“The Kids Are the Didgeridoo: A Musical Study of Society in WALKABOUT” by Brittany McGowan

Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout is a story not only of survival but a story of cultural solidarity, clashing societies, and lack of knowledge. His film is full of extreme symbolism and representation moving from the music to the characters to the societies they are from.

The film opens up with a montage of the two main wealthy, privileged, white, British children going about their daily routine: toys and mindless vocal lessons held up by the long, unsettling blare of the didgeridoo. The low, loud hum sets the wild tone of the overall film and foreshadows the coming events the children will experience. A common practice in film, the opening music establishes the feel of the film as a whole: unsettling. The native Australian instrument does not, however, match up with the film imagery of the opening montage, which then foreshadows the cultural differences between the two children and the Aboriginal boy later in the film. The montage would match up better with music that establishes the everyday hustle-and-bustle of privileged children rather than the ominous hum of the Outback. The didgeridoo is out of its habitat.

When the children go on their picnic, they bring a radio. The radio is playing modern music in the middle of the desert. The music, although matching with the picnic, does not match the barren desert surroundings. As the children head deeper into the Outback, choral music plays as the camera zooms out to a wide shot of the dry landscape. Much like the didgeridoo and the opening sequence, the calm choral music featuring the voices of children mentioning finding the light does not match up with the gravity of the situation that the siblings have gotten themselves into. A few minutes later in the film, the children climb to the top of a mountain to try and see where they are. At this point, uplifting orchestral music begins. The score initially matches up with the shots of the view, but after some thought, the audience remembers again that these young children are lost in the Australian wilderness with nothing except for some toys, a radio, limited food leftover from the failed attempt at a picnic, and their uniforms. Uplifting orchestral music might be enhancing the beauty of the view, but it is fighting the dangers in the story.

The music in the film has a habit of not corresponding with its scenery or situation that it should be enhancing. In a way, the music represents the children. The grumble of the didgeridoo is extremely out of place in the urban environment it was introduced in. In the wilderness, the choral and orchestral scores do not match up with the dangers of the wilderness, thus showing cultural separations. The children, with the radio, have their own music, appearing very out of place. In the desert, the children are out of their natural urban environment with their lack of survival skills and dress shoes. The music turns the story completely over from the opening montage to the rest of the film. The children become just as out of place as the didgeridoo in the city. The music represents one of the many cultural and societal differences in the film.

The didgeridoo is the oldest wind instrument known to mankind. “Researchers have suggested it may be the world's oldest musical instrument, over 40,000 years old” (“Didgeridoo Facts”). Throwing this instrument in to support footage of then-modern society immediately shows how drastic the differences in the film will be. Once the situation is flipped, with orchestra, choral, and modern radio music supporting the native Australian desert, the music supports the children, enhancing how out of place they are. The children go through their journey with no survival skills. They are modern people paired with an ancient civilization. “Australia’s Aboriginal civilization is the oldest on the planet, dating back some 50,000 years” (Klein). This film takes the two most societal extremes and makes them work together. Unfortunately, these two societies and habitats do not know how to work together. The teenage girl, who takes a leadership position trekking across the desert, has hardly any survival skills and no knowledge of how to attempt to communicate with the Native.

The older sister, not really having made any drastic survival errors since the decision to run deeper into the desert (which got the two into the mess that is the rest of the film), makes her first mistake. As the two children are sitting down, taking a break, the young boy mentions that he is hungry. His sister tells him that he should eat salt. She claims to have gotten that idea from her uncle, who ate salt in the army. The mistake is that salt is a solute. Now, the girl’s uniform indicates that the school she goes to is private and expensive. Generally, these schools have a good academic standing. Such schools would also teach their students that eating salt will cause them to become dehydrated, even though it should be common sense. Most children know that if they were to pour salt on a snail or slug it would cause the creature to shrivel up and die because the salt extracts the moisture. The young boy, of course, eats the salt. In the next scene, the boy appears to be rendered unconscious; most likely due to a combination of the lack of food, overexposure to intense sunlight, and lack of water with too much salt. This is the first real indication that her prestigious education has taught her not much that is of use.

Within the next few minutes of the film, the girl makes crucial errors. After the two find a watering hole, they decide to bathe in it and attempt to clean their clothes. It is implied that they do this before filling up their water bottle, since in the next scene, the boy complains about not filling up the water bottle. The girl also snaps at her brother, telling him to try and find his blazer because “We don’t want people thinking we’re a couple of tramps” (Roeg 23:14), even though, at this point in the film, there is no one to be found. A few minutes later, the girl tells her brother not to walk through the mud that was once their precious watering hole because it might ruin his good shoes. Apparently walking through the desert in dress shoes is not enough to ruin them.     

Education is the first notice (since the musical symbolism) in the film that separates the children. Right after they approach the Aboriginal boy, the girl asks him where they are. The boy yells at his sister to ask the stranger for water. She continues to get more and more frustrated when she realizes that the Native cannot understand her language and makes no attempt to try and build a connection so that he can understand her needs. It is not until the brother pipes up and motions for water that the Aboriginal boy understands and helps them. The girl’s education clearly has not taught her basic communication. It has separated her from her surroundings, engulfing her in a cultural and societal bubble. Privatized education, or just western-civilization-style education in general, leaves out basic common sense and survival. It would be more understandable to leave out survival skills if she was still in England, but now, being in Australia, with desert surrounding most points of advanced civilization, survival is key. Her logic is barely present. Education and knowledge are two entirely different things. The girl has her education, but she has no legitimate knowledge that can help her in situations outside of her comfort zone. She is more concerned about her social status than she is about survival.

Children learn what they live. Put kids in a class and they will live out their lives in an invisible cage, isolated from their chance at community; interrupt kids with bells and horns all the time and they will learn that nothing is important or worth finishing; ridicule them and they will retreat from human association; shame them and they will find a hundred ways to get even. The habits taught in large-scale organizations are deadly (Gatto).

We are all a victim of failed education. We are taught what the government wants us to know, but not what we necessarily need to know. “We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing” (Emerson). Once we are thrown out of the environment we know, all we can rely on is our past education and experience. Yes, the children’s actions were not thought through because in the world of film, actions are done up exponentially so to be obvious and prove a point. Once we are thrown out of our environment, we become the children. We become the didgeridoo of our own story.

Works Cited

Gatto, John Taylor. "Quotes About Education System (114 quotes)." Goodreads. N.p., n.d. Web.  02 Mar. 2017.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo. "Quotes About Education System (114 quotes)." Goodreads. N.p., n.d.  Web. 02 Mar. 2017.

Klein, Christopher. "DNA Study Finds Aboriginal Australians World's Oldest Civilization."  History.com. A&E Television Networks, 23 Sept. 2016. Web. 02 Mar. 2017.

"Didgeridoo Facts, Didgeridoo History & Aboriginal Music Knowledgebase | Didgeridoo Breath Australia." Didgeridoo Facts, Didgeridoo History & Aboriginal Music Knowledgebase | Didgeridoo Breath Australia. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2017.

Walkabout. Dir. Nicholas Roeg. Perf. Jenny Agutter, Jean-Luc Roeg, David Gumpilil. 1971. YouTube.

Music as the Language of the Heart and Savior of Speech: A Review of WALKABOUT by Isabelle Sasso

A French writer and romantic poet, Alphonse de Lamartine (1790-1869), once said, “Music is the language of the heart; it commences where speech ends” (par. 2). Imagine Lamartine’s statement and how it applies to film. Picture the average film critic. He/she watches a film and analyzes the camera shots, the costumes, the actors and actresses, and most importantly, the dialogue and film script. Most film critics may also pay attention to the musical score, but only after they have looked through the script. In his 1971 film Walkabout, Nicolas Roeg challenges the traditional assumption that a film should be centered on its script. Edward Bond, the screenwriter for Walkabout, wrote a script that was only 14 pages long. One might question where audience members are supposed to draw the meaning of the film from if there is so little dialogue. If Lamartine was alive today and saw Roeg’s film, he and I would argue the answer is heard in John Barry’s musical score.

Through the wistful and eerie melodies of Barry’s compositions, Walkabout tells the story of a young girl, played by Jenny Agutter, and her loss of childhood innocence during her “walkabout” in the Australian outback. In the words of Agutter herself, “John Barry’s score evokes perfectly a sense of childhood yearning, a time gone forever” (Agutter 7). Additionally, the titles of Barry’s compositions offer further support for the events that occur in the film that ultimately lead to the death of the girl’s adolescence. The songs communicate to the audience the film’s meaning through eliciting many different emotions and moods. Courtesy of the City of Prague Philharmonic and conductor Nic Raine, many of the musical elements can be analyzed to help with a deeper understanding of the way the compositions contribute to the film’s overall meaning.

The young girl in this film, only 14 years old, has to cope with the suicide of her insane father, and look after her younger brother as they are stranded and struggling to survive in the Australian outback. John Barry’s titles for songs coincide with the events that occur throughout the movie. For example, when the two siblings are stranded by their father after he shoots at his son, puts a gun to his head and lights their car on fire, Barry includes a song with a fitting title: “Stranded.” This piece incorporates a melody in the lower range of the flute, paired with jarring phrases coming from the horn section. It also brings in short passages from the Stockhausen chorus. There are open chords within the different voices that spark a sense of wonder and confusion among the audience which match many of the same feelings that the two siblings are experiencing. There is also a winding, stirring melody within the upper string section and on vibes—with both hard and soft mallets—that gives the audience a sense of tension and urgency. It plays after the father commits suicide and the girl grabs items from their picnic while trying to distract her brother from this dreadful sight. In this scene, the girl is forced to take control of the situation and make split-second decisions. This is the first moment we see her assuming a more responsible, “grown-up” role, since she protects her brother from seeing their dead father next to a car engulfed in flames. She then further assures him when he asks questions. For example, when he asks, “Do you know where you’re going?,” she responds, “Yes, of course” (Roeg 00:17).

As the film progresses, the girl is seen as more of a caretaker for her little brother. When they decide to settle down for the night, she tries to stay strong for her brother. She avoids his constant questioning, like “It’s getting dark, isn’t it?” In response to the statement that they may stay in the outback all night, the boy says, “But we didn’t bring any blankets.” His older sister refuses to admit defeat and show how scared and unsure she may be in this situation, so she responds “I don’t think I’m quite tired yet” (Roeg 00:13). When they finally start to sleep, Barry includes a very unique song, “Night in the Outback.” In this, there are instruments, specifically the flute, that mimic some of the animals in the outback. There are passages when the flute is heard flutter tonguing, and it sounds like a flying insect. The vibes also have a short, creeping melody that is quiet and heard periodically, as if an animal or being is softly walking through the shadows of the outback. Also in this composition, the Stockhausen melodies travel in half steps, where the music sounds like it is building, creating yet again, a sense of tension and uneasiness as the two siblings are seen sleeping alone in the outback. The scene that Barry’s music sets along with Roeg’s camera shots of the girl throwing the can down the rocks, and the close-ups of each of the siblings faces while in the dark outback conveys to the audience the ability of the girl to simultaneously adapt to a different environment and look after her brother.

Further into the movie, the two siblings are shown walking through the outback, in the scorching sun, past wide open spaces and over huge sand dunes. In this montage, Barry plays “Survival Test” and “The Journey,” where many triumphant, yet melancholy, horn melodies can be heard. What is also remarkable about this song is the combination of African drums and busy background music in the melodic instruments. This rhythmic ostinato within sections of this piece conveys a sense of determination among the two siblings to get back to civilization as they blindly navigate the outback. This will to return home is especially seen within the girl. She urges her little brother to keep walking and opts to give him piggy-back rides when he complains of being tired. The bustling instruments in the background, I believe, serve as a symbol of her unending thoughts and worries related to reaching civilization again. Throughout the movie, even when the two siblings meet the Aboriginal boy, the girl is consistently adamant about finding a way back home. She even goes so far as to reject an emotional or sexual relationship with the boy, so that, when the time comes, she can swiftly exit the outback and re-assimilate into the “cultured” world without worrying what she has left behind.

This brings me to another one of Barry’s works. This key composition plays during a defining moment for the girl. In John Kenneth Muir’s critique of Walkabout, he references the “unspoken—and forbidden—romantic love,” the Aboriginal boy develops for the girl (Muir par. 13). The Aborigine boy approaches the girl while she is shirtless and performs a fertility dance, or dance of courtship. Barry’s music, “The Deserted Settlement/The Final Dance,” plays behind the dance, which lasts overnight. There are many minor intervals in the beginning, which then lead into a mesmerizing flute solo. As the song progresses, it is difficult to tell what time signature the piece is in. There are two competing melodies happening, and it is unclear which is supposed to be dominant. Additionally, there is a didgeridoo in the background playing a floating melody.

I took this competition of melodies and the didgeridoo as showing the difference in Aboriginal and English culture, and how the girl is not mature enough to appreciate a culture different from hers. The girl is confused, and possibly frightened, as to why the boy has his face painted and is performing this very long dance outside the abandoned house they are in. Here, she gets an even more intimate experience with the Aboriginal culture. While she is baffled by the boy’s actions, what she does after the dance, subtly shows her appreciation of the boy. As Muir states, “when the lovestruck Aborigine launches into a courtship dance before the English girl, she coolly and silently rejects him,” which leads to his suicide (Muir par. 14). As the two siblings find the boy hanging from a tree, the girl kindly brushes off an insect from his chest, and they continue on their way to the road they had heard about in pursuit of civilized beings. This act of brushing away the bug is small, but compared to when she was constantly rejecting the boy before his death, her action shows some maturity and appreciation for him and his culture. This reentry into the civil world may seem abrupt because the siblings leave the Aboriginal boy hanging from a tree and don’t seem to give it a second thought. However, years later, Roeg shows us the girl reflecting back on her experience.

As the girl, now much more grown up and a married woman, has a conversation with her businessman husband who has just come home from work, her thoughts wander back to her time in the outback. The film cuts to a scene where she is seen with the Aboriginal boy, and her younger brother; they are all swimming. They appear very content, and have meaningful, yet playful interactions with each other. As the girl thinks back to a time where her life was much simpler and she was blissfully innocent, John Barry’s main musical theme for Walkabout is played. The melody in the strings and winds cascades over the rich chords in the low brass and the dinky, neat harpsichord chord progression. This main theme beautifully captures the nostalgic feeling that the girl experiences as she looks back on the time the trio swam together. The huge interval jumps and non-linear pattern that Barry chooses for the melody furthers Roeg’s point that the girl’s experience on her walkabout was the start of her losing her innocence. As the main theme plays yet again, for the third or fourth time since the beginning of the movie, the audience can conclude that Barry and Roeg want to reinforce this childhood yearning through repetition of this theme.

John Barry’s score plays a crucial in Nicolas Roeg’s Walkabout, since much of the meaning of the film cannot, alone, be drawn from the sparse dialogue. Only through a close analysis of Barry’s compositions, in part with Bond’s storyline and Roeg’s purposeful style, does the audience understand that the film is about a loss of the girl’s innocence on her walkabout. Barry’s music conveys those nostalgic and yearning feelings for childhood through artful orchestration, and hypnotic melodies that push and pull the audience’s emotions. Additionally, the angelic voices of Stockhausen remind both the characters in the film and the viewers that the film deals with the issue of the death of a girl’s adolescence; a meaning that is bigger than the script and is obtained from much more than actors reciting words written on paper.

Works Cited

Agutter, Jenny. "Walkabout." Jenny Agutter: Memories of Walkabout. Jenny Agutter, 21 Sept.    2015. Web. 09 Mar. 2016.

"Alphonse De Lamartine." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, 31 Jan. 2016. Web. 09 Mar. 2016.

Muir, John Kenneth. "John Kenneth Muir's Reflections on Cult Movies and Classic TV" :            CULT MOVIE REVIEW: Walkabout (1971). Blogger.com, 15 Jan. 2011. Web. 29 Feb. 2016.

"Music Quotes and Sayings." Music Quotes and Sayings. Quote Garden, 05 Mar. 2016. Web. 09

Mar. 2016.

Ruhlmann, William. "AllMusic Review." AllMusic. AllMusic, 2016. Web. 02 Mar. 2016.

Roeg, Nicolas. Walkabout. Perf. Jenny Agutter, David Gulpilil, and Luc Roeg. Twentieth Century Fox, 1971. Film.

"Soundtracks." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 02 Mar. 2016.

"Walkabout." IMDb. IMDb.com, n.d. Web. 01 Mar. 2016.

"WALKABOUT." YouTube. YouTube: City of Prague Philharmonic, 08 Nov. 2014. Web. 06     Mar. 2016.

"Walkabout | Research (1971)." YouTube. YouTube: Avid Films, 10 Jan. 2016. Web. 16 Feb.       2016.

Musical Terminology for the Musically Uneducated: An “if-needed” Supplement to “Music as the Language of the Heart and Savior of Speech”

Open chords: The structure of chords depends on the style of music—i.e. jazz or classical—but the basic form is the root of the chord (do), the third (mi), and the fifth (sol), and sometimes the seventh or ninth if you’re playing jazz. Basic open chords may consist of just the root and fifth, leaving an uneasy and empty feeling when heard.

Upper string section: constitutes the first and second violin, and it could be argued the violas (but in the music world, everyone hates on the viola.)

Vibes: The vibraphone. It is a percussion instrument with two rows of metal bars each tuned and set to a specific pitch. It is set up much like a piano, and when hit with mallets, creates a vibrating sound.

Hard vs. Soft mallets: Hard mallets have a much “harder” or more alarming timber, since they are typically made of out hard materials like hard plastic, or wood. Soft mallets are also used on vibraphones or marimbas, and have a much “softer” tone. They usually are made out of rubber or other soft materials that will bounce easily on the metal and vibrate well.

Flutter tonguing: Typically used by flute players, it is an act of blowing air as normal when playing, but instead of tonguing normally, the musician “rolls” their R’s or flutters their tongue. Barry most likely uses this technique so that is creates an illusion of a flying insect.

Half steps: A half steps constitutes, for example, moving from a white key to a black key on the piano, or moving up from a C to a C# or down that way. A half step is also heard in the Jaws theme.

Ostinato: a motif or phrase that persistently repeats in the same musical style (i.e. same rhythm, voice or pitch.)

Minor: Opposite of major; these intervals and keys are not pleasant sounding. They sound crunchy, tense, or sad.

Time signature: Tells the meter the song is in (triple or duple), and how many beats per measure there are. A time signature is set up like a fraction; the top number tells how many beats are in each measure, and the bottom number tells what kind of note gets the beat. For example, common time or 4/4 time, means that there are 4 beats in every measure, and the quarter note gets the beat.

Harpsichord: An instrument that is almost like a piano, but when a key is pressed, a string is plucked. It creates this very harsh tone. This instrument was used a lot in the Baroque period (approx. 1600-1750). 

Interval: An interval refers to the amount of distance between notes. If we look at a scale, the distance between the first note of the scale and the last note is an octave (a Perfect 8^th). The distance between the first and second note is a 2^nd, between the first and fifth note would be a 5^th, between the first and seventh note would be a 7^th, and so on and so forth. Intervals come in the form of perfect (unisons, fifths and octaves), major and minor, or augmented (the distance made bigger between the notes) or diminished (the distance made smaller between notes).

Bending to Beauty: An Interview with Dian Zirilli-Mares

Kirpal Gordon: Congratulations on the publication of your first book of poetry, Bending to Beauty. As your neighbor on Burton Street, I remember how back in your teenage years you were already writing verse, taking photographs and winning awards at Bishop Reilly’s Robert Frost contest. So, after retiring from a life as a reading teacher and elementary school administrator, what inspired you to write a book of free verse at this point of your life?

Dian Zirilli-Mares: I began writing this book at the prompting of my sons, Justin and Jared. These last few years, as we watch their ninety-four year old grandfather become forgetful, we began to realize how precious and ephemeral the past truly is. We regret questions that have to go unasked now; my dad no longer remembers the answers. It became another cautionary tale. The boys knew I have been writing poetry since I was a young girl and urged me to create a book that would preserve a piece of my life for them to cherish when I---or my memory---was gone.

Kirpal Gordon: Justin and Jared are both in the arts, yes? Your mom was something of a poet, too, no? I remember both your mom and dad as open-minded people who in the early Seventies had learned how to meditate. Your husband Ray is quite the rock ‘n’ roll musician. You have been around literature and music your whole life. You mention all five of these people in your dedication.

Dian Zirilli-Mares: My dedication is to my beloved five. My son Justin is a published author, aspiring television writer, and entertainment journalist. Jared is a New York-based actor and singer who has worked on Broadway as well as in television and film. My mom was a voracious reader who dabbled in writing herself, long before it was fashionable to self-publish. She and my father were always ahead of their time. At my father's urging, they were among the first trained in Transcendental Meditation by its founder, the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. True to his garage band roots, Ray began singing and playing again in a rock 'n' roll band six years ago. But from the moment we began dating fifteen years ago, I was serenaded often, much to the delight of my inner teenager. Literature and music have been my constant backdrop. I can't imagine my life without them.

Kirpal Gordon: Why did you title the book Bending to Beauty?

Dian Zirilli-Mares: A few years ago, I became addicted to silver fabrication. The role of the  torch in the ultimate beauty of a piece fascinated me. In the jeweler's world, fire doesn't destroy. The flame is necessary for the smoothing, shaping, and building of silver jewelry. As I examined my life and wrote my poems, it became clear to me how perfect a metaphor the flaming torch would be. Life's "fiery strokes" may bring pain, but they also forge strength---and strength can bring the possibility of joy again. I have been blessed, no matter the pain or loss in my life, to always be able to "bend to beauty."

Kirpal Gordon: What was your writing process like for these thirty-eight poems?

Dian Zirilli-Mares: Athough I have written many poems over the last fifty years, they mostly burst out of me onto the page. There was no process involved at all. Whenever I felt something intensely, there was a good chance it would eventually find its voice in a poem. I knew that this approach to a book would never do if I wanted to finish it in my lifetime. On the other hand, the sheer act of sitting all day and "waiting for lightning to strike" was daunting. But it was all I could think of doing; I had never tried to discipline my creativity before. It wasn't going well and I felt like a college student writing a term paper. I was always finding "really important" phone calls to make, bills to pay, and laundry to do instead of courting my muse. Happily, I confessed my growing hatred of my writing prison, to my son, Justin, who is a published writer himself. He suggested I begin my early morning writing with a timer set for just 10 minutes. During that time I was to write about anything that came to mind. I should not even attempt to write a poem. When the timer went off, I would be free to move on to something less excruciating. Unless, of course, I was happily writing. Every week I was to add 10 minutes to my timer. Before  long I was up to a half an hour and I didn't want to stop writing. Many days I didn't. My daily musings often contained seeds that eventually grew into strong poems. Some of them surprised me. Although first drafts poured out of me quickly, it took many, many revisions and edits to chisel each poem to where it needed to be. But the greatest gift of these last two years is that when I had to change hats and proof formatted first runs and final files, I realized how much I missed writing poems. Professional writers tell me this is what happens. That maw of silence and lack of creativity eventually seduce you back to the torturous and glorious writer's chair.  And mine is calling as we speak.

Kirpal Gordon: In the book’s epigram, you quote Anne Lamott: All I have to offer as a writer is my version of life. Every single thing that has happened to me is mine…. If people wanted me to write more warmly about them, they should have behaved better. Is this a word to the wise or just good fun?

Dian Zirilli-Mares: A word to the wise.

Kirpal Gordon: Your book is broken down into four sections. The first, "Hallowed Places," is rich with memory.

Dian Zirilli-Mares: "Hallowed Places" holds memoir poems.  As I grow older, and lose those I love, these sharp childhood memories become dearer still. The poems in this section capture the past, and some of the people and the times that are precious to me. 

Kirpal Gordon: Marona mia, bella! These lines are also incantatory and become universal when they invoke the sights, smells, joys, mysteries, loves and uncertainties of a young girl: Halloween’s autumn alchemy in Beechurst; your dad playing Italian love songs on his tape recorder; Aunt Rose’s sweet tooth; laying under the balsam Christmas tree; watching wrestling on TV with your grandma on your first sleep-over; your mom praying in the living room. We share the innocence of childhood meeting the wonders and terrors of this world. Perhaps “Waiting for Steve,“ in all its rhythms of puberty and Godot-like comedy, reveals this quality best:

In the heat of summer dusk,

we sit on the curb in front of our house

waiting for the boys to come out.

Scraps of conversation billow up between us,

settle down again,

like brightly colored flags in a sudden August breeze.

Staring straight ahead, eyes never meeting, we tell secrets.

When I grow up I want to be a torch singer. Or a cloistered nun.

You whisper a dream to dance in a cage

in those white go-go boots from Thom McAnn’s.

Jump up to twirl on one ice blue thong.

Sit down beside me again.

We float a leaf and a Wrigley’s wrapper

down the car wash stream at our feet.

Wonder – how much longer till Steve comes,

ringing his bells into the fireflied night.

We hope the boys will come out then.

Pat our damp pixie bangs in place.

What a tribute to an ice cream man! What a tribute to teenhood!

Dian Zirilli-Mares:  I loved going back to the memories of Burton Street and my childhood. I craved the feeling of peace they brought me.  These memories remain an antidote to the darkness and fear I feel as I grow older and watch the world change.

Kirpal Gordon: "No Surprises," the book‘s second section, is an abrupt shift.

Dian Zirill-Mares: In "No Surprises" the poems highlight the everyday wisdom and matter-of-fact learnings of a life fully lived. From the stance of my later years, my poems illuminate what I now see as obvious truths about people, life, and living.

Kirpal Gordon: Not only has the eye of experience replaced the eye of innocence, but the tone of these poems is reflective, rather than evocative. From the last line of your last poem in “Hallowed Places---“Welcome her home,“ a rembrance of your deceased mom---comes “The Battlefield“‘s eight lines:

Day 29 of meditation

and I cannot stanch the rage.

Past betrayals and pains are fresh, bleeding again,

like wounds roughly stripped of their protective gauze.

I survey the littered terrain, learn there are no surprises.

What I do not honor,

what I tamp down and swallow,

does not die.

Dian Zirilli-Mares: The hard work of this later part of my life seems to be to speak my truth no matter the cost.  I've spent too many years framing and reframing the disloyalties of  people I trusted in order to carry on. My poem reflects what I have learned about how effective that is in the long run. It is a Pyrrhic victory.

Kirpal Gordon: Throughout this section, but especially in “The Choice,“ your Rumi-like reflections on motherhood are in such sharp contrast to daughterhood and maidenhood in “Hallowed Places.“ In "Fiery Strokes" you also have some exceptionally strong work. Again, the tone of these poems shift as well. These poems summon the courage hard won of a lifetime learner. Not only do they skillfully meditate on the art of aging, but they read like an Ars Poetica. Like you say: “Driven to gnaw at my life, I cut to the quick. / The tenderest meat is close to the bone.”

Dian Zirilli-Mares: "Fiery Strokes" contains poems of different kinds of loss and pain. But, again, the title poem "Bending to Beauty" reminds that suffering endured can bring strength and growth. Although the poems show no happily-ever-after, the reader can assume the story has not ended.

Kirpal Gordon: I quote in full your title poem:

Every loss I survive marks me.

Just as the torch takes solder and smooths it to an unbroken stream,

I am made stronger with each fiery stroke.

If you work silver to follow your will too long,

it resists and hardens, soon becoming unmovable,

no longer able to bend to beauty.

Only the brush of flame softens, makes it malleable again.

Yet silver holds the memory of all it has withstood.

In the heat and light of the burning torch, it forgives everything,

and everything becomes possible, once more.

Your metaphor of heat and alchemy reminds me so much of India’s yoga poets singing of tapas (inner heat) uncoiling the kundalini.

Dian Zirilli-Mares: I love that!  Although I have yet to read the yoga poets, I am a lover of Kundalini yoga and have been practicing it for the last three years. I was drawn to its emphasis on spirituality, the chanting of mantras, and the focus on the chakras and meditation as gateways to transformation. I have no doubt that Kundalini played a part in the evolution that led to my being ready to write  my truth in Bending to Beauty.

Kirpal Gordon: Once again, your next section, “Vigil Candles,“ shifts mood and tone dramatically from “Fiery Strokes.“

Dian Zirilli-Mares: Like the votives flickering before the statues in a church, "Vigil Candles" honors and marks special intentions, loved ones, and prayers answered and unanswered. The stories behind these poems continue to keep a silent vigil within me. I accept that they always will. It was my hope that others might read them, and recognize something in their lives as well.

Kirpal Gordon: The section opens with these eleven lines:

This morning, a text from a friend –

I was cooking and thought of your Mom,

her trick of bending asparagus to break at its most tender spot.

My mother died at sixty-five.

Some days, she appears unexpectedly.

These endless years without her,

I spit-shine her memory,

parrot her wisdom,

understand her boundaries.

I am a vigil candle.

It’s hard to say where she ends and I begin.

Those last two lines, like the last section itself, suggest an affirmation of lineage, continuity and love. Perhaps in love the boundary between self and other can finally be erased. Certainly that’s the celebration in this section, especially in the love poems to your husband Ray.

Dian Zirilli-Mares:  Ray and I are testaments to the power of the past and a love that never forgets. Our long and winding road back to one another from Burton Street where we grew up, fell in teenage love, then went our separate ways, took 35 years.  But, here we are, the lead singer in the rock“n“roll band and the poetess. Together at last.

Kirpal Gordon: How did it feel tapping into the past, the pain, the fear that comes out of these poems?

Dian Zirilli-Mares: Since I was very young, my writing has been the way I understand and navigate the feelings and choices in my life. I write in order to discover what the truth of a situation is. It is as though the act of struggling to find that perfect word in a poem or a story forces me to see clearly what I am feeling. My writing has worked me through suffering. It has helped me more fully celebrate my joys. Revisiting so many of my life's emotional moments while writing Bending to Beauty was no different. "A Tiny Circle of Light," an essay I wrote for my Master's thesis many years ago, speaks of this. "Always my strongest thoughts surface as poetry. It is as if the original experience is so painfully rich and deep, it grows roots and bears fruit. That fruit is my poetry."

Kirpal Gordon: What's next?

Dian Zirilli-Mares: I think I was unprepared for the extent of withdrawal I would experience after two years of working on Bending to Beauty. The daily discipline of facing my demons and angels while wrestling them to paper became cathartic. However, the more I continued to work at my craft, the more critical I became of each poem. I made a deal with myself, especially in regards to those more complicated, emotional poems---either I would be brutally honest or I would be silent. What is the point of poetry that plays games or hides in artifice? That took care of the heart of my poems. But the longer I worked on each one, the more I demanded of it technically. In the end, at least 25 poems were cut from the original collection because they were not ready to face the light of day.  Perhaps in another two years they will be.  Meanwhile, I am sure there is a great deal more agonizing ahead to be done over the exact word, the perfect metaphor. I am looking forward to picking up my pen again to revisit these first draft poems this winter. Spring.  Fall...