Sarah St Vincent Welch

Sarah St Vincent Welch is a Canberra-based writer and image-maker. She is one of the organisers of 'That Poetry Thing That Is On At Smith's Every Monday Night' at Smith's Alternative (a live-music venue that supports art and community). She is part of the writer and visual artists collective 'Postcards from the Sky' which meet at Belconnen Arts Centre. She is pleased her work will be part of Flying Islands Pocketbooks 2021. Her chapbook 'OPEN' was published by Rochford Press in 2019. She writes in as many forms as she can including short stories, creative non-fiction, and novels (in-progress). She blogs about reading and writing, place and time, at sarahstvincentwelch.com. She is currently facilitating a long-term poetry project with Canberra poets and community, 'Kindred Trees', in response to trees in The Australian Capital Territory. She is working on a major creative non-fiction exploring mental crisis. She also on occasion chalks poetry on the footpaths at art festivals, in response to place, a practice she calls #litchalk. Her heart belongs to two cities, Canberra (where she has lived for over thirty years) and Sydney, where she was born and grew up.

#litchalk looking across Lake Burley Griffin to 

Mt Ainslie, ASIO and The War Memorial in Canberra

for contour556 public art festival

Vasko asks me to play, and so I do …

(He who is not smashed to smithereens

He who remains whole and gets up whole

He plays

       from Before play - Vasko Popa)

 

in line we step now

now some out of line

long long toe steps

some now left behind

the wolf puffs, he

stills a statue, he

checks the sky 

counts the shadows

we shout and totter

are chased

and eaten

we scream and question —

what’s for dinner?

 

someone’s moggie                         

knitting

rocking

twine and thread and dip

pass the cradle

pinch and cast

hand a loom

a harbour bridge

a pat is a slap is a hit

a baby she was

she was 

she — went — a —

same time same time

smarting

blister

she — went — a —

faster

she was

 

orbit stones

blink and pop

the conker sun

rolls fast

scoop the moon lead

bruise a thumb-bed

shoot the comets

past chalk marks

squeeze the sun

against a knuckle 

Kohoutek’s clinked

the Earth

 

polished bone raps

bone poked skin

throw it missile straight

toss up hair high

high to pick up

quick a twelvsie 

scatter

sweep

a onesie

a twosie

dead sheep

 

it comes back —

catcher —

so throw it away!

tipfingers

arcshoulder

assembly hall wall

a song in time

a smashed window

(Vasko made me do it!)

against the back wall

the neighbours’ fence

the cupboard door

inside yourself

it comes back 

comes back —

so throw it away!

 

 

(Vasko Popa was a twentieth century Serbian poet, and he was often inspired by folk tales and riddles. )

Sarah St Vincent Welch chalking a poem outside 

Lonsdale St Roasters cafe as Noted Festival goers walk past on 

their way to a Literary Trivia contest as part of the 'lithop' event

(photo by Dylan Jones)

(photos Sarah St Vincent Welch)