Author(s): Jane Clifton (Illustrator)

Poetry

In jane Clifton's words:

In 2018, for reasons I will never fully understand, I made a new year's resolution to write a poem every day. I'd written poetry be- fore, but I would not call myself a poet. Nevertheless, I decided to do it. I like a challenge. In 2014 I made a resolution to stop drink- ing alcohol for a year and nearly died of boredom: once I start something I have to see it through.

Every night - before bedtime and long after wine o'clock - I would sit or lie sprawled on the couch, my grey, Palomino Blackwing 602 pencil poised above the pages of an old desk diary rendered blank by the advent of iCal, and scribble, erase and scrawl. When the poem felt right, felt finished, I would uncap my fountain pen and Moleskin notebook, ink it in, date it, then give it a title. Always in that order.

Short poems - usually a page, occasionally two or three. I fell into a nightly rhythm with the process. Some days it was easy: others, blood out of a stone. Some days four or five ideas would spurt forth: others, particularly towards the end of the year, I'd find my- self 'owing' up to 3 or 4 days-worth.Themes emerged: drinking, performing, friends, family, war and peace, footy, dogs, flowers, my lost son. It was not a diary but some days were acknowledged - Fathers' Day, Mothers' Day, Easter, Christmas, the day Sisto Malaspino was stabbed by a madman in Bourke Street.