How would you describe The Strange Matter? 

I think the description on the website does this perfectly!

What drew you to write this poetry?

I get a lot of pleasure, and emotional release, from thinking. Poetry is a way to share thinking that works for me. I have people in my life who get hit with the raw stuff of my thoughts in verbal form, but poetry means I can offer that stuff to others, and they can take it or leave it. It’s less awkward. I also enjoy the way poetry offers some of the satisfactions of construction, putting things together, trying out different arrangements of the elements, pushing the engineering of language as far as it can go, or perhaps a little further. 

Tell us a bit about the experience of writing the book…

The poems in this book were written over a lot of years, and almost all of them have been published in journals and magazines, and now here they are collected together into this beautiful object. The experience of writing has been the experience of living, happiness and sadness, changes in me and in the world. The poems are very connected to Wollongong, Dharawhal Country, Yuin Country, the people, plants, animals, insects, soils, waters, built infrastructure, politics and culture of this place. 

Who is this book for?

Me and you. 

When (or where) would be the perfect time (or place) to read this book?  

If I were the reader, rather than the writer, I think I’d be reading this book in those everyday wedges of available time – a short bus ride, waiting for the washing machine to finish its cycle, eating lunch outside instead of at your workstation, killing time because you’ve arrived somewhere too early… hopefully it will give you a bit of zing. 

What do you hope readers will take from this book?

I hope a reader is not bored. That is all. 

What prompted you to start writing poetry and when did you start? 

I think learning to make sentences in kindergarten was probably my first experience of writing poetry. We had ‘sentence makers’, cardboard folders with common words, and blank slips that could be used for words we needed but didn’t have already. Then we’d arrange our words in a plastic stand, aiming to form a sentence. Asking the teacher to write a word on one of the blank slips was a great way to get some positive attention. So I think poetry probably started for me before I could form the words with handwriting. 

One thing you’ve learned the hard way when it comes to writing poetry?

I always choose the easy way! So long as the work gives you a kick and rejection doesn’t hurt your feelings too much, the essential lesson is, just keep going. 

Best investment you’ve ever made in your writing?

Investment is not a metaphor that works for me here. It’s part of a way of thinking about making, doing and being that profoundly misunderstands and damages living systems. 

Favourite bookshop anywhere in the world?

I love my locals: Dymocks in Wollongong and Collins in Thirroul. 

What book are you currently reading? 

I’m usually reading lots of things at once. My current writing project, poems about Lake Illawarra, provides the opportunity to read old newspaper stories, government reports, articles about prawning, journals of colonial botanists, Facebook comments, botanical information, environmental impact studies and poems. It’s a lot of fun.

What’s the last book you read that you loved? 

I just bought myself a copy of Anne Carson’s translations of Sappho fragments. I’d read it years ago, then I saw it in my local bookshop. It’s very encouraging when I get a bit too bound up worrying if things I’m writing are good, or working, or whatever, to open this book and see that some of the fragments translated are just a few words, and they are very powerful and lovely — the cultural context and the space on the page are as much a part of their power as the actual words, of course — but it’s soothing to see that, and get a bit of perspective.