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

Tanagura, Japan

                           

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

 

 

Wonder

 

 

In stillness

when rain impends

grey buildings disappear

and a brightly coloured edifice looks around

to see where they went.

 

Why do people lament decay

and crave constant renewal?

While paint peels graffiti sings

the wonders of evanescence. 

                                                     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.