Dale Edmands, Kookamonga Square & "The New Oracy"
This is no manifesto; it is merely observation: the unquestioned privileges which have been enjoyed by the written word for nearly a century are being invaded by voices. Poetry magazines in Australia, the US, Canada and Europe are being "published" on cassette tape and CD, or, if issued in the usual print format, are being supplemented with CD attachment. It is not surprising to find more and more e-zines (poetry mags on the Net) including poems as read by the poet. Sounds are everywhere, and I suspect we will find more and more poetry magazines (both print and cyber) making use of the orality of literature.
Kookamonga Square's editor, Dale Edmands, was not the first and will not be the last poetry editor on the World Wide Web to feature the poem in its oral manifestation, but his publication is at the forefront of a group of enlightened mags (others include The Alsop Review and Fresh Poetry) that have realized the power of the voice and the ear in re-vitalising the tribal resonances of our oldest literary form. Not only has he attracted a core of amazing international poets to his site, but he has found poets whose work cries out to be read aloud. Their poems are more like scores ... poetic sheet music for the voice, rather than mere instructions for eyes and mind. Poets like Paola Bilbrough, Joyce Brown, Jeannine Shackleton, and others, use the voice deliberately. As does Dale Edmands himself. In "Poems from the Other Side" - a suite of poems which can be found at Kookamonga Square - Edmands employs a language which is both poetic and highly ordinary. In "Tunnel Vision", the first poem in the collection, one is immediately struck by a disarming intimacy that practically sucks one physically into the poem:
Every evening I enter this tunnel called winter,
The new light at each day's end egging me on.
It is not a long drive to the school,
As if someone, or something has predetermined
The exact amount of time, and coordinated it
With the last stretch of musk melon sky...
But why merely read it off the page! And how many really can... can make it sing, and thereby savour its music? Fortunately, Edmands has assembled this collection not simply for the eyes but for the ears as well. Each poem has its oral counterpart and is easily accessed by anyone with a
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