A writing process emerging

The Laneways of Old Eastside: An introduction to the project

My project is broadly focused on the idea of edge – which I understand as a space or place where things change. This semester, connecting with my experiences of living and working in Alice Springs, I am focussing on the laneways of Old Eastside. My goal is to produce a collection of writing and a complementary series of objects with abstracted photographic elements, that emerge from my own experience and research and cause others to wonder. 

Inspiration

As I work towards shaping a writing portfolio I have been inspired by Moyra Davey, Maggie Nelson and Teju Cole.

Moyra Davey: Index Cards

Moyra Davey kept a chronological diary documenting her illness and the process of ‘trying to find a new way to work’. Her chronological diary entries are interspersed with ‘index cards’. Each index card has a focus indicated by a title. Her diary entries and index cards include: observations about her health; possible projects; political events; notes about interactions with other people and quotes from books she is reading that spark interest; personal thoughts and experiences; quotes and excerpts from other people’s writing; facts, information, research; and poetry and prose. 

Maggie Nelson: Bluets

Maggie Nelson’s book Bluetscomprises 240 short, numbered pieces of prose about the colour blue, while at the same time drawing on her personal experiences during the process of writing the book and making and references to other people’s ideas. 

Teju Cole: Blind Spot

Cole describes his book Blind Spot, as a ‘lyric essay’. It comprises paired photographs and writing connected to places that he’s visited around the world. On most pages the format is a short piece of writing on the left-hand page and a photograph on the right-hand page. Each photograph and piece of prose is connected to an overarching idea about the ‘limits of vision’. When talking about the relationship between text and photographs he argues that the montage created by putting the text and the photographs together does not have a clear connection but creates a psychological charge in the juxtaposition. He describes how his practice is to go to “seemingly unforthcoming places and ask them to speak in some way” (interview on Wheeler Centre website). I am also interested by Cole’s ideas that his obsession is looking at the limits of what we can see, patterning of themes and trying to stitch them together. He describes how he is looking for a kind of tension that cannot easily be articulated, something that is visceral, cognitive, psychological.

My plan for a writing portfolio

Based on the inspiration gained from Teju Cole, Maggie Nelson and Moyra Davey I have come up with a plan that will shape my project and my writing.

-      Go to the edge, by immersing myself in the laneways of Alice Springs.

-      Document all the things I’m thinking and reading about.
Edge – Fence – Boundary – Back fence – In-between – Laneway – Back – Layers. 

-      Make connections with many things including:

o  my thinking(reflections and ruminations on the idea of edge, on laneways as a space and place, memories, reflections on my art practice)

o  other people’s thinking and ideas (writing, conversation, interviews, references, quotes)

o  historical research (records of facts, information, cultural information)

o  scientific research (connected to place eg plants and birds, connections to aesthetic life smell, sound, touch, thought)

o  literature and music research(novels, poetry, popular music, classical music)

o  and maybe other things I haven’t thought of yet!

-      Write short pieces of prose (like Cole’s lyric prose, Nelson’s bluets, and Davey’s index cards).

-      Use the prose writing as a basis for poetry writing.

-      Conceptualise the combined pieces of writing as ‘Edgings’.

-      Redesign my blog so that it has the heading Edgingson the right-hand side of the screen and post writing/edgings that are ready to share.

A process?

As I’ve worked I seem to have developed a process for this writing. I have been:

Step 1: Making numbered notes about everything and anything I think/hear about/research

Step 2: Taking each note/idea and writing it into one or more paragraphs of prose

Step 3: Converting some of the prose into poetry

Step 4: Collect related pieces written by other people

Step 5: Posting drafts onto my blog under the ‘Edgings’ heading 

Step 6: Seeking feedback (from Daniel, Patricia, Melinda (mentor), fellow students, Sue Fielding) and redrafting based on feedback

Step 1: Notes

 a = a tick

No	Title	A/S	Own exp & ideas	Other people’s exp & ideas	History & Culture	Maths  & Science
1	Remembering the lane		a	a	a
2	Out the back		a		a
3	The u-shaped lane			a	a
4	The sun in the laneways	a	a			a
5	Footsteps	a	a		a	a
6	Intimate sounds	a	a			a
7	Nightmen	a			a
8	In-between space	a	a
9	Dreaming tracks	a			a
10	Twenty feet wide	a	a
11	Backyards glimpses	a	a
12	Who’s in the laneways?	a
13	Trees	a	a
14	Written on the fence	a	a
15	Paint patches	a	a	a
16	Dints in the fences	a	a
17	Washing on the line	a	a
18	Wood, wire and metal	a	a
19	Kids in the laneways				a
20	Drug deals				a
21	Rubbish	a	a	a
22	Light follows from			a		a
23	Plumbing	a	a
24	Unwanted paint	a		a
25	Nine Eastside laneways	a			a
26	The mulberry tree	a		a
27	It rained	a	a			a
28	Red dust	a	a			a
29	Ute without an engine	a	a		a
30	Mica miner’s hut	a		a	a
31	Corrugations and pot-holes	a	a
32	Birds	a				a
33	Back fences	a	a
34	A dream		a
35	Edge – a definition
36	Mparntwe/Alice Springs	a			a
37	Eastside	a			a
38	Street names	a			a
39	Geographical features	a				a
40	Maps	a			a
41	Plants	a				a

Step 2: Prose

1 Remembering the lane

When I was growing up, there was my house, then the house next door and then the laneway. The cobbled lane went through from my street to the next street. I remember it was a kind of scary place because once you went into the laneway it seemed a very long way to the other end. And what if someone you didn’t know came along? Where would you go? I don’t think my mother liked me going down the lane. What did she fear?

4 The sun in the laneways

In Eastside, the sun rises at one end of the laneway and sets at the other. The walls facing south catch the sun most of the day while the walls facing north hardly ever see the sun.

5 Footsteps

When I walk along laneways I can hear my own footsteps. Sometimes a dog in a back garden hears my footsteps too. It barks a warning, passing a message to the dog in the next yard and it begins to bark too. As the message is passed along, the laneway becomes a cacophony of barking dogs. And so, I stand still until the quiet returns and then I take more care with my footfall to avoid further alarm.

6 Intimate sounds

At other times, as I walk down the laneways, along the high boundaries of people’s homes, I hear the intimate sounds of people’s lives – the dishes being washed, a voice singing along with a favourite song, tinkering in the shed, a cough or sneeze, one person calling to another.

7 Nightmen

In the day/in the old days/in the olden days (before I was born) the city laneways were used by nightmen who emptied the privies before sewage systems were constructed.

Step 3: Poetry

On the advice of friend and poet Sue Fielding I have been reading Mary Oliver’s (1994) A Poetry Handbook, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Boston & New York. So far, I have paid attention to several ideas about shaping a poem – the length of lines and the devices of sound. I have gained much inspiration from an anthology, also recommened by Sue, editor Czeslaw Milosz’s (1996) The Book of Luminous Thingspublished by Harcourt Inc, Orlando. As noted in my blog I have also read the work of many writing in and about Alice Springs and Central Australia.

1 Remembering the lane

When I was growing up, 

there was my house, 

then the house next door and 

then the laneway that joined my street to the next street. 

I remember the laneway being

a scary kind of place – 

once you entered

it seemed a very, very long way to the other end. 

And what if 

someone I didn’t know came along? 

Where would I go? 

How long would it take me to run all the way to the other end?

I don’t think my mother liked the idea of me going down the lane. 

4 The sun in the laneways

In Old Eastside, 

the sun rises at one end of the laneways and sets at the other. 

As the sun passes over

fences on one side are in the sun most of the day. 

The facing walls hardly ever see the sun.

At the break of day, I’m surprised – 

it’s the walls facing south that are catching the sun.

So, the laneways don’t run exactly east-west after all!

5 Footsteps

As I walk along the laneways 

I hear the crunch of my footsteps. 

Sometimes a dog behind the fence 

hears my footsteps too. 

It barks a warning, 

passing a message 

to the dog in the next yard

and it begins to bark too. 

As the message is passed along 

the laneway is filled with the cacophony of barking dogs. 

And so

I 

stand 

still 

‘til 

the quiet returns 

and take more care with my footfall to avoid further alarm.

6 Intimate sounds

At other times 

as I walk down the laneways

(hidden) 

I hear the sounds

(not orchestrated) 

of people’s lives – 

the dishes being washed

someone singing along with a favourite song

tinkering in the shed

a cough

one person calling to another.

Sometimes I’m embarrassed and feel as though I’m spying.

7 Nightmen

In the day

in the old days

in the olden days

(before I was born)

before sewage systems were constructed 

nightmen 

used the laneways of Old Eastside

to empty the privies.

(What a shitty job.)

These old dunnies

(there are only few remaining)

back onto the lanes.

Distinctive

sturdily built

(concrete or brick?)

a small window

(for air?)

and a low door 

to access the ‘soil bucket’.

One resident 

with a sense of humour 

has placed a colourful doormat

at the low door.

Step 4: Connected pieces of writing by other people

Front and back space

Frontal space is “illuminated” because it can be seen; back space is “dark” even when the sun shines, simply because it cannot be seen…a middle-class residence typically presents an attractive front to impress and welcome social adults, and an unprepossessing rear for the use of people of low status such as delivery men… (Yi-Fu Tuan, Space and Place pp 40-41)

Around 1 April 1943

When it was her time, the Arrernte midwives took my mother to the birthing place at Werlatye Atherre, just north along the Todd River. So I was born and became a Yeperenye caterpillar dreaming baby…

The end of the war years were tough. We were living in our raggedy clothes whether it was summer or winter. None of the white mob wanted us living next to them. They were scared of us because we were a different colour, spoke a different language, and had lots of rituals and dances. The white mob was easily spooked. We knew that when the white people got scared they could get nasty…We were told to hang back in the shadows if we ever saw a white man…

The families along the river would all be hungry together, the dogs and us kids as well. We would all be hunting around down the local dump and in the back lanes, looking for food that might have been chucked away. (Margaret Heffernan, Gathering Sticks pp 3-6)

Eastside subdivision

…the Old East Side, defined as that area bounded by Gosse Street in the north, the Todd River in in the west, Lindsay Avenue in the east and Stott Terrace in the south…was the first area opened up for residential Lots after the Second World War…

Sub-division took place in three parts; the first, in 1945, was that are south of Undoolya Road; the second north of Undoolya Road to Mills Street in 1947-48 and the third from Mills street to Gosse Street in late 1948. (Bruce W Strong, The Survey and Documentation of the Old East Side, 1991)

Crime fears trigger plea to close laneways

Julie Thomsen says the laneways are a breeding ground for crime and she has started a petition to get council to close them.

"It is an absolute nightmare, we can't believe this has happened in Alice Springs... they have no functionality anymore," she said.

"I would like to see the council just come along and close them."

She says criminals use the walkways to hide.

"If you go down there now there's smashed bottles, rum bottles etc," she said.

"We've been broken into nine times and each ... [time] they've used the laneway as an escape route.

"In the old days I know they used to use it as shortcuts to get around town, everyday people.

"Very, very rarely is it used now for that. It's 99 per cent of people up to no good."

The chief executive of the Alice Springs Town Council, Rex Mooney, says he is aware of the potential dangers the laneways pose.

"Many laneways have a purpose that they serve, so it isn't always automatic of course that a laneway will be closed," he said.

"It isn't something new and it does continue to be an issue that council looks at, has been looking at over some years."

Mr Mooney says getting approval to close a laneway can be costly and time consuming. (Allyson Horn and Danielle Parry, ABC News, 30 October 2012)

"Council's happy to process the applications but there is a cost and it can take unfortunately possibly upwards of two years on occasions to complete the exercises," he said.