BRETT DIONYSIUS

Born in Queensland, Australia, Brett has published four collections of poetry, two chapbooks, an artist’s book and a verse novel. He has lived in Melbourne, Brisbane and Ipswich where he is an English teacher. Brett was the founding Director of the Queensland Poetry Festival, and in his spare time watches birds.

All-Stars is Brett's second appearance in PASTEL.

As the founding director of the Queensland Poetry Festival and former collaborator in the conception of the Brisbane Writer's Fringe Fest, how have you seen the local writer's landscape evolve over the past twenty years, and what innovations are you looking forward to?

I think the local poets’ landscape in Queensland is very healthy in both publishing and readings. Over the last 20 years, the Queensland Poetry Festival has solidified into the flagship poetry event in Australia. It was so promising to see the organisation receive operational funding from Arts Queensland a few years back to secure its artistic future. I’m proud that something I started with writers such as Melissa Ashley, Adam Pettet, Francis Boyle, Lidija Cvetkovic, Jayne Fenton Keane, Brentley Fraser, Paul Hardacre and many others has survived and blossomed into such a prestigious national and international writers’ event.

It was started in 1997 when contemporary Queensland poetry was not being showcased in major literary festivals, when we had a bit of a ‘poetry cringe’. Now we have three Queensland poets who are poetry editors of prestigious Australian journals and newspapers – Sarah Holland-Batt (Island), Bronwyn Lea (Meanjin) and Jaya Savige (The Weekend Australian).

Additionally, there has also been an exciting growth of literary journals and magazines over this period too. What’s interesting is that there’s been a definite rise in the production of independent poetry zines and mags, as compared to university-related journals, as technological costs have come down and interest in poetry in this state has risen – possibly due to the surge in undergraduate and post-graduate creative writing courses over this same period. Many poets and writers are eager to publish in Queensland journals like Bareknuckle Poets, foam:e, StylusLit, PASTEL Magazine and The Tundish Review.

There are also potentially more poetry readings and events in Queensland than ever before – though venues may revolve (haven’t they always), there are still a plethora of gigs to go to in Brisbane – Ruckus Slam, Kurilpa Poets, Saturdays with…., PASTEL Live Launches, Archives Fine Books launches, Avid Reader launches, QUT’s Literary Salon, the Australian Poetry Slam Queensland heats, Couplet and the Riverbend Books Poetry Series.

However, the most significant evolution has been the rise of many new, emerging and even middlish-career Queensland poets over the last decade, many of whom are being published in national presses and literary journals and being shortlisted in significant competitions. Poets like; Liam Ferney, Shastra Deo, Pascalle Burton, Zenobia Frost, Angela Gardner, Damen O’Brien, Vanessa Page, Carmen Leigh-Keates, Rae White, Stuart Barnes, Ellen van Neerven, Nathan Shepherdson, Anna Jacobson and Raelee Lancaster. Also, I am excited by the rise of LGTBQI/Queer/non-binary poets in contemporary Queensland poetry; voices that have always been here, now being heard louder than ever before.

You're a teacher, and a father, and your poetry reflects the similar duties of care in both roles, particularly in 'Juvy' - your PASTEL Issue #4 submission - in which the voice anguishes over what could have been done to protect the innocence of a tumultuous, peer-pressured adolescence. What might you hope teen readers, and teen-spirited PASPals, take away from 'Juvy'?

I really believe that the adults have let us all down. Period. My message in Juvy for teen readers, teen-spirited PASPals, and my own students is to challenge dominant ideals and beliefs that are out of date, challenge hypocrisy when you see it, fight for what you believe is right and just, even if you have limited means (especially through writing) and live honestly if you can. Be the leaders that we should have, but don’t in this country.

While your own fatherhood influences your work, how might you have been inspired by your parents, in your origins as a writer?

I certainly write about the experiences of my mother and father who were poor country folk, and my own childhood on the Darling Downs, but I came to reading books and later writing poetry pretty much on my own. Though, never underestimate the powers of libraries, librarians, English teachers and friends to get you started on the writing path.

Your accompanying Issue #4 contribution, 'Tender Age Shelters', is reminiscent of an idyllic childhood. In the same way you would snap a photo, might you suggest this piece is a snapshot of a time gone by: a literary time capsule?

Tender Age Shelters is an ironic piece on what the Trump administration call the cages that they imprison immigrant men, women and children in along the US/Mexico border. How fucked is it that someone has the job to put a spin on those wire cages and make them sound not as dehumanising as they are. The poem just conjures up an alternative to that harsh reality – what real tender age shelters should be for children, beautiful memories of being loved in a time gone by, not the traumatic experience of what we see today in US and Australian border control.

What kind of value, might you say, encouraging adolescents to write out their frustrations and emotions - perhaps, a concentrated focus on expressing the internal in school class programs - might have in encouraging teens to resist toxicity in peer- pressure culture?

Tyrants win when nobody speaks up about the tyranny being committed. A classroom doesn’t work when no student challenges the assumptions of the teacher or the curriculum. Peer groups become toxic when destructive behavior, racism, sexism and intolerance is not rebuked by any of its members. The destroyers win when discussion and criticism are shut down.

What has been the most confronting lesson you've learnt, in your career as a writer?

The world doesn’t owe you anything, so it doesn’t help to act like it does. Try to practise graciousness. At the end of everything, you’ll still have writing.

'The World Is Changing, Der' poetically details our Earth in the throes of climate change, but also pays special attention to the relationship between gentleness and brutality. What do you believe is the result when such a pairing contest one another?

We’re an interesting species. Arguably the only sentient one that recognises its own mortality, yet at the same time we have this terrible drive towards destruction. When other animals teach us how to live, how to love, and to even grieve, it reminds us that we not above anything, only a part of the whole system of life on this planet, but what a negative influence we can be! We have to challenge this idea perhaps, that our intelligence will save us. We are so intelligent, yet look at the state of the planet – our sixth mass extinction event and we are the cause – not some super volcanic eruption, not a rise in methane gas, not a comet ten kilometres wide crashing into the earth, but little old us. Perhaps we need to bump up compassion a bit more?

Your PASTEL debut in Issue #4 came hot off the heels of your hiatus from the local publishing and poetry scenes. In light of your return to the local super-monsters you had a hand in Frankenstein-ing to life, where can PASPals continue to enjoy your All-Star talent?

Like Margo Robbie, I am a notable person of Dalby. I blog at brdionysius.com (Bitter as the Cud – where there are lots of unpublished poetry manuscripts); I Instagram at @brettdionysius (where there are lots of published and unpublished poems) and just Google the rest.

To enjoy Brett's All-Stars contribution, pick up a copy of PASTEL Magazine All-Stars at pastelthemagazine.bigcartel.com