Poets Commentary:
When the then poetry editor of University of Queensland Press heard me reading a suite of love poems called ‘The Balcony’ in 2004 she asked me if I had enough to make up a book. I was in love then (still am) and said yes, thinking perhaps 25 or 30 might make up a collection. When I told her this she said No, she’d like a hundred. At first the prospect daunted me, but in the conversation about poetry that’s been going on in my head for decades one of the voices I’m closest to says that poets must first and foremost be in love with Being itself. From that perspective the prospect of one hundred love poems seemed more doable. In the end I described the collection (The Balcony, 2008) as ‘77 love poems (and then some)’. ‘Twelfth Night’ (2006) is one of them. It was mid 2006. We were to go to Slovenia to visit her parents, but I could get only a few weeks’ leave. She went earlier to have more time with them. The poem was written the twelfth night after she’d left, in the dark since that’s my habit, not wanting to wake her, in a pokey old house in Glebe, with the thin walls, the stars and then the rising moon through the narrow bedroom window. Now we live on a little farm in the Blue Mountains with rescued sheep and ducks and a dog. I have a writing-room in the middle of a paddock and the broadest windows the structure will allow. I still, in the wee hours, write in the dark, and I am still in love with Being itself but horrified, a lot of the time, by what humans are doing to the creatures we share it with.
lyrics
Poem:
Twelve days you’ve been away.
Last night
I couldn’t sleep
for thinking about things undone,
wrote notes in the dark
as if you’d never left,
fooling no one.
Some time around two or three
I heard our neighbour
climbing the stairs next door
and falling heavily into bed,
then muffled voices.
I don’t know what they said.
Much later it seemed to me
I heard the stars
clamber to their places,
clouds
rustle loudly as they passed
later still
the Moon
saying something about the Earth,
the wind
asking the trees where you had gone.
credits
from The Night's Insomnia,
released April 21, 2017
Jen Lush
Music composition and vocals.
Chris Parkinson
Electric & acoustic guitars, bass guitar, vocal harmonies.
Richard Coates
Accordion, keys, iPad.
Produced, recorded, engineered and mixed by Chris Parkinson at My Sweet Mule — A MSM Production. Mastered by Mick Wordley at Mixmasters.
Jen Lush is known for her spacious and emotive, starkly modern folk songs wrapped around expansive storytelling. From her
2017 album of poem-songs ‘The Night’s Insomnia,’ to her 2021 album ‘Let Loose the Beating Birds’ Jen and her stellar band have appeared at festivals and venues throughout South Australia, Victoria, NSW, WA and Tasmania. New album 'Hum of the mettle' is out now....more
Thin Lear's sophisticated rock music is tempered with soaring chamber pop accents and an undeniable gift for melody. Bandcamp New & Notable Jul 30, 2020
Entirely analog, lush melodic pop with a tender heart from L.A. artist Human Barbie sounds bigger than the bedroom project it is. Bandcamp New & Notable Oct 22, 2020
Poignantly rendered alternative rock from Maxwell Stern, formerly of Signals Midwest, explores feelings of disconnection and belonging. Bandcamp New & Notable Jul 30, 2020
The Philadelphia singer-songwriter offers a gentle & heartfelt track with all proceeds going to the National Independent Venue Association. Bandcamp New & Notable May 21, 2020
This debut from the Melbourne-based folk-rock band tackles environmental issues, self-determination, and relationships. Bandcamp New & Notable May 26, 2023
The fantastic indie folk songs on the latest from Gold Dust are slathered in gallons of echo, making them feel titanic and 200 feet tall. Bandcamp New & Notable Nov 6, 2022