A sold-out poetry show? In Perth? Yes, you heard me right.

Last night I performed in the Japanese Gardens, Perth Zoo's sweet little outdoor amphitheatre, as part of Poetry d'Amour, WA Poets Inc's second annual Valentine's Day poetry extravaganza, which this year was part of Fringe World.

When you organise a show, publicity is the hardest thing to get right, and it seems WA Poets Inc and Fringe World got it right for this event, because it was sold out. About 150 denizens of the planet's most isolated city, often derided as a philistine mining outpost, paid to see a poetry show. And not just an apologetic $5 cover charge. They paid the kind of money you would expect to pay for an arty theatre show: standard tickets were $35.

What this says to me is that Perth has plenty of people who like poetry enough to pay to watch it. Perth could have poetry shows throughout the year, if its poets muster the energy, confidence and persistence to find venues, book people who can present poems in a way that engages the audience, and promote the shows effectively.

WA Poets Inc are currently blessed with a volunteer, Tineke Van der Eecken, who is not only a full-time jewellery artist and writer, but has a marketing degree.

Poets, rather than looking at someone like Tineke and thinking, 'if only I could be like that', or, 'if only I had the money to hire someone like that', or, worst of all, 'Tineke can do that, so I don't need to bother', I suggest we think like this: 'I'm a smart person, so what can I learn from the way Tineke has handled this?'

Here's something I've learned. We need to figure out who our potential audience are, and put ourselves in their shoes. Where do they go, what do they read? Where can we put our message so they'll see it? What kind of image would appeal to them? How can we make our show look like something they'll enjoy? As a writer I feel slightly ill having to think this way, but a short catchy name and a strong visual image are probably worth more than any amount of descriptive text.

We could all go get marketing degrees, I guess...nah. I can't imagine doing that! But I can imagine reading some books on marketing (from the public library, of course!). Maybe I can ignore the cold-blooded money-making win-at-all-costs aspect of it and focus on the skills and how they might apply to my own work.

'But I'm an ahrtist', you say. 'I shouldn't have to dirty my hands with marketing.' Well, okay, if you're content being read only by poets and professors of literature. And I totally agree that your writing and editing should be your priorities. But do you want the public to read and hear your poems, or not? Do you want poetry to have an audience? Tugging at the overlocked hem of the mainstream isn't going to do it. If we want to make something alternative happen, we have to ignore the establishment gatekeepers and put in some energy of our own. Especially in this town.

Poetry d'Amour was a major effort for the volunteers, five months of work -- getting sponsors, organising two support events, and even publishing a book -- but putting on poetry shows wouldn't have to be that much effort every time. It's worth considering what works for other alternative artforms. For example, the thriving local acoustic music scene may have a huge annual festival at Fairbridge, but they also have house concerts, sellout shows in cafe courtyards... and mailing lists of fans, hint hint. Anyone who buys a ticket can be asked if they want to be kept informed of future events. There are software platforms that make this unbelievably easy.

So how was Poetry d'Amour? Did we give the punters what they paid for?

I'm not about to review my own performance, although it felt like I pretty much nailed it. Performing outdoors to non-poets is my favourite thing. But remember what I said about putting ourselves in the audience's shoes? Let me think. Yes. Definitely. The lighting was inadequate and the seats were hard, but judging by the clapping and cheering, and all the people who came up to say thankyou to myself, Annamaria Weldon, headliner Candy Royalle (poeming again at Perth Poetry Club tomorrow afternoon), and the many other poets who contributed... I'd say it totally went off. 

Well done and thank you to all the poets, artists and musicians, to the stage and venue personnel, to Fringe World, and most of all to Tineke, Gary De Piazzi, Chris Arnold, Neil J Pattinson, Helen Janis, and all the other volunteers, including Jamie Macqueen who livestreamed the show.

Now then. I wonder whether there'll be any reviews? And whether they'll be published where our audience will read them?

Outsourcing my accommodation: my attitude to renting

I live in a rented house, and the lease ends next month.

A couple of months before this happens, the real-estate agent ask me to sign a form saying whether or not I want to renew, and for how long. The form includes a warning that there may be a rent increase, but it doesn't say how much. If I say I want to renew, they send back the lease papers for me to sign.

I send the form back saying yes, I want to renew for six months, and I add the words, subject to the rent remaining affordable.

Last time, to my surprise, the rent did not go up.

This time, what happened was interesting. The agent emailed me saying they wanted to increase the rent by $20 per week -- twice what I'd budgeted for -- and asking me whether that would be affordable. She also said that it was still cheap compared to other rentals.

I did some research online to see whether this was true, and concluded that the suggested price was in the same ballpark as similar rentals nearby, but certainly not 'cheap', especially considering the house is kind of like an apartment stuck on a large piece of land: it's very small, and unlike much of the competition has no patio, shed or carport, all of which I could use.

I replied pointing that out and politely reminding the agent of some of the other deficiencies of the house. And I told the truth, saying I had budgeted for a $10 per week increase. And I asked, politely, whether she thought the proprietor would be prepared to come down a little? (From being a proprietor myself in the past I know perfectly well that it is the agents who suggest the rent increases to the proprietors, not the other way round!)

It took me at least an hour to compose that short email, last Friday. I've lost count of the number of times one of my emails has unintentionally offended someone who has misinterpreted my tone. However, eventually, heart in mouth, I pressed Send. The agent replied saying she would pass on my request to the proprietor. I sent a quick thankyou and tried to forget about it for the weekend. I expected the reply would either be 'no' or 'let's split the difference and make it $15'.

The government and banks are putting out a lot of propaganda trying to get renters to borrow money and buy houses. 'Escape the rental trap.' 'Live the dream.' People here say things like, 'I'm just renting', 'I'm only renting'. It's as if you're not really an adult unless you 'own' a four-bedroom detached suburban house (an apartment being no good for the 'Australian lifestyle', which apparently involves a lot of barbequing and lazing about on outdoor furniture). And for most people owning a house means that for their best years they are tied by a gigantic debt to the ultimate feudal lord -- a national or global banking corporation.

When I was married I was the joint owner of a house, and for a while we had a second house that we rented out. Now I'm divorced and renting. It's not ideal, and I may not want to do it forever, and I might write something later about alternative ways to access shelter and land. However, if I'm honest with myself, despite the propaganda, I'm happier renting than owning.

What I dislike about renting:

• I can't get a cat.
• When the toilet blocks up I have to talk to a property manager instead of calling a plumber.
• I can't paint or alter the house.
• Once every three months the agent comes in to check things are clean and tidy, and writes an inspection report.
• I might have to move in six months or a year, if the proprietors decide to move in or put the rent up more than I can afford.
• Sometimes I get scared that I could end up homeless because of economic rationalism, which doesn't value wisdom and stories, which believes that the old, sick or disabled have nothing to offer in exchange for accommodation and support.

What I like about renting:

• I don't have to look after a cat.
• When the toilet blocks up I can just call the property manager and leave it to her to find a plumber and send the proprietor the bill.
• I don't get tempted to paint or alter the house. I don't waste my precious creative energy worrying about renovations -- I can leave all that to folks who actually care about it.
• Once every three months I have to make the place spic 'n' span, so it never has a chance to become squalid. (And when things don't belong to me I tend to take better care of them. When I was married with little kids, the oven, which I owned, didn't get cleaned for nine years.)
• I might get to move in six months or a year. Once everything's organised, moving is fun. I enjoy setting up house in a new place and exploring a new neighbourhood. And I tend not to accumulate junk because there's a good chance I'll eventually move.
• And... well... the less I own, the lighter and freer I feel. Having no debts feels good, too.

So anyway, what happened about my rent?

On Monday the reply came back. The rent's going up by my budgeted amount, $10 a week. This is a surprisingly good result, considering the state of the rental market around here, and the way people talk about proprietors and agents as if all of them are predators from the depths of Hell, when in fact they may well be human beings with mothers, fathers and cultural baggage, just like any of the seven billion. (Seven billion? WTF? No wonder rents are so high.)

My particular agent and proprietor are pretty good about unblocking the toilet, too. So, am I just lucky? Or, apart from being assertive, have I done anything unusual?

Well... I hesitate to make such a claim, but maybe I have.

During my two years in this house I've deliberately set out to establish and maintain a good relationship with the agent and proprietor. Where 'good' means friendly and businesslike. To put it another way, I've consciously done my best to make them like and respect me.

You'll notice I'm not using the word 'landlord'. The agent uses the word 'owner', but I prefer 'proprietor'. 'Landlord', and to some extent 'owner', have connotations of status left over from the feudal system and the industrial-revolution class system where the 'common' (ie, working) people were told that the 'noble' (ie, monied) people were their 'betters' -- were somehow more deserving in the eyes of the big Daddy in the sky.

But I don't believe in status. To my mind, the proprietor and myself are equals, and the lease is a business agreement. The lease and the local tenancy laws contain a fair bit of detail, but, basically, I've agreed to pay the rent regularly and keep the place clean and tidy, and they've agreed to maintain it in a habitable condition and respect my privacy.

I think of renting not as some second-best way to live, but as outsourcing my accommodation. Like all outsourcing, it's pretty expensive, and a little precarious, but it saves me a lot of bother and and allows me to focus on my real work.

Don't get me wrong -- if I had enough money to buy a house outright, I would. Actually I wouldn't -- I'd buy the smallest flat I could fit into, and do something useful with the leftover cash.

But I don't have that much money. What I do have are a few suggestions you might find useful if you're renting in the private market. (Disclaimer: I live in Australia, and the legal situation of private tenants is probably better here than in many parts of the world.)

• Remember that renting can feel insecure for the proprietor, too. If you're a good tenant (who pays the rent reliably and looks after the place well) you are by no means powerless. It's no fun to lose a good tenant and have to worry about finding another one. There are a lot of bad tenants around. A good tenant is worth hanging onto. Put yourself in the proprietor's shoes and look after their place like you'd want someone to do if it were yours.
• The proprietor and agent are not bosses, parents, or authority figures. Both you and the proprietor are the agent's clients. It's a business arrangement. If the agent or proprietor are condescending, remember it's just that they don't know any better (yet!), and don't let them intimidate you. Remember, you have something they want, too. Remain friendly and businesslike.
• Know your legal rights and insist on them. Read the websites that explain the tenancy laws.
• Never sign anything without reading and understanding it. If you don't understand something, ask for clarification.
• At the beginning of your tenancy, go over the place in detail and make sure the property condition report accurately describes the condition of the property.
• If something breaks, say so. (And if it's your fault, admit it, even if that means you have to pay for it.) Presume that the proprietor wants to maintain their investment.
• Be patient if necessary, and don't whinge and whine, but if something isn't being done, speak up.
• Once the toilet has been unblocked, email the agent to say thank-you. If they have been prompt and friendly, say thank you for that.
• Don't do stuff that isn't your job. If the proprietor has agreed to mow the lawn, don't do it!
• Wear a smile when you're on the phone so that you sound friendly. Say 'how are you' and 'thank you' and 'have a nice day'.
• Be friendly in emails, too -- wish the agent a nice weekend, for example.
• Keep the place fairly tidy and clean all the time so that the rental inspection cleanups aren't such a burden. This is easier said than done, but it's much easier if you don't have much stuff!
• Pay the rent on time. (Set up an automatic direct deposit.) This can be easier said than done, too -- but if you don't pay the rent, nothing else you do is likely to count. The downside of it being a business arrangement is that the proprietor is unlikely to listen to your pleas for leniency. Anyway, pleading for leniency gives them power over you.

 And, last but not least, luxuriate in the good aspects of renting. Such as relaxing in your kerb-shopped deckchair while you watch the neighbours sweat over their renovations.

Facebook is like Sydney, Google+ is like Canberra. For now.

Google are really trying hard to promote Google+, have you noticed? The trouble is that compared to Facebook, Google+ is kind of like Canberra as compared to Sydney.

For those not in Australia, Canberra is a planned city, the capital, where most people work for the government. It's neat and tidy and well-behaved. It's excellent for cycling but hopeless for bussing. There's not enough to do for most visitors, unless you're like me and can quite happily spend the entire day in an art gallery. You don't go there to relax: you go for a conference.

Sydney, on the other hand, is (by Australian standards) old and filthy and loud and tangled. The public transport system is comprehensive, but heterogeneous and difficult to navigate. Last time I was there you needed different tickets for the bus, train and ferry. The people can be unfriendly (unless you look rich, which is something I just can't fake any more). But there's a buzz to it. It's a lot of fun. It had the 2000 Olympics, which were pretty amazing. It has a world-famous gay mardigras. And when people think of an Australian city they think of Sydney with its opera house and harbour bridge. People go there to see the sights.

Facebook has third-party apps. I reckon that's the magic thing, the thing that's missing from Google+. Any developer can add functionality. The social plugins, all third-party, are fantastic. I've got it set up so that my Facebook timeline automatically displays all my Tweets, my activity on Tumblr, Soundcloud and Youtube, links to my MailChimp newsletters, and, using the Networked Blogs app, a fair selection of postings from this blog and my main site Proximity (proximitypoetry.com). It's the go-to place!

But a lot of the apps on Facebook are just ways to play. Games, quizzes, various kinds of virtual gifting. Going on Facebook feels like a stroll down the street in a neighbourhood where all your friends live and everything's open 24/7. OK, there's a lot of garbage lying about, but it's fairly easy to avoid stepping in it. (That is becoming more difficult - more on that in a moment.) Like any new environment, when you first join Facebook it can be pretty uncomfortable until you figure out how you fit into it. Sydney is like that, and I imagine that when I finally manage to visit New York, I'm going to feel much the same.

But Facebook was like Canberra at first -- plain and simple and fast. (It's still fast, actually, most of the time.) The simplicity was one of the main reasons people moved there from Myspace, which had become painfully bloated with over-the-top...

advertising. And, guess what? Facebook's monetising strategies have become much more annoying of late. There is now a lot of thinly-disguised advertising content in the main stream of posts, instead of in a sidebar. Groups and pages are cluttered with posts from people who have been seduced by the temptation to get paid to share 'news' about some mob selling shoes or investments or the secret to a better sex life. It sucks.

I don't mind sidebar advertising: sometimes I even click on it. Usually I'm disappointed by what I find, but that's another story. If it weren't for the advertising Facebook wouldn't be free, and neither would Google. But there's a limit to what is acceptable in a site where you spend long periods of time. The people at Google have known this from the beginning, and I hope they don't become corrupted by greed to the extent that they start doing what Facebook is doing.

I hesitate to recommend that everyone moves to Google+ (as if that would make a difference anyway, LOL) because, even though it's convenient to have all the integration, even though I love Gmail and am pretty attached to Google Calendar, the thought of having everything on Google gives me the creeps. Eggs all in one basket... we are all far too dependent on Google as it is. (BTW, if you'd like to try an alternative search engine, check out duckduckgo.com. I like it and I don't.)

However, as pointed out in an excellent book, 'What You Really Need to Know About the Internet: From Gutenberg to Zuckerberg' by John Naughton (Quercus 2012), the Internet is an ecology, not an economy. There are niches for all kinds of 'species', symbiotic relationships arise between large and small organisms, it's complex, chaotic, unpredictable... and all based on a system that, like DNA and RNA, is simple, elegant, computational, egalitarian, and acronymic (I'm thinking of the TCP/IP protocols, the DNS, and all that).

When I wonder about the future of the Net, I look at my two smart Montessori-educated teenagers as an example. (Interestingly, the boys who founded Google were Montessori students.) The way my kids use the Internet evolves over time as they, and the Internet, develop. The Net is only a little older than they are.

My young man has set up a Minecraft server for himself and his friends. He's finding out how difficult it is to be a benevolent dictator. They talk on Skype while they build imaginary worlds out of virtual Lego, and there seem to be a lot of arguments. My young woman is into photography and dance. She relaxes on Tumblr, where she has two blogs that I am forbidden to look at. Both my kids also communicate using Facebook, Gmail and Youtube (making videos as well as watching) and listen to music online instead of buying it. They use whatever works best for them, and that changes over time as they, and the Internet, slowly grow up.

No-one can predict what will happen next. Some people will always prefer the costume-jewelled alleyways of Sydney, some will prefer the suits and cyclepaths of Canberra, and some will just want to walk away and live in a cave someplace. But if you listen carefully -- late nights and early mornings are the best times -- you'll be able to discern the small twitterings of peculiar poets as they flutter here and there, exploring the trackless forest of Facebook, the eerily-lifelike rock-gardens of Google, and whatever grows up to supplement or replace them.

Toilet cleaners are my heroes: musings on a better society

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I've been thinking about what kind of society we might have in the future, what kind of society I'd like to see develop, if humanity survives the current scary but rather exciting period of turmoil and change. And I've written some of it down.
I'm nervous about posting these thoughts. I'm nervous that what I'm about to say has already been said -- or debunked! -- more coherently by someone much more distinguished than me. And there's not one 'ism' in it, except right at the end. But what the heck.

What would it mean to have a good society, a just, harmonious, peaceful society?

My current answer is that in an ideal society, everyone's needs would be met, at all the levels of Maslow's hierarchy (see my previous comments on this). Physical, psychological, social and spiritual needs. For everyone in the world, young or old, male or female or in-between, able-bodied or not, able-minded or not. (Human, animal or vegetable? Hmm. Maybe.)

For 100% of needs to be met 100% of the time for 100% of the people is maybe impossible -- a theoretical outer limit, like absolute zero or infinity -- but I see no reason why we can't move closer and closer to it. When I look at history -- especially as a woman! -- it looks like we are moving closer to it. As transport and communication improve, and as psychology and neurology develop and start to merge with the ancient Eastern study of mind and body, we are gradually becoming more conscious of one another's needs, less inclined to violent conflict, and more gentlewith our children.

So what would it take to have a society where everyone gets their needs met and nobody gets left out? And where nobody is abused, violated, coerced or neglected -- where no-one has that much power over others?

A workable society would have decision-making carried out at the appropriate... level isn't the word, too loaded... size is more what I'm after. Or sphere. Decisions affecting a household made by the household; decisions affecting a village, by the village; a city, by the city; and so on, all the way to the world: decisions affecting the whole world made by the whole world. Decisions made by the group they affect, rather than being imposed from the next level 'up', or imposed by a leader who is supposedly at the same 'level' but isn't really.

Being a leader in a hierarchical system is pretty uncomfortable. You're not really a member of the group you're leading, you stand outside it. Leadership can be very lonely. And there's always going to be someone who hates you! In a non-hierarchical setup there might be no leader, or there might be temporary leaders depending on the situation. A trusted person might take responsibility for coordinating the group. They might be chosen by the group or they might be someone who comes forward to serve (not boss!) the group. But nobody will be able to coerce anyone else to obey them. There'll be guidelines for behaviour and activity, but people would follow them because they buy into them -- because they are involved in the making of the guidelines. Decisions would be made using methods that are okay with everyone. It might be consensus, it might be a vote, it might be letting a trusted leader decide, or it might be some combination. If we're steering a boat through a patch of icebergs we might not want the whole crew at the wheel! but if we're deciding where to build a tramline, a consensus solution reached at a community meeting might be more appropriate and would allow for brainstorming, for new ideas and innovative concepts to be discussed.

In spheres where it is not practical for everyone to meet, even electronically, decisions would be made by working groups. What sort of decisions? For example, at the city size, there'd be decisions about providing services like sewage, transport and health care that need large numbers of people to cooperate... industrialised production, perhaps... library and information services... communications services, without which none of this could work in the first place. Why working groups? Because you wouldn't want to have a city-wide referendum on every little thing. I think it would be better to have groups made up of people who are interested in contributing in this way and who are trained to be experts in their field, trained by the working groups and perhaps also by training groups.

But the actual structure isn't the point, here. I can imagine all kinds of workable possibilities, and the groups and boundaries and guidelines would be fluid, dynamic, always changing.

Getting rid of the coercion, the physical and economic threat that pervades current society in all spheres from the domestic to the international, is what will make it work. For this to happen, would you have to do away with money, exchange? I suspect so -- but perhaps not. Private property? perhaps not completely... but it would help a lot if people could stop comparing themselves to others, measuring status, by how much people have. I'm not keen on status at all, deep in my heart I believe status is bullshit, really... but I'm aware that not everyone feels this way. Status measured by how much people contribute, that might be okay: a person who gives a great deal would have a higher status than a person who behaves lazily and selfishly. At the moment rich people have high status just because they have a lot, and it's this mindset that needs to change. If you could change this mindset you could still have exchange and private property but it would have a different meaning.

People's various needs would be met by the various groups they belonged to, and the provision of needs would not be linked to contribution. Everything would be voluntary. No coercion. A person who is too lazy to contribute would... well now, what would happen? Well, if they were denied their basic needs they would probably turn to crime, so it would be better to just give them their needs anyway and just factor that in. However, if we go a bit deeper here and look at why they are not contributing, perhaps it's just that they haven't found the work that is right for them and could use some help to find it. Perhaps our system needs to be adjusted to accommodate them. Perhaps we need to adjust our way of doing things so that the person becomes engaged and wants to join in.

All kinds of contributions would be valued and recognised, from public-toilet cleaning to neurosurgery. (Toilet cleaners are my heroes. There's no point having your brain in tiptop order if you can't relieve yourself without risking infection.) People could do what they enjoy, what they excel at, and also feel good about taking a turn at the less pleasant tasks like nursing the terminally ill and dealing with the sewage.

You would still have miners, perhaps large mining organisations. It's difficult to imagine any sort of human civilisation without metals. Even if we didn't have money. Gold and diamonds have a lot of industrial uses.

You would still have farming. We've got too many people to live by hunting and gathering. There would be large and small farms and gardens run by people who are good at organising or who particularly enjoy farming and gardening. Lots of people would help with this, I think -- they'd get a lot of satisfaction from doing their bit to help grow the plants and animals that provide their food, textiles and other raw materials.

You would still have factories to make stuff (unless we want to go back to the pre-industrial age, and I don't! No phones? No cochlear implants? No precisely machined mechanical parts? No bicycles? No solar panels? No thanks.) but if people were show up for work without economic coercion, what would have to change? 

I'll let you think about that.

In the society I'm trying to imagine, a lot of current tasks would be unnecessary. For a start, I don't think you'd have police or lawyers. If money was still used, you might have bankers, but it's really starting to look like the whole borrowing and lending thing was a bad idea (as Jesus, or whoever wrote that stuff, tried to point out). One of my hopeful predictions is that people will gradually lose faith in privately-owned banks and desert them in favour of community-based financial organisations.

What about conflict? What about violent crime? What would happen to a person who hurt another person? Or where people aren't getting on, are finding it impossible to live harmoniously? This would be dealt with by the group of which both persons are a member, which might be family or household but might also be city or even world if a person hurt some random they met on the street. At the city level we might have a working group of people, call them counsellors, who are trained, train each other, to help those who get into this situation. To help them and perhaps their families talk together and understand what happened and grow and become greater people as a result of the experience. Each group could perhaps have its counsellors, people who are especially interested in helping others... but I hope that in an ideal world, everyone would be interested in that! A small family or neighbourhood group might not have any counsellors, but if they are having trouble sorting out a conflict they could ask for help from a neighbouring family or neighbourhood.

When I say families, I don't necessarily mean blood families. I also mean people who have chosen to bond and perhaps live and work together in some way and who feel a sense of responsibility for each other, who love one another in a personal way.

A person could be a member of several families.

What if two groups have a conflict? For example, a conflict over who gets to use a patch of land. Or about how to use some external resource, how to treat some animal species, whether to log some patch of forest or mine some mountain. Whether to do some big concerted action like maybe sending people to Mars. Rather than having a fight they would talk and try to find a way through the difficulty.

There would have to be an acceptance that conflict is normal, that it is okay to be in conflict, that it is not a disorder, but that violence, especially group violence, is not an effective way to solve conflict.

It would help if people were not so attached to their outcome being correct. In the case of the patch of land, if everyone feels safe that their needs will be met, if people aren't in fear of insecurity and hunger, then there wouldn't have to be a war. The groups would either decide to share, or a second patch will be found, or perhaps they might just choose at random and the 'losing' group look for another patch... or perhaps the whole project might be abandoned and the interested parties would find some other way of doing things.

The groups might use a ritualised conflict to decide... throw a dice or have a game of football perhaps. This sounds silly, but chance is how lotteries are run and how cricketers decide who is going to bat first, and people are quite content to lose those contests, because they're not personally attached to the outcome.

Aggression and violent feelings would be channelled into ritualised conflict such as sports.

If babies were raised in complete love and security there would be a lot less aggressive violent feelings anyway.

Perhaps if two people (two 'men', let's say) really did want to have a physical fight to sort out a disagreement, it would be arranged by the group? No, that makes it a spectacle, glorifies it. Two men might have a physical fight now and again, to express their aggression and let go of it. If that didn't work they could get help from other men in their group, and perhaps also from women, to sort it out. Perhaps they could be helped to find other more useful ways to channel their aggression and passion.

This kind of society does seem to be what we are gradually fumbling towards. There's a long way to go, though, and we can't get there overnight.

Perhaps the current totalitarian trend isn't entirely bad. For those of us who didn't grow up with all these cameras and rules it's pretty uncomfortable, and the possibilities for abuse of power are terrifying, but I can't help seeing a positive side: raising awareness that society as a whole is not okay, anymore, with people fighting, spitting, verbally and physically abusing their kids and spouses, driving dangerously, and generally not giving a damn about others. I suspect most grown-up people would support the police in enforcing the laws against violence, discrimination and the neglect of children. Perhaps a bit of coercion is okay, for now, if it helps people break the cycle of abuse that leads to rage and violence. Maybe. I'm not sure whether it's worth the risk.

Coercion is so often used to protect money, to guard the greed of individuals and of amoral, inhuman corporations. Where it's used for that, it's a scourge. And where it's arbitrary and unjust. And where the power of the state-sanctioned weapon-carrying agent is abused, not used to serve. Where the agent uses their weapon and position to express their own rage instead of to protect.

Anyway, that's enough  -- for now! -- of the sociopolitical musings of a middle-aged poet, parent, and occasional reluctant community leader. I don't have a recipe for any of it, other than gradual change, gradual raising of awareness.

Robert Fuller has a pretty good suggestion though. He suggests we abandon rankism, which, as I understand it, means 'us-and-them' thinking. On his site Breaking Ranks, he says:

RANKISM: The Common Thread
Rankism is the exploitation or humiliation of those with less power or lower status. Simply put, rankism occurs when the somebodies of the world use the power of their rank to take advantage over those they see as nobodies. Rankism is the root cause of a wide variety of dominating behaviors.
...
DIGNITY: The Cure For Rankism
How do you change something that’s so pervasive and that has for so long gone unnamed? With dignity, Fuller says. Treating people with dignity, no matter where they fall on the corporate, social, familial, or political ladder is the key to overcoming rankism in all its manifestations. In rankist environments, creativity is stifled, students can’t learn, workers are disloyal, health is compromised, families suffer dysfunction, and victims want revenge. Dignity is the antidote.

I couldn't agree more.

One beggar on James Street and one mother's thoughts on greed and love

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At 6:30pm on James Street last week, with a bellyful of cheap Indian food, I came across a young man sitting on the pavement with a cardboard sign at his feet. 'Homeless, please help'.

If you're living in Mumbai, I imagine that might seem unremarkable -- but I'm living in Perth, Western Australia. A very spacious modern city that is having, so we're constantly told, an economic boom. Big companies are digging up bits of Western Australia and selling it to other big companies that have factories, mainly in Asia, making Ipads and roofing sheets and jewellery and mining trucks. Apparently we're rolling in jobs and money. The place has a severe rash of construction sites building houses, apartments, shops, offices, hospitals, highway flyovers and railway underpasses.

And we have more homeless beggars now than ever before.

Many of the beggars around here look pretty fucked-up. They have a jumpy junkie look or a wasted wino look, or they're mooching around near the betting shop. Or they hang about the train station asking for money for fares but you just know they're going to spend it on their habit. Some people give them money anyway, out of pity, but I prefer not to. It's not that I don't care about them, and I certainly don't think their problems are their own fault. However I think giving them cash only supports their addiction to whatever kind of trouble they're in and doesn't really do them a favour. It isn't money they need, it's something more basic: love and care.

But the young man sitting on James Street seemed different. Something about him made me stop and bend down to look at him. He had a clear face, clear eyes and a red graze on the side of his face as if he'd been hit or fallen. As I rummaged for my purse, I asked him how he was.

'Hungry,' he said.

'Hungry,' I echoed, hoping he might tell me more.

'Yes, to be honest, hungry.'

'Would you like me to buy you something to eat?'

'Yeah.'

'What would you like?' (A really stupid question, in hindsight.)

'Uh...'

There was an awkward moment. Then I said, 'I don't really have time, anyway -- there's somewhere I have to be,' which was, more or less, the truth. I gave him what change I had and said, 'Will that help?'

'Yes,' he said. 'Thank you.' He gathered up his cardboard sign and faded backpack.

'Good luck,' I said, and walked away.

I didn't look back to see where he went. Along to the kebab shop or the food hall, I hoped. I'd looked him in the eye and felt he was for real, but maybe I was wrong. Either way I hoped that if a few people were kind, it would give him the strength to find his path.

Why am I not a beggar? How come, at least for the moment, I have what I need? Even if the bankers and dirty-energy peddlers somehow manage to avoid cooking the ecosystem as well as the books, my future is pretty uncertain. I really don't know how my life is going to turn out. Anything could happen. I could end up on the streets -- but I'm pretty sure I won't.

Why not? Because, luckily, I have a caring family who, although not perfect, do love me, and more-or-less accept me as I am (as difficult as that may sometimes be!). Because, luckily, I'm smart, well-educated and healthy. And because, from this fortunate base of love, security and knowledge, I've been able to reach out to others to make and maintain friendships. Because of all this luck, I've never gone hungry, never had nowhere to sleep, never had no-one to turn to. If my family or friends were in need I would take them in, and I'm pretty sure they'd do the same for me.

I don't think 'homeless' is the right word. Not having an owned or rented permanent shelter isn't the point. The real problem is that these unlucky souls are people-less. They don't have anyone to give them a home.

Maybe they have no family and, even more sadly, no friends. Or maybe they do have family but living rough seems a better choice. When I consider why someone would choose to shun the care and company of others to that extent, I don't think there's a real difference between that and being forced onto the streets. Maybe their family are abusive or neglectful or can't accept them as they are because of prejudice. Or maybe their family believe money is the only measure of value, and whatever it is the person can contribute (which might not be money) is not acceptable to their family, let alone to those who own or rent the roofs.

And I guess some homeless people do have loving family or friends who would give them a home, but they're too ashamed to ask, or too worried about putting themselves in the other person's debt. We're brought up to think it shameful to be anything other than self-reliant, and that to have no possessions is to have the lowest possible status, to be powerless.

Some people -- often they're young, vigorous and childless -- choose a form of homelessness, sleeping in communal squats, dumpster diving, scavenging the stuff suburbanites throw out on the kerbside, maybe appropriating supplies from the big corporate stores. Maybe growing vegetables, too. They're trying to create an alternative community that exists outside the economy and will survive the possibly imminent collapse of civilisation.

There's part of me that wants to join them. Living that way could be a lot of fun, and if civilisation does collapse it might be the only way to survive. But it doesn't feel right for me, somehow. I want something more stable, more peaceful. I'd like to live in a collective house, but I'd want it to be warm and comfortable, not a chilly, decrepit squat -- and, maybe this is selfish, but Virginia Woolf would back me up -- I'd want some privacy: if not a room of my own, at least a cubicle in which to arrange my few personal things and in which to write! And I have two kids, so any living arrangement would have to meet their needs too.

Anyway, I don't want civilisation to collapse. I want it to morph into something sustainable that works for all kinds of people -- parents and children and old people, people with disabilities and illnesses, people who are good with their hands and people who are good with their minds. People who can contribute ideas and services as well as people who can contribute goods.

I like living in a civilisation. I'm in favour of technology -- especially communications and medical technology -- and I'm in favour of change. With change comes the risk that some things will get worse, and a computer factory is not a garden (but maybe it could be!), but, let's face it, if not for technology I would be dead several times over. I wouldn't have survived childhood, let alone my daughter's breech birth, and even if I had lived, being a 46-year-old woman I'd most likely be illiterate, unenfranchised, in continual pain, married to someone I don't like, and knowing nothing about the world outside a radius of twenty miles or so.

Technology has created, at least in industrialised countries, the conditions necessary for the average person to think, at least some of the time, about the fate of the whole world instead of just worrying about how to fix their toothache or get their next meal. Because of communications technology (from the printing press to YouTube) everyone -- even in America! -- knows that there are people living in other countries, and in doorways, whose lives are different to theirs.

But we -- humanity, you, me -- we've got a plague. We know what it is. The clear-eyed young man begging on the street in a boomtown is one of its symptoms.

The plague is called greed. But where does greed come from? Why are we sick with it?

Greed is caused by fear. We're afraid -- and given our evolutionary and social history we have good reason to be afraid! -- that our needs for food, security, affiliation, etc, will not be met. We're afraid that if it came to the crunch no-one would look after us, because our past has convinced us there 's no-one who loves us unconditionally.

But unconditional love does exist. As a mother, daughter and friend, and as an occasional helper of beggars, I can vouch for it.

I try to put it into everything I write.

Can you feel it? Not in your head, not in your genitals, not in your belly. In your heart. Can you feel it there? A warm thing? A sense of connection, or of wanting connection?

If so, ask yourself, as I'm always asking myself: what am I using it for? What does my heart (not my other bits) tell me I should be doing? Am I doing what I should be doing? When am I doing it, and when am I not?

And when will I stop doing the things that feel wrong, the things I'm doing out of fear rather than love?

Perth Poetry Club, the mathematics of publicity, and Maslow's hierarchy of needs

Today was going to be my Day Off. It's a beautiful sunny day and I was going to wander out, maybe take in some art, maybe have coffee with a friend or see a movie. But I find myself thinking -- worrying! -- about Perth Poetry Club, the weekly community event I instigated in early 2009, inspired by Melbourne's weekly readings, the Dan Poets and the Spinning Room, and the way they brought poets together into a genuine community as well as giving poetry a chance to be heard.

I'm worrying about Perth Poetry Club because I've had enough of the responsibility of running it -- of being the manager, the one who makes sure that everything happens, the one people look to for direction, the one who fields most of the the questions and complaints as well as the thankyous.

It's not that I'm tired, or bored, or that I don't care. Quite the opposite: I have new ideas, I want to do new things, and the tasks involved in running a weekly show are getting in the way, consuming my energy. Here I was, planning to have a Day Off in the sunshine, and I've spent the whole morning and half the afternoon at my desk, thinking and writing about Perth Poetry Club and trying to figure out my next move.

Maybe I need to step off completely and walk away. Not just give away this task and that, not just step back and let others take the lead. I've been doing that for a while already and, weirdly, I feel more of a drain on my energy than I did when I was doing most of the jobs myself! That isn't a good sign. So perhaps I need to step right out of the organising group. Perhaps my presence in the group is holding back others as well as myself.

In late 2008 when I first had the idea, people said, 'a weekly reading won't work in Perth, there aren't enough people, it will be too much work. Try monthly or fortnightly.' Only one person (Helen Child) offered regular help. Eventually we found a venue (The Court Hotel), Allan 'antipoet' Boyd of radicalhack.com generously created visual imagery, a website and a striking poster, and the rest is history. In October 2009 we moved to The Moon Cafe, whose owner Georgia Mathieson provides not only good food and drink but a welcoming space for community arts and artists.

On a good Saturday, Perth Poetry Club is exactly what I wanted it to be, and what the slogan says -- 'where slams meet sonnets'. Well-known literary poets reading alongside unknown bloggers and street poets, and everything in between. Influencing each other and getting to know each other. Becoming friends. And sometimes getting reviewed in the press!

The naysayers had a point, though. It's been a lot of work. I think people who offer to help sometimes get a shock when they realise that what happens on the day of the event -- MCing, introducing luminous poets, waving your arms about, being photographed, selling books, collecting donations -- is only a small part of the story. It's like the deck of a ship with a band playing. Underneath, there's a greasy engine room and a whole lot of machinery and repetitive activity. And there will be someone doing the steering -- or at least overseeing the electronic navigation systems -- ideally, someone who can read charts and who knows the ways of icebergs.

Enough metaphor! I was talking about running a poetry event and how much work is involved. For example. Having featured poets each week is not just a matter of casually asking them -- not if you want them to turn up at the right time and put on a good show. (Thank you to Jake Dennis for your recent help with that.)

Looking after the money, which is contributed by the audience in good faith, is not just a matter of keeping a box of cash somewhere. There are spreadsheets. (Perth Poetry Club has been very lucky with this -- we've had a reliable treasurer, Elio Novello, from almost the beginning.)

And then there's publicity.

My approach to publicity (for Perth Poetry Club and anything else I do) is based on what I learned in my years as a volunteer with the Australian Breastfeeding Association, another community concern that needs a constant inflow of new people to keep it going.

I learned that publicity is mainly about having a catchy, descriptive name and image, providing just enough information, and getting it in front of as many people as possible as often as possible.

Publicity also means stepping outside your own headspace and realising that most people aren't interested in what you're doing. Maybe one in a thousand are interested enough in poetry to consider coming to a reading -- which means that to get one new person you have to make a thousand contacts.

Actually, it doesn't, because you target your publicity so it reaches those more likely to be interested. In the case of poetry this means the literary community, people who frequent libraries and bookshops, and the weird people you see at train stations. So let's be really optimistic and say one in a hundred are interested. Marketing theory says that, on average, people need to hear about something three times before they'll do anything about it. (Before you get cross about that, remember it's an average. Think bell curve.)

So if you want one new person a week you have to make three hundred contacts a week. In the right places. Sounds a lot... but it's not so bad, because you use technology and existing social and organisational networks to duplicate your contacts. You run off a whole bunch of flyers and leave them in as many places as you can. You send your publicity to another organisation and get them to publicise it. You use the viral power of social media. You find out who the right reporters are and send them media releases. You make a really good website (thanks, Allan) and get everyone to link it, and give it descriptive, literal keywords and titles (like 'Perth' and 'Poetry') so that Google searches find it.

Then, when the people turn up, you give them what they're after. It occured to me this morning that the reason Perth Poetry Club is so popular, especially with what we might call 'emerging' poets, is that being part of it helps them get what they're after at all the levels of Maslow's hierarchy of needs: physical, security, affiliation, personal power, self-actualisation. Starting from the most basic need:

• Physical (food, shelter, sleep, etc). You can eat and drink and the venue is cosy (sometimes too cosy, admittedly). If you have no money someone will probably buy you a coffee and share their food with you. There is no obligation to pay -- the necessary money is provided by those who can. The venue is okay if you're disabled or come with a pram. The afternoon timeslot doesn't stop you from sleeping in or going to bed early.
• Security. The event has a consistent format and happens at a consistent time, every week, so people know what to expect. The venue feels safe and casual: the decor and the people are friendly, arty and scruffy.
• Affiliation. People feel included, feel a sense of belonging, feel that they have friends.
• Personal power: this means the ability to make a difference with others and to be recognised for that. To be heard, to be applauded, to be given credit.
• Self-actualisation, which means achieving, creating, using your skills.

I never wanted people to identify me with Perth Poetry Club. For a while, I guess, I identified with it, but I don't any more. It isn't my thing -- it's just something I started. I wanted to get a weekly poetry event going in Perth and then hand it on to others. Hopefully it will to continue to be successful... or, thinking more broadly, hopefully, the poets and poetry fans of Perth will continue to run a weekly event that is well-publicised, entertaining and welcoming, whatever it may be called.

As I try to edit this ramble of thought into something that hangs together well enough to publish, my phone rings. It's another arts organisation wanting to link up with Perth Poetry Club. The lady doesn't know me -- she got my number from the website. People more often email, but sometimes they need the reassurance of actually talking to a human before taking the risk of getting involved.

As Yeats said, 'In dreams begin responsibilities.' But the heck with that for the rest of the day. First, some hot soup. And then, a walk in the sunshine, and  perhaps a movie.

4 weeks in the ghost house: Writing in Residence at Mattie Furphy House

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It's a wintry day, but the sharp Perth light pushes its way through the clouds onto my donated desk, a yellowed pine dining table. The antique table and chairs in the corner are roped off, presumably too fragile or precious to sit at, but not sacred: powerboards, papers and stationery obscure the white lace tablecloth. At my back a brick fireplace is surrounded by copper-panel grapevines and burnished jarrah. In one corner a cheap fan heater oscillates hesitantly.
I'm almost at the end of four weeks' residency at the Fellowship of Australian Writers WA (FAWWA). I've been living and working at their writers centre in the Allen Park Heritage Precinct, hidden behind the trees at the beachward end of Wood Street in the upper-middle-class Perth suburb of Swanbourne.
The Fellowship have two houses here: Tom Collins House and Mattie Furphy House. Their denizens call them Tom's and Mattie's. I'm living and working in Mattie's, which was built between 1908 and the 1920s by Joseph Furphy, aka novelist Tom Collins, for the copper-panel artist Mattie Furphy (nee McCausland), the wife of Joseph's son Samuel. The Furphys built the house in Clement Street, five minutes' leafy walk away, but in 2005 the Fellowship rescued it from the McMansion-developers, moved it here and spent seven years restoring it. In March 2012 they launched it as the Mattie Furphy Centre for Creative Imagining.
There are quarters for the resident writer, a kitchen and two work rooms. I'm sitting in the smaller work room, once the family dining room. It's is big enough for a small workshop or conference, but I've appropriated it as my office. I call it the sunshine room. Outside the cream-painted windows and French doors there are jarrahs and marris, green plastic tree-guards, walking paths, a pile of planks, a stack of bricks, and Tom's in its white-weatherboard red-roof mediocrity, leaves piling up in its gutter. There's one car: a battered wagon belonging to FAWWA's caretaker, the poet Peter Bibby, who's away at the moment.
I'm hankering to finish a particular poem, but that can't be done quickly, so I've delegated it to my subconscious for the time being while I reflect on my stay here.
Everyone I meet says, 'How's the residency? How's the writing going? I'll bet you're getting lots written. Not having any distractions must be nice.'
Well, yes and no.
Yes, I've done lots of writing. I've written every day, worked on many different poems, made a zine and started this blog. I brought in Seventh Continent Productions to film a performance video. Because I have to write a report I started keeping a logbook to track my work, and that's been so encouraging that I'm going to keep it up after I leave. Being my own manager, I can't stay away from email for longer than a few days, but I've kept away from the rest of the Internet as much as I can. I've done a lot of reading and thinking. My writing journal and logbook are electronic, which makes it easy to tag and search, and the last four weeks are full of Poems, Opportunities, Things Learned, Ideas and Insights. I get to be only a writer except when my kids call me -- it's opulent luxury!
But it's not true that there are no distractions. I'm living in a writers centre! People come and go, especially on Tuesdays and Thursdays when the office in Tom's is open and busy with volunteers. On Tuesdays lunch is served for the volunteers: good bread and homemade soup set out on placemats for ten or more seated around the sagging main table among the antique furniture in the front room at Tom's. When it's time for soup someone wanders over and taps on my window.
And guess what happens? I get talking! People can be very distracting. On the other hand, they give me ideas, energy and drive, especially when they're the ones who did so much tedious grant-writing and -- how can I put this nicely? -- networking, in order to get my funding.
People also come in for workshops and mentoring sessions. Some are mine, as required by my contract, and some are run by others. While I've been here there have been several meetings and workshops complete with teamaking and noise (and some useful contacts for me).
Most events are held in Mattie's front room, a big, beautiful, timber-scented room with a mirrored fireplace. If it were mine I'd bring in overstuffed leather couches, funny little tables, brass candlesticks and portraits of dead poets -- but that's not going to happen, because its size and acoustics make it perfect for classes and meetings as well as intimate performance events like readings, house concerts or book launches (and yes, you can hire it). So it's furnished with stackable chairs and plastic trestle tables.
But most of the time I've been alone with the walls. And the floors. And the chairs. And the cushions. Are you getting the idea? The biggest distraction is the house itself. I meant to tell you all about my writing and activities and my ideas for the writers centre, but -- rather like the Fellowship itself -- I seem be kind of stuck on the house.
From outside Mattie's house looks empty, unused. The wide front verandah contains two ratty doormats and a picnic table. That's all. It could use some seating, perhaps some potted plants, and a big friendly sign on the front. But I suspect that would require formfilling, phone calls and long difficult meetings with the local authorities. Welcoming signs are definitely not the civic style around here. The whole suburb is as smoothly groomed as the dogs and owners who walk, jog and personal-train on the oval outside my bedroom window. From the street there's no evidence that a writers centre lurks behind the vegetation. A small sign near the house says 'Beware of Venomous Snakes': if I added 'and Poets' it'd be the only graf for miles.
People say there's a ghost here, but I haven't seen it. I think the house itself is the ghost, caught between two worlds, the past and the future, unsure of how to move on.
Here's an idea for you, ghost. I can Creatively Imagine this house as a drop-in centre for writers, open all weekend every weekend, with a roster of experienced writers in attendance, with formal and informal talks, discussions, readings and workshops, with quiet writing times, with ambient music, with a lending library (gold coin donation?), with a book and zine sales table in one corner, and in the entrance a large, prominent box with a slot in the top, into which the community who love coming here contribute according to their not inconsiderable means to keep the centre going.
Making something like that a reality wouldn't take much funding, just time, enthusiasm, organisation and community connection. But it's just one idea.
The writer-in-residence coming in after me is another career writer and educator, Horst Kornberger. It's Friday morning, so he's here now, teaching his year-long course 'The Writers Passage'. He has at least fifteen enthusiastic students. I can tell when he takes a break by the eruption of noise around the tea urn. I ask him what he thinks of the house. 'This place was conceived, built and used by artists', he says, 'and should continue to be used by artists. It has a potent spirit of place, a powerful creative effect.'
This being Perth, the sun has come out. It's shining on the jamjar vase of foliage and flowers I've stolen from nearby houses with more garden than they need. In a minute I'll go into the gloriously modern kitchen and make a snack. Then maybe I'll walk down and look at the sea. After that, I suspect I'll get my poem finished.

Welcome to Wet Bird, I mean Raw Text

Welcome to Raw Text. The title is ironic. And not.

The hardest thing about making a blog is picking a name. Especially for me! It's a pain in the [arse|ass] having a name that's already far more famous than anyone could possibly want to be. But I might write some more about that later.

I was going to call this 'I am therefore I think' but there are at least three of those already. 'I love therefore I am' and 'Amo ergo sum' are also floating around out there. Go have a look, they're all quite interesting. (Just a minute! Finish reading this first!) But damn! I thought I thought of that. But it seems lots of people are thinking of that now <quiet smile>.

So then I was going to call this 'Jane Truth', my middle name being Ruth, but there's a Christian writer in America using that handle, and, sadly, I don't think she's being ironic. There we go, that's the first value judgment made here on Raw Text. And I didn't even check out her site. I just read the description in the Google search. Sorry, JaneTruth, whoever you are, and may your childishly personified God be with you.

Anyway then I looked out the window and nearly called this 'wet bird', which pretty much captured how depressing it is trying to name a blog.