Neil Creighton is an Australian poet whose work as a teacher of English and Drama has made readers intensely aware of how opportunity is unequally proportioned. His works reflect a strong interest in social justice, indigenous issues, the environment, and relationships. He is the author of the collections of poems, Loving Leah and Rock Dreaming. In this interview, the writer and editor Darlington Chibueze Anuonye discusses Creighton’s inspirations. 

Darlington: Hi, Neil. Thank you for accepting to talk to me about your collection of poems, Loving Leah. I was so moved by the collection’s centering of the fragility of family life that I imagined myself present in the forlorn theatre of Shakespeare’s King Lear. The thematic proximity that Loving Leah and King Lear share is so compelling that I’m wondering whether this Shakespearean play inspired your book.       

Neil: Hello, Darlington. Thank you for this kind invitation and for your brilliant observation of my literary indebtedness to Shakespeare. In Loving Leah, I am exploring love, the decline that can come with old age, and the horror of betrayal. My mother had three daughters and two sons. I saw the parallels between her and Lear, so I renamed her Leah. My Leah secretly disinherits her daughter, Cordelia, willing everything to her other two daughters. My mother, when she was 88, did the same. That disinheritance is the catalyst for the above concerns of love, relationship, the folly of age, and betrayal. I’m not interested in the other two daughters. Shall we call them Goneril and Regan? My book of poetry focuses on Leah and Cordelia.

Darlington: I’m so sorry for your experience, Neil. I suppose that writing Loving Leah was therapeutic for you.

Neil: I didn’t write it for therapy. In part, I was trying to seek Leah’s psychological truth, a process of understanding her. The more I thought about it, the more I came to see a gentle, generous soul of co-dependent temperament probably willingly and helplessly trapped in a deeply toxic environment. There was pain in the realization that what she became was so much less than the person I remembered. It’s sad, but it’s a human story. Acceptance and growth can come from understanding, and they are positive. Possibly there is therapy there. 

I was also trying to detail the relationship between Leah and Cordelia over time. The first section of five poems goes back in time, from Leah’s death to Cordelia’s birth. In hindsight, this recollection is precious and heartwarming, as well as sad because it brings to mind the decline she tried so hard to hide but which death revealed. She was scared of that. I think it depicted the love Leah showed to Cordelia in her early life, and that was therapeutic.

In Part two, I tried to do two things. The first was to detail the stages of Cordelia’s grieving as honestly as I could. Therapeutic? Maybe, although writing brings these things to mind and makes letting go harder. The writer has to dwell a lot on sadness and grieving, although in poems like “Lost, Without Compass or Star,” my Cordelia is acknowledging how beautiful in nurture Leah once was. The second thing I was doing is modelling the path to acceptance and forgiveness. The last series of poems lead up to Shakespeare’s Cordelia and her beautiful “No cause. No cause.” Before that, there is a poem about remembering Leah in her prime. The final poem is about letting her go and moving on with life. If they are not directly therapeutic, they are at least acknowledging that this is the path one must walk and it is possible I am directing myself that this is what I must do.

The artist should seek truth. In that truth lies understanding. Acceptance may be secondary, but come from that understanding. Then there is the exhortation about personal growth, the idea of learning from mistakes and resolving to avoid those particular ones. That has the companion of personal realization that we all carry certain flaws. Finally, there are the great virtues of love and forgiveness. Possibly, some of these come from the writing and then the writing would be therapeutic for the writer. Maybe, also, the writer’s experiences can resonate enough to provide therapy for others.  

Darlington: I am touched by your story. It is one enduring testament that life is both complex and complicated, and that what we have in the end is the memory of times. Moreover, I am glad that you have the talent as well as the patience and courage to tell your story through your poetry.  

I have followed the success of your other collection of poems, Rock Dreaming, with enthusiasm. It is surprising how the tender poems contained in the collection firmly confront the chequered legacy of British colonialism in Australia. What did you intend to achieve with the book?

Neil: In the poems of Rock Dreaming, I wanted to tell some important stories of which many Australians were unaware. So, there are several poems about massacres. These I have largely told in a denotative way. I wanted readers to know about the Myall Creek and Coniston massacres and the horror of John O’Connell Bligh’s murderous rampage in Maryborough. I put footnotes after these poems, explaining the history. I wanted readers to know about the horrors of the Stolen Generation. Hence poems like “Beryl’s Story,” based on the real experiences of Faye Moseley and Doreen Webster in the Cootamundra Girls Training Home. “The Fallen Tree” also reflects this theme, as does “Kevin Rudd Says Sorry.” I wanted to highlight the culture clash and draw attention to current examples of racism. Also, I wanted to give hope to the idea that we could be one people, united in our common humanity and our love for this land.

So, I guess what it means to me is personal. I have the words, the understanding of history, the perspective of time, and I felt a great need to highlight the crimes of the past and some issues of the culture of First Nation people. I wanted to offer up lamentation for the crimes of the colonizers. I wanted to acknowledge the special connection of First Nation to the land. In the last several poems, I wanted to provide hope, and in poems like “The Vine That Will Not Die,” I wanted to acknowledge cultural heroes.

Darlington: The collection reflects a postcolonial conscience, doesn’t it? 

Neil: This is a legitimate question and the term, “postcolonial,” is a useful and necessary category. These labels help to define history’s shifting attitudes but I don’t know if creative people start from that point. Well, at least I don’t. That is not to say that my perspective is not postcolonial. It’s just that I didn’t think of this term when I was writing these poems. Of course, my attitudes were shaped by and reflect a modern sensibility. They also reflect an understanding of history and the shifting attitudes towards First Nation people. There is also a fundamental belief about shared humanity and the importance of equity and justice.

I live in a changed world but also one in which there is still deep ignorance. Sometimes a creative person must just reflect and record that ignorance. I use whatever gifts I have to highlight the injustices of the past and point towards the possibility of a better future. This may be educational in purpose. I’m certain I had this motive in writing the book. 

Darlington: I like how you describe your experience of the world, “I live in a changed world but also one in which there is still deep ignorance. Sometimes a creative person must just reflect and record that ignorance.” Do you also confront the ignorance of victims of colonial history?

Neil: I don’t think that I worry about the ignorance of the victims of history. My experience and reading lead me to believe that First Nation people have a good understanding of the darkness of colonization. I would never presume to believe that I had any role in telling First Nation people about their own history. Recently, maps of massacres have been made and published in various places. These have to be verified by documentation, but First Nation people have kept their own oral record of these atrocities. Likewise, the horror of the Stolen Generation is well known, although many of the children who were stolen have had to go through a painful process of rediscovery.

I want to listen, record, and sometimes reflect my horror. I think there is in my work a desire for reconciliation and atonement. In Rock Dreaming, poems like “Beryl’s Story” and “Myall Creek” just record. They need no commentary on my part. Recounting the facts is sufficient. Poems like “Boorimbah” express a desire for acknowledgment. “Rottnest Island” is a deep lament. “Booing Adam Goodes” is outraged indignation. “The Fallen Tree” is both a lament and a wish for reconciliation and atonement. I think acknowledgment is important and maybe poetry such as mine can play some small part here. I am more concerned about the ignorance of the perpetrators. This ignorance, while diminishing, is still substantial. There is probably a lot of cognitive dissonance at work here. Most people I know are fair minded but often in the dark about the horror of our colonial past.

Do I confront it? I guess I have in Rock Dreaming. My desire for people to know about the history of my country was a strong motivator in writing the poems. I have received positive responses from many people. Quite a few readers have expressed their shock and horror at their ignorance of this history. One even bought a few books, put one in the library of a school and gave others to friends. That was pleasing. 

But what about verbal confrontation? Sure, in my gentle way. Recently I was having lunch with some friends I knew at university and this topic arose. Some were sadly ignorant, not maliciously, but just uninformed. I said my piece, forcefully but not aggressively. People listened. That was good. Maybe it got them thinking. Sometimes I have spoken with people that I know are deeply embedded in prejudice. Often, with them, I will say that their attitude is not my understanding and that the history is otherwise. But I will not enter into argument. That is utterly self-defeating and achieves nothing. I express my disdain for politicians who wish to deny the crimes of our colonial past.

In Australia there is a movement to rename places. Hence Ayers Rock is now known as Uluru. There are many examples. Indeed, one of the poems I like most in Rock Dreaming is called “Boorimbah,” which is the Bundjulung name for what the white people called the Clarence River. Outside of the Bundjulung people, that name is probably unknown. However, recently I was talking with a neighbour, whose wife was an indigenous woman, both her grandmothers being what we call “full-blooded.” She kept her indigenous heritage to herself but on her passing, my neighbour told me. The point of this story is that he was lamenting the changes of names. I merely said I liked them and it is an acknowledgment of who was here first and the significance of that. I wouldn’t argue the point. I merely expressed my opinion.

Darlington: When I opened the manuscript of your collection of poems Morteza, I was struck by this remark in the “Author’s Note”: 

These poems are a work of fiction. The three characters, Morteza, Rosa and Atefeh, are fictional. Whilst some parts of Mortezas story parallel the experiences of refugee and surgeon, Munjed Al Muderis, these poems are in no way intended as a biography. Munjed Al Muderis is an inspiring real life person but any parallels are used only as a starting point for the poems’ wider themes.

Your words made me think of Chinua Achebe’s “Preface” to his collection of essays, Morning Yet on Creation Day. Achebe opens the preface with these sentences: “A writer need never offer excuses for writing. But under certain conditions he may feel that some explanation is in order for the publication of what he has written.” Also, there is Nadine Gordimer, who makes the following confession: “Nothing factual I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.” How did you negotiate the forces of fact and fiction in Morteza?

Neil: Fact and fiction are so interrelated. My fiction has a basis in lived experience. Sometimes that lived experience comes from sentient beings; other times, it comes from things, people, places about whom or of which I have read.

Morteza, which is a story involving three people, began in an interesting way. Part two uses the image of fog to express the collection’s horror at the political changes that were happening in his country of refuge. There are poems about school shootings, fear of uprising, the damage war does to soldiers and soldiers’ families, etc. That fog motif winds through many of the poems.

What happened is when Donald Trump was elected, the horror was not Morteza’s, but mine. I had those poems but I realized that just by themselves they were insufficient for a book. So I created the character of Morteza. I knew of Munjed Al Muderis, so I used his escape and good works but only as a starting point. So Morteza reflects some of my attitudes but he is also his own individual person. The despair he feels, the environment in which he lives and some of his attitudes are invented. The same is probably true of the other two characters. I wanted a counterpoint for Morteza’s pessimism so I created Rosa, his wife. The poem “Come,” which I attribute to her and which concludes Part three of the book, is actually a poem I wrote for my wife. “The Forge,” which meditates on the relationship between hardship and character, is a poem I already had and which I gave to Rosa.

The young woman, Atefah, who has lost both legs in a marketplace bombing, I think is my invention. On the other hand, I attribute some thoughts to her which I have read elsewhere. For example, her last words, which conclude Part four, are:

What is there but doing good, 
loving mercy and believing
that love can triumph and reign
in this small heart of mine.

Well, this is where things one reads come in. So I read the Biblical prophet, Micah, who wrote in chapter 8: “He has shown you, O man, what is good; And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?”

Beautiful words. I wanted Atefah to triumph over her adversity so I gave her words that reference this. I think there is the constant re-working of fact and fiction in the creative process. I suppose you could call it borrowing, but I think it is a benign one. I’m happy and privileged to stand on the giant’s shoulders.

In my book to be published next year, I create a character that has been used by both Charlotte Bronte and Jean Rhys. Bronte called her Bertha and she was the mad woman in the attic. Rhys said her real name was Antoinette and that she was a victim of male oppression. That trope suits me because I am writing, in part, about coercive control. She is my character but she is built upon the character created by those other two writers.

Write about what you know. Write about what you don’t know. I have heard both of those and there is value in both. There has to be some basis in one’s individual experience. Then the imagination takes over and something particular occurs. I guess it’s a negotiation between what you know and what you imagine but in the end the imagination takes over and hopefully results in something unique to the author.

Darlington: That’s intertextuality at its best. It is usually remarkable when texts interact with one another as well as with reality. 

Speaking of literary giants and influences, I remember A.D. Hope fondly. So remarkable was his genius that he represented his generation of Australian poets and writers. Not only in Australia, his impact was felt across continents and continues even today. Who are the giants you referred to?

Neil: I stand on many shoulders. I would never pretend to be like them. I merely acknowledge that I have been influenced by them. If I had to pick five poets that I particularly love, they would be these: Yeats, Keats, Coleridge, Owen, and Dickinson. That leaves out a hundred or more.

I think when I began rewriting poetry again in 2012, and trying to take my writing seriously, I was more particularly influenced by certain writers that I have long loved. Now, not so much. I think I am developing a certain style of my own that I am comfortable with, but still my love and admiration for scores and scores of writers remains. 

Here are a few thoughts on poems that I think one could link to some great writers. “Earth Music” was the first poem I published. Someone wrote to me and said I was channeling John Keats. I wish. I acknowledge that he did see how much the poem was influenced by Keats. There is the form, the ten line stanzas, the pentameters, the close rhyming, a certain lushness that comes from the use or overuse of adjectives, the focus on nature, etc. 

I am a great admirer of Emily Dickinson and I think I have written quite a few poems in her style. The poem, “Recovery,” composed after the trauma of a life-threatening illness, may owe something to her: those little quatrains, the rhyming, the simple rhythms, the personification, maybe even a certain understated enigmatic quality. I choose four moments of recovery and describe them without too much explanation or context. 

I have loved Wilfred Owen since I was a teenager and one of my teachers read “Strange Meeting” to us. I still recall how stunned I was by it: the beauty and power of his imagery; the recreation of the nightmare of war in the trenches; the terrible wisdom; beauty wrought from horror; that enigmatic ending. Somehow, I learnt it by heart, along with a few other Owen poems. In Morteza, there is a poem called “On War,” which may owe a little to Owen. Here is its beginning: 

Fog clouds the violence coursing 
through the arteries of the empire. 
Fog clouds its flowering, 
the dark lumps lodging in tangle of wire, 
muddy trenches, gas, acres of green grass,
neat white crosses, bleak eyes staring
behind razor wire or skeletons 
uncovered from shallow pits.

Finally, I have also loved the elegance, simplicity, and discipline of haiku. In my forthcoming book, I write a lot of haikun. All of the second part is in that form. That was rewarding. I think I have written quite a few haiku-like poems. For example, here is one:

Home

The butcher bird pours
liquid ripple of song
into the blue sky.

The rosella dips his red head
at the stone bird-bath
and drinks in alert delight.

We sit on the verandah.
Your eyes smile. 
I reach for your hand.

So many poets to love but I hope this is sufficient.

Darlington: I’m grateful for your time and wisdom, Neil. 

Neil: So am I, Darlington.