Jan Dean, a former visual
arts teacher, lives on Awabakal country. Girls on Key published her Intermittent Angels in 2020. Her pocketbook Paint Peels, Graffiti Sings, (Flying Island Books,
Macau, 2014) in English and Mandarin, spans a variety of poetic forms (including
tanka) and subject matter from clowns in art to the imagined deathbed thoughts
of Artemisia Gentileschi. Jan’s With
One Brush, an art related poetry collection, was published by Interactive
Publications in 2007. Having won their Best First Book Award, it was
short-listed for the Mary Gilmore Award, 2008. She
won the 2018 Newcastle Writers Festival joanne burns Microlit Award (Hunter
category) for her prose poem ‘Fish Flops
and Flaps’ published in Shuffle by
Spineless Wonders. Jan was awarded the Seniors’ Prize sponsored by Baytree by
Ardency at the 2019 Lane Cove Literary Awards with ‘Moss Poem’. Her writing, mainly poetry, has been included in Southerly, Meanjin, Rabbit Poetry Journal, the Weekend Australian,
Eucalypt: a tanka journal and three Newcastle Poetry Prize anthologies.
Online examples of her work are found at Verity
La, FemAsia, Old Water Rat (from February 2021) and Not Very Quiet. She
holds a Distinguished Service Award from FAW NSW. Her recent writing accepted
for publication has Spanish connections although she has never been to Spain (except
in dreams). Prose poetry draws her more and more.
Poetry
Walking to School
Snow
switches a light on, ices
the
wooden strip around our window
transforms
the dirt, stones and conifers
outside
the house across the path
into
a garden, places dustcovers
over
gravestones, fallow fields
and
rooftops, muffles sound, shows
me
a new way of walking. Past
the
embankment, the dog with spiky teeth
who,
chained to his kennel, never failed
to
startle me, has danced away
with
last night’s snowflakes.
From With One Brush, first
published in Southerly
Artemisia Reflects
(Artemisia Gentileschi 1597 – 1652/3)
Are those who say I was named after a genus
of plants, aromatic and bitter-juiced
wormwood, mugwort and tarragon, wrong?
Was my gift for painting inherited
or did my given name bring ability and fame?
Father teased, your namesake was a woman
and gave no details. Was my muse
Artemis of Athens, Apollo’s sister
and goddess of the moon? If so, conflict
was inescapable: She governed chastity
and childbirth. In my birthplace she became
Diana the huntress, protector of Rome.
An excerpt from Paint Peels,
Graffiti Sings
From Paint Peels, Graffiti Sings
takeaway tanka
a line of bees
through the ancient
house
left me dreaming
of honeycomb haunts,
dripping
liquid gold into my
mouth
choirboys
angelic, soothing, sweet
sang at my wedding
unaware between hymns
I saw their
chewing gum
how lightly
the layer of garlic
skin
floats to the floor
like a dragonfly
with punctured wings
An excerpt from Intermittent
Angels
The Widow 1
by Kathie Kollwitz
1921
Forced to view some women, I
might yawn and look away. This one is different. Although a curtsey is inapt,
genuflect is warranted. Having drawn her many times, I am confident I have
captured her essence ready to transfer her image to the woodblock. In a
lifetime, of the many positions a body configures, two predominate; first
foetal, curled with back curved and bent limbs drawn up to the torso; and
second, full length with legs extended in preparation for the grave. She is
consecrated to suffering. War is relentless; it takes everything and leaves
sorrow. I carve into the surface of a wooden slab, away from myself, using
force to express fragility. Raised sections accept the rolled ink and pressure
is applied, allowing ink to penetrate paper, acting like a stamp. My cuts stop
short of her edge, blurring it a little. Flecks create both aura and depth,
hinting the wood from which the composition was derived. The widow knew trauma.
She felt pain like a cricket ball lodged in her stomach, directly beneath her
heart. She wanted to lie on a bed in endless float, exiting time and earthly
distraction. Her gnarled hands reflect drudgery. She is stark, her face already
the mask of death. As if mummified, the widow’s arms lie across her chest
enfolding her son, a meaningful caress, yet he has vanished, forever gone.
