Perth Voice Interactive

PETER JEFFERY has compiled a lifetime’s worth of his poems in his new tome “True to Poetry in my Fashion”.

A patriarch of Perth’s arts scene he was awarded an OAM for his work in multiculturalism, arts, film and TV education.

Eighty now, he’s dropped in and out of writing poetry over the years, tapering off as he became busier lecturing in film and TV.

“My poetry became a once or twice a year event, and sadly it was often to mark the death of a friend,” he says.

Still active in the local scene he’s a mainstay at poetry readings at the Moon cafe, and he still edits the online poetry and haiku journal Creatrix.

“I think I’m too busy to be called retired,” he drawls.

With 80-odd poems in the book drawn from his travels, he says a major motivation was to ensure their preservation for his children.

With an entire section marked “Love Carnal, Romantic and Family,” there’s plenty of steamy personal details laid out too (his 1964 poem Two Together: Two Apart reads “I remember the hollow of your groin, Cupping up to hold the pudenda, The erstwhile pubic scrolling and the sense of honeyed oil”).

He says he’s none too shy about laying it out bare: “I’ve been married twice, I have two sets of children. So it’s warts and all, but that’s who I was, that’s who I am, and if they don’t know by now, they never will.”

The sculpture on the cover holds a curious importance for Mr Jeffery: he’d found it at a roadside ceramic factory on the way to Halong Bay. His hosts had offered to buy him anything in the place but he chose the sculpture, which cost less than a dollar: “They were surprised by my choice… I had to explain to them that this group of three men around a table with wine cups in hand were like the free and spirited exchange of poets in the give and take of presenting their personal poems to each other.”

The book launches at Lazy Susan’s Comedy Den (Brisbane Hotel), June 28 at 7.15pm, and it’s available through http://www.regimebooks.com.au

by DAVID BELL