a winter's journey (1976-1977)
diary poems,
Edwards & Shaw,
Sydney 1979
'a winter's journey is a poetic diary which traces the poet's journey through a geographical and emotional landscape: a past painfully revisited and savagely come to terms with. Like Marcel Proust in his search for the lost time, Jurgensen returns to the wintry season of his native North Germany to pick through the remains of his home and his childhood in search of his lost identity. The sub-title 'diary poems' describes a collection of occasional poetry written under the impetus of the intense feelings of the moment. In this way they are a collection of moments which have been captured, dated and given substance through language. The time and place allocated each of these moments allow the poet to orientate himself, to give direction to the developmental process of his search for identity. The past is brought into a meaningful and illuminating relationship with the present.
This collection is
a 'first' in Australian literature. Its strict rhyme scheme and metrical
pattern, ranging from monosyllabic to decasyllabic, achieves an unsurpassed
musicality. Loosely modelled on Schubert's Winterreise, Jurgensen's
collection nonetheless possesses its own characteristic identity. It has a
thematic development with none of the static qualities often found in poetry.
Its inherent musicality is expressed in its fluidity. Perspectives change,
different qualities emerge, themes are varied, overlap. The poems move towards a
finale, a resolution, a crescendo. The form itself enacts and embodies the
theme. That lost identity is found in the words which describe the search. The
diary itself becomes a partner. To write is to identify oneself.'
'…this cycle is a virtuoso performance, engaging in the personality it reveals, assured in its matching of language to thought, and always intensely musical.'
(Ken Goodwin, The Weekend Australian)
from: deadlines
10.6.1977
(first
entry)
melbourne,
nineteenhundredsixtyone:
thirty quid in my pocket, i am
twentyone, alone,
australia
does not need me as much as i need
her, a room in swanston
street, no one
can pronounce my name, it seems i came
too early or too
late, my failure
to find work, my passion to succeed,
what am i gambling
for, have i won
freedom, mother writes to her lost son,
in carlton's pubs
i learn the odds on
my survival, paddy morgan's darts
pay for counter
lunches, five quid down
buys a typewriter, the girl next door
strikes an
amorous semicolon;
in three weeks university starts,
already i'm quoting
the unknown,
making love, she spells out the text or
my dishonourable
intentions,
oh, how we practised my declensions!
from: the cage
15.2.1977
(to
himself)
the hovering
light
performs its old dance
of casting a sight:
shadow and
substance.
i am without
strife,
all being is one;
the rays of my life
shine on it
alone.
i rhyme a belief
in my
ashes' sparks
as dying i live
in quotation marks.
into conviction:
freedom is knowing
the truth of
fiction.
why do i defy
what i
try to be?
i remain an i
looking for a me.