REVIEW: 2012 BAYSIDE LITERARY FESTIVAL
SESSION: BAYSIDE POETRY GROUP

The chook that won itself in a raffle.
Cinderella revisited, with the Prince being not so much a dashing romantic, rather a bit of a weirdo with a foot fetish.
Not forgetting the mature age person’s understanding of the word “Wikileaks.” Incontinence …
You can guarantee that when a bunch of poets gets up on stage, then the weird, the wonderful and the wacky will be generated. As it was with Bayside Poetry Group - formed in 2000 by well-known writer and broadcaster Gaytana Adorna (pictured) - when they presented this session that went out live on 88.3 Southern FM. There were also more tempered subjects – re-connecting with a distant father, the sheer heaviness of time, the destruction of classic suburban homes, the wrecking of our beautiful country, the challenges of battling cancer, and author Shirley Randles outlining the joys of bonding with a new baby daughter.
The techniques varied, too, from blank verse and free rein to the traditional bush-ballad style. Gwen McCallum and Val Holdsworth employed the latter to great theatrical effect, conjuring images such as the country mum wishing it was now Sunday while her wild sons rampage through a rip-roaring Saturday night on the grog, pinching bloomers from the convent washing line. And the tale of two young men putting all their dough on the Birdsville racer, a grey horse from Goondiwindi. Sure, it ran all right. But not exactly around the track as required …
- GRAEME JOHNSTONE