong Writers as an organisation. The cat is not helping, and the gas bill must be paid before anything else happens, else we will freeze.
Ah! I’m standing on the corner of Moorabool and Ryrie Streets, along with Stuart MacDonald, Dennis Walley, Howard Milligan and a few others, handing out foolscap sheets of poetry to bemused pedestrians. A police car slows down, Stuart passes the sergeant one of his poems and we wave them off. It’s raining, and we find an Audenish dive and become the Geelong Street Poets.
We heard rumours of other writers and artists, down on the Surf Coast and in distant hamlets, finding retreats from the monstrous blight some 80 km. to the north. Little magazines and artists’ studios began to appear.
In the late 1970s and early 1980s, Deakin University had started to come alive, and the ‘English Department’, as we call it, is reaching out into the community. Our city has its own University! I was working as a teacher and curriculum consultant in secondary English and Literature, and a few other things, reading my way through a major in Literary Studies with gifted teachers out at Waurn Ponds: Brian Edwards, Trevor Code, Bruce Healy, Sue Sheridan, Hazel Rowley and others. In that fermenting cauldron, the Deakin Literary Society was formed.
About 30 years ago, a group of local writers, wanting to have their own society, formed Geelong Writers, headed by Bev Roberts and Wendy Ratawa, who then served as Secretary for ten years. Later, David and Carmel Reid, Charlie Starford, Pam Holman, Ken Sheerin and myself were all active on the committee: Yvonne Adami, Maurice Alexander and Guenter Sahr came on board later.
A monthly bulletin was printed and distributed, readings and monthly meetings held at the old Wintergarden restaurant. The late and great poet, Dorothy Porter, was invited to read to a standing-room-only audience. Some of us would drive up the highway to hear Gilli Smyth and Mother Gong, contact was maintained with Ballarat, and many were active members of both Geelong Writers and Deakin Literary Society.
The committee also began to conduct contests and writing workshops in the various genres: short story, drama and radio, and in poetry, attracting many new members who found our methodology welcoming and supportive.
The annual anthology became a focus for the presentation of local writers’ works, guided by the hands of a band of enthusiastic and diligent editors, and a determination to get some measure of support from the City of Greater Geelong.
As Geelong Writers grew, new opportunities for writers’ presentations arose. Halloween Readings were held at Chilwell, Geelong West and Waurn Ponds libraries. Pako Festa then provided the inspiration for Polyglots, running from 2009 until the onset of the COVID blight, being revived this year by Guenter Sahr. By presenting poetry and song in languages other than English, as well as in English, our local poets, and some interesting guests, presented their work to an appreciative and engaged public. Who can forget Helen Allen and Jura Reilly reading Sappho, Kaylah the belly-dancer and our Fijian pastor setting the dance floor ablaze, the soulful singing of Christian Aloneftis, the inscrutability of Ouyang Yu? Then of course, Azuria, which ran for ten issues 2010 – 2019, evolved. But that’s another story.
There’s more to come, especially if another 100,000 people will be arriving in the Lovely Banks development sector over the next 20 years. They, like those recently settled in the Armstrong Creek subdivisions, will need access to a revived University, schools and churches, libraries and theatres, art galleries and to dramatic, musical and literary societies. Geelong Writers Inc. can continue to play a valuable role in the cultural development of what will become a sprawling city, with a population as big as that of Iceland!
Photos, courtesy of Ted Reilly:
1. Polyglots 2015
2. Bloomsday 2018: Ted Reilly, P Harvey
3. Halloween Readings 2014: Ted Reilly, Jura Reilly, Marta Riauba (violinist), Robert Drummond, Sophia Shen, Sandra Jobling, Olivia Šimaitis (Librarian)
4. Ekphrastic Poetry 2018: Ivor Steven
5. Polyglots 2015: Guenter Sahr, Ted Reilly
6. Bridh Hancock, Maurice Alexander, Sophia Shen, 2015
7. Three Poets 2019: Ted Reilly, Grant Fraser, Robert Drummond