Emerging Confidence

As the days in Melbourne grow shorter and colder the next Confidence anthology is emerging. Throughout April we worked through edits and proofs with writers to bring Confidence 2 a step closer to publication.  We are now at the final proofreading stage and are at the early stages of planning the Confidence 2 Launch.

In June Catalina Steriu, whose short story Under the Indifferent Rain is soon to be published in Confidence 2 is visiting Melbourne from Romania, and we look forward to sharing some special moments with her.

In the lead up to the Confidence 2 Launch we are piloting an addition to our Writing with Confidence’ thematic workshops. Confidence 2 features many disparate and diverse voices so we’ve created the ‘Finding Your Voice’ creative  writing workshop which will be held at the Watsonia Library in early June. If you struggle with point of view, want to find  your narrative voice, write authentic dialogue or would like to gain some insights into competition writing you can register on the Yarra Plenty Regional Library site and come along.

Confidence 2 will be the second anthology in our Confidence series which we will build on over time, as we continue to explore  confidence in contemporary fiction and poetry through the Minds Shine Bright writing competitions. Looking back to where it all started, our poet in focus for April is Michael Leach from Confidence 2022 with some thoughts on inspiration, writing poetry and the emergence of confidence.

Poet in Focus– Michael Leach

In 2022 Michael Leach was the joint winner of the Minds Shine Bright Poetry Category prize for his poem Emergence of Voice  together with Kevin Dyer from Wales, UK  for  his poem Dahlias. Emergence of Voice  is an authentic and moving poem. It has that X factor that you can’t quite put your finger on, and it stays with you. 

Michael Leach lives and works on unceded Dja Dja Wurrung Country in his birthplace of Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. He is a poet, poetry reviewer and a full-time senior lecturer at the Monash University School of Rural Health. Michael has had two poetry books published, the chapbook Chronicity (Melbourne Poets Union, 2020) and the full-length collection Natural Philosophies (Recent Work Press, 2022). 

Michael’s poems have appeared in journals such as Rabbit; where he also reviews poetry books, and Plumwood Mountain; websites such as Pulse: voices from the heart of medicine; anthologies such as Confidence Minds Shine Bright Anthology 2022 and Under the Same Moon: Fourth Australian Haiku Anthology (Forty South Publishing Pty Ltd, 2023), and exhibitions such as the Antarctic Poetry Exhibition. 

In 2022, Michael’s koala-shaped ecopoem ‘The Australian Anthropo-seen’ appeared in a shopfront window as part of Emporium Creative Hub’s Feature Artist of the Month initiative. Michael’s poetry has also won the UniSA Mental Health and Wellbeing Poetry Competition (2015), has been longlisted in Minds Shine Bright Confidence 2024,  received a commendation in the Hippocrates Prize for Poetry and Medicine (2021), and been shortlisted in the poetry category of the Woollahra Digital Literary Award (2023). During 2024, Michael will publish two new poetry books through In Case of Emergency Press and Ginninderra Press.

Michael teaches haiku poetry to health students to encourage reflection, empathy and wellbeing and he recently held a haiku writing workshop at Bendigo Library that was very well received.

What inspired you to write Emergence of Voice?

I wrote Emergence of Voice during a period of self-reflection on my personal experiences as well as experimentation with poetic forms. 

My experiences of confidence stem from extreme shyness and low self-esteem throughout childhood and early adulthood. In addition to being scared of the dark and doorbells as a kid, I was always anxious around classmates at primary school and tended to be the quietest kid in class—the type of kid who invariably had backstage duties during school plays. My low self-esteem may have been related to my chronic anxiety and exacerbated by my self-consciousness over wearing glasses. As I grew into an adult, I somehow managed to cope with and transcend my extreme shyness while, at the same time, still being very shy. 

This shift in confidence is addressed in my poem Emergence of Voice. Given that I turned 17 in the year 2000 and wrote Emergence of Voice at the age of 37 in 2021, it made sense structurally to divide this poem roughly into halves. The first half reflects on my lived experience of shyness in childhood during the late 20^th-century (hence the lines ‘my / 20^th– / century / memories’) while the second half reflects on my lived experience of transcending shyness in young adulthood during the early 21^st-century (hence the lines ‘my / 21^st– / century / memories’). 

Regarding poetic form, I decided to write a ‘haikuesque’ or ‘senryuesque’ free-verse poem comprising a series of ‘haiku moments’ laid out down the page like a haiku sequence, with a view to showing readers paired images capable of recreating specific moments and evoking emotional responses. While the haiku moments in the first half of the poem are ‘bro          ken / moments’ during which I lacked the confidence to overcome my shyness, the haiku moments in the second half of the poem are ‘breakthrough / moments’ during which I found the confidence to overcome my shyness —so the haiku moments in the second half of the poem provide ‘haiku twists’ on corresponding moments in the first half of the poem. Emergence of Voice may be considered ‘haikuesque’ because its stanzas or verses don’t quite fit traditionally accepted syllable and line constraints of the haiku form. The poem is best described as a set of haiku-like free verses. In the conclusion, a parallel is drawn between breaking free from the constraints of poetic form and breaking free from the constraints of shyness. 

The poem’s title reflects the emergence of my distinctive voice as a poet and as a person more generally. I dedicated Emergence of Voice to my late mother and maternal grandparents, who were always there for me and who helped and inspired me to become a lecturer and to read my poetry at events. While the fourth-last stanza alludes to  my role as a teacher of safety in healthcare and reflective writing to healthcare students, the concluding stanza alludes to the fact that I have read out free-verse poems dedicated to my late mother and maternal grandparents at their respective funerals.

2. Does where you live influence your writing?

I have lived and worked here for most of my life. My poetry has been positively influenced by the poetry of the many amazingly talented poets based on Dja Dja Wurrung Country, such as Tru Dowling and Andy Jackson. I have also benefitted from reading my poetry at local spoken word events, such as The Write Stuff, Bendigo and Be.Spoke, and from participating in Bendigo Writers Festival in 2018, 2021 and 2022.

Living close to nature in regional Victoria has certainly influenced my poetry too. Many of my poems can be considered ecopoems as they address critically important topics such as climate change, extinction and psychogeography, with frequent references to flora and fauna distributed throughout Bendigo and the rest of Australia, including, but not limited to, species found amidst Bendigo’s beautiful box-ironbark forests. 

There are examples of ecopoetry in Natural Philosophies as well as in my forthcoming poetry books, Rural Ecologies: A Haiku & Senryu Collection (In Case of Emergency Press, 2024) and Chords in the Soundscapes(Ginninderra Press, 2024). 

I have also written a number of poems that reflect on matters related to rural health, including my free-verse poem The Heart of the Countryside and my haiku sequence Rural Pharmacy Placement.

There is so much to be said for and about regional, rural and remote Australia and people who live in, or have ancestral ties to, these areas are very well placed to write about these special parts of the country.

3. What advice do you have for new writers and poets?

I would encourage new writers and poets to observe the world closely, read widely, research carefully, collaborate and consult appropriately, think critically and reflectively, write regularly, experiment boldly, and edit thoughtfully. It can be helpful to complete relevant writing courses, to seek feedback on work in progress from fellow writers and poets, and to remain philosophical in the face of criticism and rejection, which are just part and parcel of being a writer or poet. I would urge all writers and poets to stay as true as possible to themselves and their creative visions while, at the same time, being mindful and considerate of target audiences. This can be a delicate balance at times.