As a taster before the Brisbane launch of his Selected and New Work, Riverside, we interviewed poet and flash fiction aficionado Ray Liversidge on several fronts…

1. Your poetry has appeared in over 100 journals and anthologies worldwide. How has this international exposure influenced your writing style and themes?

While it is pleasing to have my work recognised and published outside of Australia, such exposure does not dictate what or how I write. An apt analogy would be an Australian athlete competing in international events.

2. You have experimented with various genres, including a verse novel, chapbooks, and flash fiction. What draws you to explore different poetic forms and narrative styles?

I would like to think that poets who take their craft seriously like to challenge themselves. It is only recently that I have been writing flash fiction after discovering Alex Epstein’s book Lunar Savings Time at a book sale. I will expand on the exploration of different poetic forms and narrative styles in the following questions.

3. The verse novel The Barrier Range combines historical exploration with contemporary elements like MP3 players and trams. Can you share your creative process in blending these timelines?

I consider The Barrier Range my most experimental and challenging work. It required an enormous amount of research to achieve the level of authenticity I demanded of the project. What started as a couple of poems about an estranged uncle who mysteriously moved to Broken Hill grew into a 200-page verse novel using different writing genres. I also use time slip as a literary device so that while the protagonist travels with early Australian expedition parties in the 19th century he has an understanding of current events. The book was published nearly 20 years ago, so, while the story still holds up as a “true postmodern epic” (Jordie Albiston), the reporting of events from that time historically dates the book somewhat.

4. Many of your works, such as Oradour-sur-Glane, grapple with difficult historical events. How do you approach writing poetry that captures emotional responses to such tragic moments?

Now that was a tough book to write! Oradour-sur-Glane is a ruined village in central France which has been maintained as a memorial to the 642 villagers who were massacred by the Nazis in World War II. I visited the site in 2007 but didn’t start writing about it until years later. The book was published in 2017. My publisher just happened to be French, and working with her (especially on the bilingual edition) was at times an extremely emotional experience as the senseless slaughter of innocent villagers is seared into the consciousness of French peoples.

My approach to how to write about such a heinous incident was to draw somewhat on TS Eliot’s theory of impersonality in poetry and the concept of the objective correlative. This is ‘A set of objects, a situation, a chain of events which shall be the formula of that particular emotion’. However, I’m not thinking of Elliot’s theory when I read from the book as I still sometimes choke up when reading particular poems.

5. Your chapbook The Divorce Papers and other works explore personal and family relationships. How do personal experiences shape your poetry?

The title of that chapbook gives you a fair idea of the subject matter! Like Oradour-sur-Glane, I wrote that suite of poems a number of years after that particular experience. My earlier work certainly explores personal and family relationships. However, since the publication of The Divorce Papers in 2010, the self has taken a back seat in my writing. You won’t find me in no suspicious circumstances: portraits of poets (dead) or Oradour-sur-Glane!

6. In your author’s note, you mention your interest in the Spenserian stanza for no suspicious circumstances: portraits of poets (dead). What challenges and rewards did you find in working with this fixed verse form?

When I hit on the idea of writing portraits of poets who had died because of intemperate living, taken their own lives, or were killed in circumstances out of their control, I did put a lot of thought into how I would go about it. Rather than horses for courses, I decided on a course for horses!

I chose to adapt the nine-line Spenserian stanza, a fixed verse form invented by Edmund Spencer, where each stanza contains nine lines in total: eight lines in iambic pentameter followed by a single line in iambic hexameter. I was drawn to the challenge of this form as I felt it was well suited to my subject matter with its stately and meditative alexandrine final line seemingly an ideal means of saying goodbye to the world. Having said that, I did say earlier that I had ‘adapted’ the form, as, rather than strict metres, I used a syllabic count and quite a few half-rhymes and somewhat rhymes!

7. Since moving to Warrnambool and living by the Hopkins River, water has become a recurring motif in your poetry. How has this change of environment affected your creative output?

I have lived in Warrnambool for eight years now since moving from Melbourne. My wife and I are fortunate to live in a house overlooking the Hopkins River with uninterrupted views up and down the river. Unlike Robert Adamson, who wrote nonstop about the Hawkesbury River, my river poems are a mere trickle! As my editor David Reiter knows, the working title of my New & Selected was Vertical Hold. However, when choosing pieces for this collection, I noticed that water appeared in many poems written prior to moving to Warrnambool. So, I thought that Riverside was a more appropriate title for the collection. The word also has echoes of my surname in it!

8. You’ve mentioned a wry and irreverent tone in your recent work, especially in flash fiction. How do you balance humour and seriousness in your writing?

I think of always written pieces which have a wry and irreverent tone. I’ve found flash fiction is a form which gives me the freedom to showcase my somewhat skewed view of the world. I mean, why are there so many people on the planet and you often wonder what is the point of it all? On the other hand, maybe we all need (to paraphrase Socrates) to examine our lives to make them worth living. Is that ‘balanced’ enough?

Riverside will be launched by Dr David Reiter from 18.30, Thursday, 25 September at Books@Stones. Everyone’s welcome!