Indrani Perera

poet, publisher & mentor

Tag: author

Poets Are The Best People

One of the best things about attending the Perth Poetry Festival was meeting so many wonderful new people. The audiences were warm and encouraging, my fellow performers were welcoming and friendly and the volunteers and WA Poets Inc folks were supportive and helpful. My whole trip to Perth was so nourishing and inspiring because of all of these beautiful people.

I love talking to new people and hearing their stories, views and opinions. It was wonderful to finally meet instagram buddies Scott Patrick Mitchell and Lisa Collier in person. And to meet Gary di Pazzio and Shey Marque from WA Poets who worked so hard with the rest of the crew to make the impossible possible. To see Laksnhmi R Kanchi again and visit the beautiful wetlands where she was a poet in residence. To talk art with Yael, see Gillian's friendly face in the audience, go for walks with Jaya Penelope and sit in the audience with Elio from the Perth Poetry Club.

I learnt about belligerent bunting from Davina (did you know it's illegal to put up bunting in Perth?). Thanks to Coral, Neil and the crew for a slightly surreal afternoon tea/drinks. Meeting and chatting to Sunil, Moly, Jake and Elizabeth, kindred spirits who know what it is like to come from someplace else. And to all the photographers who snapped so many great photos – I spent most of my time at the festival off my phone so I am super grateful for your photos!

I am so grateful to all of these beautiful people and all the others with whom I shared a conversation or a smile. You made my visit to Perth special and memorable. You turned your city into a welcoming community and made me feel as if I belonged. I'm going to treasure my visit always. People really do make a place and you brought your place to life for me, so thank you a million times and more.

I had such a fabulous time that I didn't want to leave. I will definitely be coming back as soon as I can!

September 20, 2023
Perth Poetry Festival Finale

The Perth Poetry Festival Finale was emceed by the fabulous Scott-Patrick Mitchell at the Switch Theatre on Wellington Street in Perth. I think this intimate venue was my favourite performance space for the festival. It was easy to make eye contact with all the members of the audience and tp see their reactions to my poems.

I was the second performer for the evening and after thanking my lovely husband who was at home all week keeping the home fires burning and looking after our beautiful girls, Gary from WA Poets, who was manning the camera for the Zoom, wished me a happy birthday. At that point the whole audience burst into song! It was a brilliant way to start a performance.

After the performance, Laksh, Gillain and Ro took me out to dinner at the Moon Cafe in Northbridge where we indulged in mocktails and a vegan ice cream for me for dessert. It was the perfect end to a wonderful birthday and a brilliant festival!

Thanks Perth and all the lovely people Meet for making my trip memorable in all the right ways!

September 18, 2023
Perth Poetry Club

When I was exploring Northbridge on my very first day in Perth, I wandered past this funky little diner style cafe with its retro 50s booth seats and promised myself I would come back. I mean with a name like The Moon, how could I resist? At the time I hadn't twigged that this was the venue for Saturday afternoon's Perth Poerty Club at which I would be performing.

The Perth Poetry Club is hosted by Elio to a packed room at the back of the building. It's on every Saturday afternoon and always has a zoom component so anyone can join. There were so many people that eighteen of them didn't get a chance to perform on the open mic! Poetry is alive and well inn Perth I tell you!

For this set I read out a poem from each issue of the Pocketry Almanack that I have published – so far there have been seven issues. If you're an emerging poet who hasn't been published in a journal, had on over to Pocketry. Submissions for issue eight will be opening soon.

Those beautiful Almanack poems from unheard voices deserve to be taken out from time to time and shared with the rest of the world and I am more than happy to introduce them to new audiences so they can meet people and make new friends.

September 16, 2023
Beyond Words Poetry Workshop

The Centre for Stories in Northbridge Western Australia has the best library I've ever seen. When I walked into the building to check out the space before doing my poetry workshop for the Perth Poetry Festival, I fell in love with this room. It's so fabulous that I wanted to move in! They said I could come back and hang out at any time but unfortunately I was so busy with all things Perth Poetry Festival that I didn't get the chance.

I did however return to the Centre for Stories over the weekend to attend all the poetry workshops for the Festival and to host my own workshop, Beyond Words A Liminal Spaces Workshop. The idea behind the workshop was to get people thinking and writing differently by using movement, sound and senses to tap into other areas of the brain. I used games I learnt as a nature connection mentor for the rewinding group, Firekeepers along with meditation and drawing exercises. I followed these up with prompts that used techniques of point of view, collage and personification.

I was worried that I would run out of exercises and prompts for the workshop so I prepared eight prompts just in case. When planning a workshop it's hard to know exactly how long things will take. Once you take into account interaction, discussion and sharing of poems, it becomes a piece of string that can be short or long. I'd thought that we would get six prompts done in the two hours and had planned an extra two, just in case… We ended up doing three of the prompts which leaves me five that can become new workshops for the future. See, nothing gets wasted, not even workshop plans and outlines!

I had a couple of learnings from the worksop. The first writing prompt was for five minutes. One of the participants wrote a very funny poem about the impossibility of doing the set task in five minutes. As a result I extended the writing time for the subsequent prompts (and felt quite proud of myself for being flexible and adapting the workshop on the fly!). The other feedback was that the movement exercise wasn't accessible for people of limited mobility. In future when running this workshop I will make sure that there are chairs people can sit on for this exercise.

Seventeen people came to the workshop and I had some great feedback with one participant saying that the exercises had got them thinking differently. Someone else said that the workshop had helped them write lots of poems and overcome their writer's block. And another person told me that it was the best poetry workshop they had been to recently. All in all I think the workshop was a success.

Seventeen people turned up for my poetry workshop, Beyond Words, A liminal Spaces workshop.

September 16, 2023
Of Lakes

I've been watching Lakshmi R Kanchi (aka Soul Reserve) posting about the Cockburn wetlands and all the amazing events she created when she was their poet in residence. I wanted so badly to visit this beautiful place and this morning my dream came true!

Her husband Ro picked me up from my digs and along with the Washington State poet Laureate, Arianne True and her fiancee Liz, we headed out of town. On our way out, we drove past the Derbal Yarrigan / Swan river which is huge! After the Birrarung Mar in Naarm, I was so surprised to see this mighty river. It looks more like Sydney harbour than a river! We headed south along the coast, stopping at Cottesloe along the way to meet the Indian Ocean. Ro was a great guide telling us so many stories about the places we were driving through.

The wetlands centre in Cockburn is on land that was going to be cut through by a major highway but local residents and scientists banded together to save the bushland. They established the wetlands centre to educate locals, especially children about the beauty and value of the swampy area containing two unique lakes and eco systems. This idea worked because when the government again tried to develop the area, the kickback from voters was immense, stopping the roads and saving the lakes.

On our arrival at the wetlands in Cockburn we were met by Lakshmi, Jaya Penelope and the WA Poets Micro Poet in Residence, Gillian . The centre is a beautiful building that until recently was shared by many local groups, including their oldest scout group in WA. They have just finished the display in the entrance which is filled with imagery and captions in Noongar. Ro introduced us to many of the people working in the wetlands centre, including some of those who fought to save it.

We then walked through the bush to the lake. As we walked along the path about twenty metres (I think, but I'm hopeless at estimating distances!), a kwenda/bandicoot, scurried across the path behind us. It's not often that you see mammals out and about in the middle of the day (except for homo. sapiens that is). As we walked, accompanied by bird song my eyes were everywhere, drinking it all in. Seeing the details, noticing the little things and the big. Trying to see what is different and what is the same. The soil was sandy and the trees were familiar but different.

I was hoping to see some new birds but there were a lot of familiar faces. Kookaburras, fairy wrens, magpies, galahs, ravens and on the lake Eurasian coots, black swans and purple swamp hens. Walking back along the boardwalk from the lake I spotted some smaller birds in the bushes. And then later, some of the endangered black cockatoos flew over the Wetlands centre. After our walk we were treated to a traditional Aussie BBQ cooked by the volunteers. And we met some alpine dingoes.

It was so good to be out of the city. To be in the bush. To be walking the naked land.

Lakshmi's poetry residency has ended and as a farewell gift she left a poetry trail around the wetlands. these boxes contain treasures, writing prompts, waterproof pencils and notebooks so you can add your poetry to the collection. A wonderful idea and a great legacy for a remarkable year of poetry from a brilliant poet.

September 14, 2023
A Poemabulation

I'm in Perth for a week to attend the 2023 Perth Poetry Festival curated by the incredible community organisation, WA Poets Inc. The week is chock-a-block full of incredible events, open mics and workshops.

This morning I braved the rain (hello Melbourne, brought the rain and clouds with me!) to do the Searching for Uglieland walking tour of the Perth CBD. When I read the description of this event in the festival program, it immediately went to the top of my list of things to do. I love walking around cities, wandering down laneways and popping into galleries and shopfronts. What more do you want really when visiting a new city?

The best things about this tour was that it was run by locals with added poetry! That's right people, this walk included the poetic history of the city as well as poets reading their poems along the way. We stopped for coffee (or a hot chocolate for me because it was freezing!) and ended the morning with lunch together in an underground food court.

picture of Jaya Penelope (left) and Mar Bucknell (right)

I had the best morning meeting new people, hearing poetry (I even recited one that I had composed that morning on the walk from my hotel to the meeting point. Fresh!) and wandering through Perth's arcades. The original plan to walk further afield was changed because it was pouring.

It was so inspiring, particularly meeting Davina Edwards and seeing her belligerent bunting project. She dyes scraps of fabric, writes on them with marker and exposes them to the sun through the cyanotype process which I am now keen to check out.

If you're coning over to Perth, I highly recommend checking out one of these tours. Mar Bucknell is a wellspring of information!

September 13, 2023
A Week in Paradise

I have just spent six wonderful days in Bali wth my gorgeous younger daughter. We had the best time lazing by the pool and slowly defrosting after a Melbourne winter. It was so lovely to be back in paradise, staying at our favourite hotel and eating all the amazing local dishes. Gado gado and lumpia for lunch, mie goreng, beef rendang and satay ayam for dinner were a few of the stand outs for the trip. And checking out all the new little cafes that have popped up since we were last here four years ago. We just had to sample the cakes and find our favourites.

As well as snacking, there was swimming, snoozing, massages and of course shopping for sunnies and Balinese silver for the folks back home. I could have easily spent a month here, being pampered and having delightful people cook and clean for us.

When I go travelling one of my favourite things to do is to go to the local supermarket and see what things are the same and what are different. I love discovering and sampling new food items and supermarkets are great places to do so. it's also interesting to see how tings are packaged and displayed differently in different places. When we were in South America, you could buy milk in plastic bags!

We were in Bali to surprise my Dad for his 80th birthday and it was wonderful to celebrate this milestone with both him and Mum. The look on his face when we turned up for breakfast at the hotel was priceless.

On his birthday, we took him out to a fancy hotel restaurant for happy hour cocktails overlooking the beach. At his request, we had made the ultimate sacrifice and got up earlier than the sun to start the day with a sunrise walk along the beach to meet Angelique the cow. Dad can befriend anyone and anything!

It was the perfect mini break and the only fly in the ointment was that the lovely man and the oldest girl couldn't be with us. They were at home working and studying and keeping the cats company.

September 7, 2023
Cut and Paste

It's been a while since I got out the scissors and glue for some good old fashioned cut and paste action. There's something super satisyfing about sticking things on envelopes. Especially if you only have to do a few. It's nowhere near as fun when you have to do thousands as I have done in past lives and former jobs.

But this project is different because it's a labour of love. It's also a return to handmade for me as I have been spending lots of time creating digital objects instead of three dimensional ones. It's so lovely to be working with paper once more. The texture under the fingers and the sharp creased edges are so evocative. And it's so satisfying to see all the finished envelopes (made by Ecocern in Australia from recycled paper of course) sitting there in that box waiting to be filled.

I'm taking images and downloads from my side project, The Circus of Similes, and creating gifts for some friends. Filled with vintage illustrations, my own designs, prompts and invitations to be creative. I hope they like it!

August 18, 2023
The Alchemist’s Retort

As a family, we've played many games over the years and we have so much fun. Of course, there's also all the other emotions as well like frustration when someone steals your card or disappointment when you lose. Just like poetry, games have all the feels!

For a long time I've been wanting to try my hand at creating a game of my own. Bringing together all the best bits of the games I've played along with my own unique flavour and perspective. Of course any game I make will revolve around words, writing and poetry. That's a given. To that end I've been collecting word games for some time now – trying to see how they are structured and what makes them great.

Scrabble and Boggle are the two old school games that come to mind when you think of words games but there are more out there. If you're interested in checking out some of my collection, you can read my posts on Literary Games, Poetry Games, and Prompts.

As always I have about a million different ideas on the go and the challenge is finding the one that works. I had to abandon some of my ideas because I don't have time at the moment to do them justice. Given all the other stuff happening in my life right now, I needed a game that was relatively straightforward to design and create. Once I realised that I also realised that the perfect place to 'publish' it would be on my Circus of Similes website.

So without further ado, here's a sneak preview of The Alchemist's Retort. If you want to grab your very own copy head on over to the Escapologist's Trunk now and download it for free!

August 11, 2023
Paint It Up

My daughters have been getting into the pouring paints recently. It looked like heaps of fun and once I found these cute little book shaped boxes I just had to give it a go myself. What's not to like about a wooden book that's hollow inside for storing all your treasures?

It was really good to get back into making something with my hands and to be doing some art as well. I'd forgotten what it was like. Starting out full of hope, getting a bit despondent part way through when it all looks like a mess and then realising that it's finished and didn't turn out too badly. It takes a bit of time and distance for me to be able to think I've made something great.

I had so much fun that I've been making lots of these. Playing with different colour combinations and varying my technique slightly.

I'm going to use this box to store all my downloads from The Circus of Similes.

August 4, 2023